What do the Georgians call it? I have no idea, but the Russians are not popular around here, so who knows? But Georgia was part of the Soviet Union for a long time, (one reason the Russians are not popular here) and so this apartment in which I am living is known as a "Krushschoba." That's what they call these piles in Moscow, and there are plenty of them there. They were called "Trushchobas" when they were built circa 1960 on the orders of former Soviet premier Nikita Kruschchev. Naturally, Russian smartasses started calling them "Kruschchobas" after Kruschchev," and they are pretty awful.
Krushschev was trying to solve Moscow's housing crisis in a pretty damn quick hurry. There just weren't enough apartments. People were living five families in two rooms. "Communal apartments." Awful. Nikita tried to solve that problem, but as always when decisions are being made at the top, with no consultation from anyone, the solution was ... poor. Communal apartments were replaced with lousy, cheap, crumbling 30-square-meter dumps. All over the USSR, not just in Moscow. And it's in one of those that I'm living now.
Not that I'm complaining. In my last update from Tbilisi I told my readers (both of them) that although Teach and Learn With Georgia, the organization that brought me here, intended that we teachers of English all live with host families, I didn't really want to. I like to have my own place, and I do, such as it is.
My ex-girlfriend Nadya, back in Moscow, lives with her mother in a place much like this. Only I think hers is bigger. I have a sitting room, a bathroom and a kitchen. The kitchen is the size of what used to be a phone booth back in the United States before phone booths disappeared, killed off by cellphones. (Oh, by the way, public phones are also dead here in Georgia. The old Soviet-style public phones around Tbilisi have been eviscerated; their dials and guts are gone. They are now basically receptacles for trash.) I wouldn't recommend trying to play handball in this place. It's way too small.
But I have a stove, a bed, a sink, a shower and a toilet. Who could ask for anything more?
Taxis are plentiful here, and relatively cheap. The cabdrivers all understand Russian, which helps me because I speak a little Russian. I can say, for example, "Отведите меня к общественной 117 школы. Прямо по этой улице, затем повернуть налево." They understand me, and off we go. Two Lari, or about a buck and a half.
I'm not bothering to learn Georgian. I'm only going to be here until next spring, then I'll be somewhere else. Georgian is spoken only in this little country. Russian might be useful to me somewhere else, like Brighton Beach, New York, for example. Georgian? forget it.
There are a number of small markets here in my 'hood, so I can get what I need. The local beer is good. And there is plenty of produce. Yes, Georgia was the USSR's fruit-and-vegetable bazaar. When Georgia was part of the Russian empire, (and the Soviet Union was nothing more than a continuation of the old Russian empire under a new name), the Russians called Georgia the land of "grapes and rice." We're relatively south here, and things grow, as they don't on the other side of the mountains where it gets cold. Russia basically has potatoes, cabbage, carrots, beets and onions. Georgia has fruit. Tomatoes, bananas, apples, strawberries. Watermelons. Oh, my god, watermelons. They're everywhere. I saw a guy the other day driving a Lada down the street (a Lada is basically an old Fiat) and the entire back of the car was loaded with watermelons. What was he planning to do with 100 watermelons? I don't want to know.
Last Sunday I went with some friends to the Tbilisi zoo. It wasn't as bad as I feared. The elephants and ostriches seemed happy. Now, I'm from San Diego, which has the world's greatest zoo, although I haven't been to the San Diego zoo in 35 years. San Diego is a great place for a zoo because...well, because it's warm there and the animals won't freeze in the winter. I always wondered about the Moscow zoo. How do they keep the animals from freezing? Tbilisi isn't as cold as Moscow, but I still wonder. The zoo here in Tbilisi has rides. We went on the bumper cars. Reminded me of when I drove in a demolition derby, in Sacramento, California, in 1985.
Some of my colleagues, fellow English teachers, have attended what they call here in Georgia a "Supra." I'll never go near one of these things. A supra is an organized drinking party. Someone is named Grand Poobah, and when the Grand Poobah proposes a toast, everyone drinks. No one is allowed to drink until the Grand Poobah proposes the toast, but when he does, everyone has to. My pal Aman, an English teacher and the captain of the local American partying team, has attended a couple of these things and been so hungover the next day that he swore he would never drink again. Fat chance. I stay away from supras.
Georgia is a very poor country. That's okay with me. I like poor countries. They remind me of myself. I will probably never be able to retire, and certainly not in the United States. Too expensive. So I had better get used to living in poor countries, because a poor country is most likely where I'm going to end my life. Fortunately, ex-pat is a role that suits me right down to the ground. I do not miss America in the slightest. I have no use whatever for Barack Obama, Lady Gaga or So You Think You Can Dance. My parents are dead, the family house in California gone, and there is nothing in the United States I miss in the slightest except baseball. And I can follow baseball on the Internet.
God bless the Internet. And greetings from Tbilisi. Wish you were here. It would serve you right.
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