too late... too long.. don't have power...

Dear readers of Abkhazia Diary Blog page! I am lazy! I am busy! and I am poor! and I am not patient!
Please wait till the barocade on Abkhazia is removed: than communication and especially internet will be faster and cheaper. Than I will write all about my beautiful country, life here, and people...
Till than please excuse me and try to enjoy already existing information!
...

Kurban Bayram and the border trouble

The pain in my stomach started again. I don't need no doctors this time. I know the reason. It is the overwhelmed life that I am living, it is the stress of conflicting ideas in mind. It is me that is creating the pain.

The trip to Turkey was tiring and boring. On the way to the airport I tested my Russian by speaking to the border guards for 2 hours while they checked my things in detail. And after that at the airport they were unhappy since they could not find a reason to take -“ceza” as they say- punishment money from me. On the way back the plane (the new and a little cheaper firm -Siberian Airlines/S7) was delayed for nearly 3 hours and we arrived to Sochi/Adler Airport at 1 o'clock at night and they told us we need “immigrasoniy slujba” at the exit. Than there were two guards and they were saying my papers were missing and I said no they are not. They charged us of course though I rejected to pay my friend did pay it against my rejections. And than they said we can go. And we said no we need the “imigrasoniy slujba”. They said we do not need, we said we do need. Than they said they do not have it! The responsible personnel were not there, sleeping at home!!! We had to wait till morning. But some Abkhazian girls said they will rob us if we stay at the airport which seemed very realistic to me. So she took us under the rain over waters that filled the streets with all our bags and belongings to the airport hotel! We paid 250 rubles to the woman per person and we went to our rooms. In the morning we went down stairs and asked for registration, normally if you stay in a hotel in RF they need to make it for you but they said they do not have it. Besides if we want any papers to show we had been there for the night we need to pay extra 120 rubles per person. Still she was not sure if we paid the rest since the women had taken it all for herself and had not register us to the hotel! So she called her and after a hours discussion she said she will bring the money back. later so we got our papers and went to the airport. After a 30 minutes search I found the little building saying it was the place and ringed the bell a few times. Than a man who has just woke up (at 11 o'clock!) opened the door and looked at me with blurry eyes. He did the necessary procedure and it lasted only 3 minutes and I got my stamp and told him my friend will also come in a minute. Than I went to where we had hour bags and my friend went to take the stamp. His lasted like 20 minutes since he did not speak Russian and he had asked many many questions. Anyway we managed to do that and in the end we took a cab to Psou.

It was so crowded with mandarin traders. We could hardly walk among the huge mud and crowds. We passed the border faster than I accepted, I guess the problems were taking place parallel to the mandarin traders.

They should find a way to these problems at the border, maybe a legal taxation so that all will know what to pay.

Anyway, did you know that Russian Federation passport holders can get a visa to Turkey at the entrance for 20 dolars- 2 months. And since my visa is running out in 2 months I do not know how much I will need to pay. But if you take 1 25 day double entry visa it costs something like 120 dolars for Turkish passport holders.

I hope soon direct transport to Abkhazia will start and than we will not need to spend time on Russian borders.

Anyway, about Abkhazia I did not write much recently. I am currently working on an article on the food culture in Abkhazia. As I said it is the mandarin production that survives many of the families here. It is also the khurma that is very widespread among producers.

We had a Muslim Celebration, Kurban Bayram recently. And it was really stressing and fun at the same time. The stress came from the water problem- the children got diarrhea and it is really widespread. I was woken, on the first day of the Bayram by a repatriate families call saying they need my help to take their son to hospital. I ran to their house and we took a cab to the hospital. Though it was a holiday, there was an ongoing work in the Children's Hospital. They are making renovations at the building. There was a male doctor who did not really looked us in the eye, angry to someone or something running from here to there. A female doctor appeared out of nowhere and she was so kind and helpful. Checking the child for appendices and other things before deciding. Anyway, than they took us to a room and the beds were not clean at all and really cold so we put jackets to the bed and over the child. He did not want to have the serum but the Armenian care taker was talking in Turkish a little and Russian more, to relax him. Anyway, after many arguments and attempts we managed to find his vessel. Than we stayed there for an hour. The lady doctor and the care taker was checking us every now and than. Than they gave 5 different medicine including hydro-support and send us home. I think the taxi, medicine, some diet food and other payments take around 1200 rubles which is really a big sum of money. And all of this, their neighbor was paying since we could not follow it all.

