Cracked Paint, Mestia, November 2010

 More of an autumnal feeling than a wintery one, but I don't claim to be logical on this blog, I just post what I like, in general.  An abandoned house above where we are staying in the town.

Mestia, late November 2010

 New digs, and a new little wood-burning stove in our bedroom.  The room itself is SO much warmer than our one in the last host family's house because:  1) it's a more normal size without being cramped; 2) it's heated from below by the family's main wood stove, so the floor isn't deadly cold; 3) only 1 of its 6 surfaces (4 walls, floor, ceiling) is an outer one; and 4) we have a hole in the wall for the stovepipe, allowing us to have the stove at all.  A VAST improvement in our comfort - it roars away and heats up the room in about 5 minutes flat, once I light it in the morning.

Below, us at the restaurant of Mestia's Tetnuldi Hotel, 24/11/10, our civil wedding's 2nd anniversary, a shot hand-held by me.  We look happy because we ARE.

Iced Fence, Mestia, November 2010

Perhaps more of a Christmas-themed image than the last few (at least for the minority of earth's population living in the Northern Hemisphere, where Christmas is in the cold part of the year, not the warm!).  Caused by a leaking water pipe, and delighted in by me in the morning when I saw it.

K'ala and Ushba Vertical Panorama, late July 2010

(From now until January 16, I'm in Canada, but still posting Georgian images for now.)
Mt Ushba again, top centre, with part of the village of K'ala below, and the Enguri River.  Also taken on Kvirikoba day, also a panorama assembled from several photos.  Clouds coming would soon obscure the mountain as usual, but until then all they did was add more interest to the sky.

As for this day being Christmas Eve... no apologies for refusing to wish you a mere "Happy Holidays".  No, this season is called Christmas, like it or not.  Have a Merry Christmas.  Or don't take it off at all, if you're serious about protesting a Christian holiday.  Grinch, grumble, &c.

Mulakhi & Ushba Panorama, late July 2010

July 29 is Kvirikoba, possibly Svaneti's most important Orthodox festival of the year, held in and outside a little church high above the village of K'ala with a fabulous chased gold icon of Christ, one of the Orthodox world's most important.
This panorama I took on the way to that festival, near the pass between the villages of Mulakhi and Ipari.  Here we are looking back towards the former at centre, with Mt Ushba peering over the top in the distance just left of centre.

Cracks, Mestia

 Just cracked varnish on an old table, the second image with an upside down copy on top, giving it 180 degree rotational symmetry.  I LOVE the patterns made by decay and chaos in nature.

Mestia@NIGHT, 5

I think this is the best Mestia evening shot of mine so far - it's also HDR, as are the previous examples.  This one has it all for me:  depth given by the various sizes of towers, good colours and detail, nice blue mountains in the background, car headlights streaked into blurred trails of light.  It'll do.

Mestia@NIGHT, 4

You might SAY this town has no light life, but it depends what you MEAN.  For me there's plenty going on.  More HDR, this time from the roof of the last shot's barns, Tetnuldi at top as before.  The foreground this time is a little bare, though I did get more of the towers - I plan another few of these shots from various locations, always seeking the ideal one.

Mestia@NIGHT, 3

New host family's window view again, including the barns in the foreground and the town's lights above and beyond them.  The broken streak of light at centre right, above the greenish-lit church, is actually the headlights of a single car as it wound its way slowly across a night road, disappearing behind trees and then reappearing.  Presiding majestically over it all is Mt. Tetnuldi, above left of which is just visible the streak of a star's ordinary motion recorded during time exposures totaling several minutes.

Mestia@NIGHT, 2

More HDR (High Dynamic Range), this one from our new host family's upper floor window, of a single tower thrust into the modern age.

Mestia@NIGHT, 1

The one great thing about our old host family was the view from the window.  This is it at night.  Not as simple as it seems at first glance - not only did I use a tripod and take a time exposure, but this is a combination of about 6 shots in what's called HDR, or High Dynamic Range, photography.  It captures the highlight AND shadow details very well - a much larger tonal range than a single shot can - and then puts them all together.  Cool.  More to come.

Mestia Panorama, October 2010

Not panoramically formatted, this is nonetheless a stitching together of several frames.  Again, from just outside where we used to live.  The clouds and snow are a bit over-white, but I like it anyway.

Mestia Panorama, October 2010

Time to switch from Ushguli panoramas to a few more from Mestia - this was autumn, October, from just outside our first host family's house.  (We've now moved to a new host family, and even bought a little wood-burning stove to heat our room with.  MUCH cosier.)

