An alphabet story

The alphabet.
This is probably the one element that drew my attention when I first discovered about Georgia. At this point, Georgia was only an American state in my mind. But when the two new boys in my high school first answered the question “where are you from?”, it became clear that it had nothing to do with North America.
And while they were telling me about the dances and about the tradition of toasts, I progressively learnt how to write and remember each letter of this alphabet, with the excitement children get when breaking a secret code. As my new friends’ French skills were quickly improving, my interest for the Caucasian state’s culture and tradition grew significantly as well.

Fascinated by Geopolitics while studying International Relations later on, Georgia was an attractive playground for academic purposes, given its complex relationship with the USA and Russia and its separatist regions’ issue. The choice of this topic for one of my report led to fruitful conversations with one of my classmates and friend, who is quite the expert in the Russian-speaking area. Fluent in Russian, she had already discovered parts of the former USSR and was eager to explore new ones. Our adventurous spirit brought us together, and we decided to pack a bag and see for ourselves what this mystery land was really like.

10 years after first hearing about Tbilisi, I bought a map, revised my Georgian alphabet, and landed to the country where the wine was supposedly invented. Had I not already been persuaded of the population’s hospitality, two weeks of backpacking in the Caucasus finished convincing me. Translations provided by my travel partner made our various encounters with the local population really meaningful. We gathered information about the sense of community, the concept of patriotism, the organization of the family, or the origin of last names. The legendary dances I had heard about came to life, as well as the famous banquets with toasts. The eldest man at the table would give speeches about all aspects of life that would bring his audience to tears.

My official task during the trip was to read the indications for directions, and the menu in restaurants, thanks to the secret code I had broken back in high school. Two years after coming back, I still can’t decide which of the typical ‘hatchapuri’ or the ‘xinkali’ is my favorite food, but I am sure that this strange alphabet took me much further than I would ever have imagined when I was 16.