Rustavi 2's March 2008 video from Ushguli, AT LAST!

I've had a copy of this soon after it was made, but the subtitles took a lot of work to add.  Every single one needed to be put in just the right place for the right amount of time - and there are about 140 of them.  Many thanks, Terry V, for your hard work with me to finish this thing off at last - I knew you could do it, and I didn't know anyone else who could!  (We changed the original Dean Martin song, quite distorted, for a better one, added all the subtitles and some photos - otherwise it's as it aired.)

The story:  I lived in Ushguli, Svaneti, Georgia, Europe's highest village, for the winters of 2007-8 and 2008-9, teaching English to all of its 50 schoolchildren for free in exchange for room and board.  My first TV event from there was the photos of a set of avalanches which closed the village off for about a month in total.  I took the photos, uploaded them to my blog, had a phone interview with Rusiavi 2 TV Channel, and saw it all put together on the next morning's news - very satisfying.  The TV people were also interested in how I came to live in Ushguli - not a common occurrance for a foreigner.  So they had to come up and film me, and eventually told me that they were on their way "for a couple of days".  I jokingly told the villagers, "A couple of days?!  It takes a couple of days just to get here and back from Tbilisi!  I hope the guys get stuck for a week!"  Well, 1 metre of snow later, that's exactly what happened.  Once they surrendered themselves to the inevitable, they were able to make such a good little documentary that it was chosen as one of the channel's 10 best programmes of the year!  So, at the end of 2008, newly married (civil ceremony, at least), Lali & I were called back to the studio to receive our prize, again on TV.  People STILL recognize me in the street in Georgia - "Say, you're that guy who was taking a bath on TV, aren't you?"  Well, everyone should be famous for something.  Lasha and Levan - great work, still reaping fruit.  Keep up the good work!

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.

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: 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.

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.

Interlude: Ushguli, mid-September 2010

 3 images from the topmost of Ushguli's 7 churches, Lamaria (St. Mary's).  Top, frescoes outside the main sanctuary; middle, that sanctuary itself; and bottom, a view down the village through a window of one of the complex's two Valhalla-style great dining halls.
I took a day trip to my former English teaching haunt with 2 visiting friends, who very kindly paid my way.  It was a joyous reunion with old friends.

Interesting Facts about Mestia, No. 6

All of Mestia's many roughly millennium-old stone watchtowers have either 2 or 3 "eyes" (windows) per side.  In other words, they're very regular.  Compare this to Ushguli, 44 km away, Europe's highest village, with slightly fewer towers (about 34 to Mestia's more than 40).  In Ushguli, you'll find:  a set of twinned towers, others with 2, 3 or 4 eyes per side, and one with 4 eyes on each of one pair of opposing sides and 5 eyes on the other pair (the Museum, in Chazhashi hamlet).  Astonishing variety.  My question is:  Were Mestia's towers made first - the 2-3-eye pattern quickly established - followed by later experimentation with the form in Ushguli; or was Ushguli the place of original play with the form until it was firmly decided and then implemented later in Mestia?  In other words, which community can claim the earlier set of towers?  And, by the way, what about the other main kind of watchtower found in the Caucasus, the one with a pyramidal roof, as in Khevsureti and the North Caucasus?  Are these older than the Svan types?  What a hornet's nest to stir up!