Ushguli p a n o r a m a

From April 2009, just to be different.  It was only then that I felt it to be safe enough to slog up to Queen Tamar's Summer Tower fortress in heavy snow without bringing an avalanche down onto myself.  The fortress's remains are at left, the village spread out far below.

PuAsNhOgRuAlMiA

(Get it?  Tip:  read the capital letters together first, and then the small letters.)
This one's at sunset, daringly featuring the sun himself.  I lived in the top hamlet of the village, right of centre.

Panoraaaaama...

...of Ushguuuuuli.... February 2009, as usual.
Well, this one's hardly a panorama as the technical definition of such is an aspect ratio of at least 2:1.  But it was assembled from a few shots put together.

and now back to our regular programming .]

Yes, that's right, another panorama of Ushguli or part thereof, from another different angle, but also from February 2009.   I was going pretty crazy shooting these in that month, especially given that I had no idea when I'd find a programme for doing the assembling of the panoramas from the individual images.  Seems to have paid off - it's not every year I get to spend a winter or 2 in this fabulous if forbidding location.

An Open Letter to the Georgian Government

Dear Sirs and Madams,
I am given to understand that the blogs, Facebook posts and other more public communications output of the TLG foreign staff are occasionally translated into Georgian and read out publicly for your consumption.  Therefore, having something to say to you as a group and now discovering that I may well have the means to be heard:

Please do something about the garbage situation in Mestia and all of Svaneti.

The renovation of the town, and the massive attention currently being given to the whole province, are a source of delight to me, a resident of Georgia since late 1999 and recent home buyer (along with my wife) in Etseri.  At last, some attention being given to this magnificent, far-flung gem of a region!
I now teach English in Mestia's No. 1 Middle School; and frequently on my way to or from work, I see a nice wheelbarrow of rubbish being dumped straight off a bridge into the Enguri far below.  "Out of sight, out of mind", right?  If I can't see it, it's no longer my problem.  We used to think the same way about the world's lakes and even its oceans - and look at them now!  The 5 Great Lakes between Canada and the USA are a great example of the terrifying result of decades of uncontrolled dumping.
Plastic bottles and bags, mattresses, tin cans, glass - anything which won't burn goes straight into that marvelous river, or doesn't get that far but chokes its banks instead.
There is a fine for littering being instituted in various places in Georgia already.  What will you, its government, fine yourselves for the ongoing environmental catastrophe still being allowed to occur elsewhere?  It's only the people's fault when there is an alternative, when their rubbish is being dealt with by the state.  Until then, they are only doing what they can in the situation.  Glass is as biodegradeable as rock - no surprise, as they are both mineral.  Metals - they do slowly degrade chemically, by corrosion.  Plastics?  All sorts of nice possibilities there, depending on the variety, mostly turning into chemicals too long to pronounce and too mutagenic or just plain deadly to ignore.

My 18-year-old hiking boots recently gave up the ghost right here in Mestia, after a good walk near the Koruldi Lakes.  What can I do?
1) Throw them straight into the Enguri myself.
2) Put them with my host family's unburnable trash and forget about them - make them their problem.
3) Burn them in the family stove!  Mmmm, all that rubber and leather!
4) Take them out of Svaneti myself, by marshroutka (I don't have a vehicle at the moment), and throw them away in a city bin in Batumi, Tbilisi or somewhere similarly civilized.
5) Deliver them, and all my other non-biodegradeable garbage, to the Town Hall of Tbilisi and leave it all there on the sidewalk, with a note attached saying, "Welcome to Mestia", while the TV cameras are running.

Yours most sincerely,

Tony Hanmer

Pari & Etseri, Nov. 2010

 Top & bottom, children in Pari.  Middle, cows off to market from Etseri to Tbilisi.

A Friend's Wedding, Etseri, November 2010

 Wedding feast, now, in our village.  Top, Lali & I happened to be sitting opposite 3 lovely old ladies; the middle one is the widow of Mikeil Khergiani, fabled Svan mountaineer, who died at his favourite occupation in Italy in the late 1960s, and to our left is his sister.  Middle - the happy couple arriving at his house for the feast.  Bottom, their table in the marquee, at which about 250 people were guests.

A Friend's Wedding, Mestia, November 2010

 Ramaz G, former mayor of the village where we've bought a house in Svaneti, and his lovely bride in an ancient, 2-story Orthodox church in Mestia.  Top, being led around the altar 3 times by the priest.  I didn't use flash as it's fatal to frescoes; hence the slow shutter speeds and motion blur, which is all my style in such situations anyway.  Crowns are held over the couple's heads by their best man and maid of honour - this is what, above Ramaz's head, is catching the ray of light.
Middle, the church itself.  Bottom, the ray of light again, and smoke from delicious incense still made to the Old Testament Jewish recipe.