Later that day, I changed and made visits to Gulripsh, where many repatriates live. That part was fun and I enjoyed a good taste of deserts, cakes and chocolates. A friend brought us home late at night. The next day was also same, visiting families and friends. Observing their reunions, chats, gossips, discussions on food and stuff. The stories of the past show that life was not easy years ago but now, life has changed in Abkhazia. Conditions are better, the borders are open, you can find or bring anything you wish. I have visited some really cool houses that you will not even see many places in Turkey. Plasma TV sets, latest design kitchens (metallic or classic wooden but complete white!), very comfortable and puffy cushions and sofas, big dining tables or American kitchens, all best quality. Very beautiful children, talking Abkhazian as their mother tongue but understanding Turkish and Russian as well as the other!

Life will not be the same in a few years. Things will change rapidly and where we will stand in this process of change? I am gonna be here in the Independent Republic of Abkhazia, enjoying the sea and the sun and these beautiful people, but what about you?

Photos of Circassian Academia Conference

The conference Photos available here

So many things to tell...

2 months of without a word!
Sum up:
*University started. Mondays 3 hours Abkhazian, Fridays 3 hours Russian! Does anyone believe I can learn any of these languages in that limited hours of courses. Well I dont! Thats why we have started the necessary procedures to change it! Details, later as progress occurs...
*I am going to (was going to) Dance group Diaskurya- the universities caucasian dance ensemble! Got a hit on my ankle! Got a conference, got another conference, got a disantheria, got a cold, got a neck problem, and now have got new Abkhazian courses at the same time! God I really wanted to make it, but the truth is, I was a disaster.... Many girls came in, be part of the group the next practice... I could never make it...
*Many new repatriat families arrived. Good cases for me as I will study repatriation. More of it the Abkhaz Abaza People's Congress started Abkhazian course for them, which takes place every day of the week, where they learn songs and poems together with the alphabet, writing, reading, grammer- whatever you need for learning a language, which I also now attend!!! Also, they are fun, they are joy and they cook good!!! Well they could only recently find houses for rent (since they have not been provided any accomodation other than the Abkhazia hotel that I had stayed before, by the government) and one family is still in the hotel... but I was their guest today for a late breakfast (where I tested my Russian by speaking with a tenant-neighbour) and for dinner where they cooked traditional Adyg food: Ships. Mmmm delicious....
*We had two conferences- pictures of the later below- first the 1st Conference named after Shalva Inal-ipa (the abkhaz historian-etnograph) and second the Circassian Academia conference- an internet communication group and network, which we realized with a lot of effort! Details later!!! I presented my thesis in the later, and my work published before in Turkish on the "name giving traditions of Adyghe-Abkhaz in Adapazari-Duzce region of Turkey". My presentation was translated from English to Russian simultaneously.
*there was a long lecetric problem due to a trafo crash down in Abkhazia. We had 2 hours of electricity and two hours of darkness for some days and it was everywhere really cold!!!!
*I do not have a heater so my house is still cold though today the problem was fixed!!!
*Atilla Tsugba and Hayri Kutarba become my neighbours: and well they are a lot of help in many things like: I have washed two many clothes and today is a day without a rain so can I hang some clothes to your balcony, or I need help with this gas oven, or they need help with a only russian speaking master who came for fixing something!!! It is great to have so many people around!!!
*Many else to say but I am afraid this problematic blogger will not work! So Thats all for now! And by the way: I have also been part of this FaceBook craziness going around. But that takes too much of my time that I spent on the internet. So maybe it is better for me to forget that there is such a thing- and there I have so many friends that I have not talked for ages, that do not know where I have been, or what I have been doing, and very likely where in the world is Abkhazia... Well I know there are many others too that are interested in Abkhazia and ----I wish internet will be cheaper and faster soon!

26 September 2007- late to post ... internet is so slow these days

I am sitting in my bed, in this -relatively- cold evening thinking of my cousin- in the middle of I do not know where- just far far away... .drinking the strawberry flavored tea that she brought for me from a long distance country that I forgot which... and wonder if she is thinking of me, wherever she is, maybe today she saw a chocolate bar that was strawberry flavored, or oxygen in a can that is strawberry flavored, or maybe some tool with strawberry design on top! She remembers me whenever she sees a strawberry and thinks that I will like and well yes I do like them a lot!! I feel her so close to me all the time. And many times, I think of her in her environment having some fun, or being melancholic- as she likes that too... But now when I think of her there is something missing...

I look at her blog-diary, I read and check the photos, but still I can not think of her in a concrete place! That is not good!!! I am afraid she feels the same way about me... Well I update as many photos as I can and try to write as many detail as possible for the readers of my Abkhazia diary, still it is not easy to dream of something that you have never experienced even a similarity. By the way she is in Japan! So I decided to think of things we lived in the past... and I checked the photos that we took in Germany about two years ago- the best one -that is hanging on my wall- is the one with her and my aunty, in which we- three adult size person- fitted inside a small box, you know those that you throw the money and have to stay still for 4 different shots of portraits. Well, this one is black and white, and we did not sit still. Actually there was not enough place for us to sit at all. In those, we try to fit our heads into the single-portrait size frames!