Panorama: Central Ushguli, February 2009

You visit a location once (in landscape photography) for the place itself, and then may times for the lighting.

(By the way, left-click once on any of these photos to see it larger.)

Panorama: Upper Ushguli, February 2009

Another stitched panorama - I took so many sets of these from different locations, now it's time to reap the rewards at last.  The small house just left of centre is where I spent 2 winters while teaching English in this fabulous location.

Panorama: Upper Ushguli, Dawn, February 2009

It was plenty cold enough as I took the frames which, assembled, became this panorama; but the lighting of the long sunrise rays made it all worthwhile.  Mts. Lamaria at right and Shkhara background centre.

Panorama: Above Mulakhi, December 2008

This one's got Ushba's twin peaks at left of centre, in the distance, and more to the right of that (near centre), the long village of Mulakhi.

Panorama: Lower Ushguli, December 2008

Another stitched panorama, featuring the lower 2 hamlets of Ushguli, also from December 2008, before we had much snow.  (Later in the year there was enough, lasting long enough, to make the village sick of it, as they usually are by the time of mid-April.)  Right in the middle is a church with fresco fragments on its outer wall.

Panorama: Above Ushguli, December 2008

I've begun stitching together panoramas from old sets of photos, some digital originals, others scans from film.  This is from digital frames, above Ushguli, with Mt. Shkhara in the distant left-of-centre background - Georgia's tallest mountain.

A different slant on Mestia, October 2010

My English teaching colleagues and I found this lovely picnic spot above the new Mestia Airport construction site a few weeks ago.  A ruined tourism base, with amazing views of the town and - if it was cooperating - Ushba.  This is Mestia near sunset, rays through wood smoke and tower shadows, river twisting every which way - one I'm particularly proud of.

K'ubdari, Mestia, September 2010

 Also known as the Svan meat pie, with beef, spices and onions inside a dough cover, put on the top of the oven first, then inside - YUM, especially from my wife's hands

Kung-fu Fighting in Georgian...

I've seen some adverts on walls recently for something which took some time to figure out.  It turns into something quite strange when you transliterate the Georgian into English.  Hmmm, Georgian has no "f" letter or sound, so... these are ads for kung-fu lessons.  And kung-fu becomes coon poo...

Photos back onto the blog in a couple of days!  Really!

My Favourite Mathematician, Gone

Benoit Mandelbrot, 1924-2007, who coined the word fractal.  Obituary:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/oct/17/benoit-mandelbrot-obituary

Thanks to his work, I have seen everything differently since the early 1990s- in terms of structures.  I owe him a lot.

New photos will be resuming soon - Internet in Mestia has been a bit frustrating lately.

Mestia Panorama, September 2010

From the newly renovated concrete road to the ski resort, scheduled to reopen in December by Presidential Decree.  One of the best places from which to see the town, IF Mt. Ushba is cooperating and poking its twin peaks above.  Lali & Giorgi, the son of our host family, visible at far right.

Koruldi Lakes, above Mestia, 12/9/2010

It was plenty hot up there, but the last of the previous winter's snow still clung on in this place of extremes.

Koruldi Lakes, above Mestia, 12/9/2010

 Three more from that memorable walk.
Top:  dandelions in front of Mt. Tetnuldi
Middle:  Try walking up that!  "Slip slaaadin away"... but it's not as bad as it looks.
Bottom:  This, however, is every bit as good as it looks.

Interesting Facts about Mestia, No. 10

Autumn is WET, though beautiful, as the trees change colour.  But that means great mushroom-hunting, as I've shown already.

Home sweet home (Mestia), Oct. 7, 2010

Only one shot today, because it's such a good one, IMHO.
I looked out of my bedroom window at 0745 in the morning on the 7th - clear skies at last!  Mt. Ushba's not visible from there, but I took the chance that I'd see its twin peaks from the height of the new ski resort road, and it paid off.  Left home without breakfast, took a few shots, then off to school for my 0900 teaching start.  Clouds, sky, lighting and all other details had combined perfectly for me.  Happy happy.

Interesting Facts about Mestia, No. 9

There hasn't been a foreigner dying here for as long as I've been in Georgia (nearly 11 years), to the best of my knowledge.  Until Oct. 6.  That's the rumour, but I'm still awaiting confirmation from news services, online or TV.  So I'll reserve further comment until things firm up.

Ushguli Interlude 2, mid-September 2010

10/10/10 today...
(Well, the top shot is at K'ala: our driver for the day, Mamuka, on the way back down towards Mestia.)
Then, 2 of Ushguli Museum's fabulous collection of icons - I paid to take these photos!  Both early medieval, gilt on chased silver:  St. George and an Archangel.