Anyway, I wonder how it is like to stay in a Japanese temple just to learn a language. Would I ever stay in a Monastery in Abkhazia, just to learn Russian? Would it be fun? Well if it would be the Afon Monastery than it will be great silence, and with those sun sets great enthusiasm for writing!!! And very possibly a lot of touristic polution :(

They are saying this year 2 million toruists came to Abkhazia! 2 million! I only had 5 guests, three from Germany and 2 from Belarus and they would have come even if it were not to me! This is a good number and I wonder if it is better to do trade related to tourism than to be an academician? That was a joke! I like being an academician and by the way I had a conference last week, in Ankara. Well- no comment! And I have another one in Abkhazia next week- I have to get prepared!!!! And I have another one that I am one of the organizers at the end of october and I have to deal with my paper for that too. Well you see, I am back to academic life in full speed.. :D

What else should I say...

About my life in Abkhazia after I returned from the conference: First of all I came very comfortably this time. The “Russian Custom Controllers” that do now have uniforms, have greeted me with laughs, and gave me my passport back in a few seconds with everything complete with small jokes in mixed Turkish and Russian. Than I shared a taxi with an Abkhaz lady and an Abkhaz student from Turkey. Than it was late and there was no minibus to come to Sohum and we bargained with a Gagra minibus driver, the lady giving 1000 rubles and us 900 rubles. Too much! Will never ever come on wednesday if I can... By the way, did I wrote about the happy third ticket!!! Aeroflot don – the only firm that flies to Sochi, the nearest Russian airport to Abkhazia, had a campaign that you can buy the third return ticket (if you gave the first two, to the seller) for 205 Euros instead of 300 Euros or so... It is cheap! I was planing to take the ship from Trabzon but think about it, taking a bus to Trabzon for 15 hours from Istanbul or 10 hours from Ankara that costs around 50 dollars, taking a ship from Trabzon to Sochi for 50 (pulman- open seat) or 75 (shared compartment) dollars and spending at least a day or two in the ship because of weather conditions, and spending another on the way, spending at least 5 hours at Russian customs- because they are really happy to see you- the walking banks according to them- and than you have to take a bus for an hour to come to the Abkhazian border. Does it worth it? No way!!!! Ofcourse I came with the plane...

Anyway, after I came I did not do anyhting for a few days- still it was tiring for me. And the first days had to clean the house- what a mess! Has there been a disaster in the house? - And tidy, and wash things... and rest...and shop... and take photos- for you! (You can check them at the picasa web gallery)

Well, a few days after I came there was a rumor about kidnapped boys from Tkuarchal rayon. So many different things we heard... Now everything is clear- at least more clear... A group of young military soldiers were being trained near to the border in the mountains. They were resting when they were attacked by a group wearing black clothes and masks- georgian army special team they are told to be... killed the two teachers after torturing them, took 6 of the soldiers that were not wounded during their shooting show and went... It created the fear in the people- you may think. But not really. People are not aware at all, still the funeral of the two Russian soldiers/teachers attracted about a thousand people to Sohum. They were taken within Abkhazian flags and with hundreds of red roses carried by soldiers at the front...

Well that is a sad story... that is why I will cut it short...

Other than that I have received a piece of land from the Gudauta rayon administration! Well, we just wrote an application about a month ago and it was accepted. It is a land in a village near to the main road, 10 minutes from the Gudauta center, but a small village very near to the historical Lihni village. I can even start farming- but really it is not my but my mothers field of interest. She is a farmer in our village in Sakarya doing organic farming... Maybe she will come to suggest me what to do with the land!

Oh I was nearly forgetting!!!! I have started to attend the university caucasian dances group- Dioskuri- and it is going... lets say fine. Being a late new comer, who does not have any knowledge of the main steps, or any coreography, and does not know anyone who can teach her at extra hours, I am exiled to stay at a corner and follow whatever I can with my own ambition. Every monday, tuesday and thursday I will be there from now on. And next week my school is starting. Woah ;,(( I have not yet finished my homework... I have to study harder but I have pain in my eye and I think I should not even be here, infront of the computer. Maybe I should drink another tea to feel better....

All for now. Next time to write more about everything. (Ps: to see interesting fruits from the market- check the market gallery)

Photo Albums Available

Many photo albums are available now at:

http://picasaweb.google.com.tr/abkhaziadiary
or click here

Selected available titles:

Abkhazian Women Clothing
Food & Restaurants
People
City, Streets & Buildings
Hare Krishna
Nature & Animals

The white-Abkhazian-cat:going to give birth soon!

This is the national Abkhaz cat- I was told so-... it is completely white- single color eyes (not like van cats of Turkey), not deaf (as the Ankara cat is), needs to be protected!