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Big LoveWhy Americans swoon for the former Soviet Republic of Georgia.

By Ilan GreenbergPosted Friday, Aug. 15, 2008, at 6:10 PM ET

Five minutes into a pro-Georgia rally in front of the United Nations earlier this week, Ceil Brody, an American co-owner of a Georgian restaurant in Watchung, N.J., began telling me about what makes Georgia so extraordinary. "Once you experience the culture, you can't help but fall deep for the people," she glowed. "If you go to Georgia, a man will sell the shirt off his back to buy you dinner."

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American Georgia boosters may not boast the same numbers and history as, say, lovers of Paris. But what they lack in size and tradition they more than compensate for with depth of feeling. In fact, it is hard to overstate the level of passion felt by Americans in thrall with Georgia. Love for Georgia is uncompromising and consuming. To be American and reside in Georgia is to be locked in an endless meta-conversation about being American and residing in Georgia: how Georgian culture enriches, how Georgian politics fascinate, how Georgian cuisine nourishes.

As Lincoln Mitchell, an assistant professor of politics at Columbia University who lived in the country for nearly a decade, is quick to point out, Georgia's light burnishes bright in a dark neighborhood. Many expats in Georgia have lived in other former Soviet republics, where national narratives feel like horror stories set against a Georgian island of magical realism. Scenes of sullen Slavs hammering vodka shots give way in Georgia to boisterous celebrations of copious wine, joke-telling as bloodsport, and supreme hospitality.

"It's a strange and irrational thing," Mitchell says. "I don't want to be cynical—on balance I like Georgia—but people come to the country and make a fetish out of the place. And their assumptions go unchallenged: Yes, the wine is good, but come on, not knock-your-socks-off good. Yes, the food is good, but the best they've ever had?"

Georgia is something like the Italy of the former Soviet Union, where mothers are considered saints and histrionic displays of emotion are roundly approved, where traffic police refuse to write tickets to pregnant women and grown men worship fresh produce. Television viewers getting their first taste of Georgia's president, Mikheil Saakashvili (Misha to everyone in Georgia), this week are not wrong to detect a surprising emotionalism, volatility, and American-style openness from a leader of a country sandwiched between Turkey and Russia. It is not a stretch to say Saakashvili's qualities are emblematic of the nation as a whole. As Mitchell said to me, "There's no other post-Soviet government with a president everyone calls by first name who can argue about where to find the best Indian food in New York."

I got to know Georgia—and Saakashvili—when I profiled him for the New York Times Magazine. For almost two months I shadowed Misha. In Slovakia for a regional summit, walking next to Saakashvili along Bratislava's cordoned streets, the Georgian head of state hooked his arm on my elbow and offered to trade gossip about his senior staff. In Tbilisi, Saakashvili gave me carte blanche access, not once ordering me out of his office. In a region where governments routinely conflate tribe with nation, Saakashvili pointedly switched languages to inclusively address ethnic minorities. One evening I answered my cell phone to hear the cackling voice of the then 37-year-old president, who called to tease that his evening was more interesting than mine. I had been crank-called by the president. Stockholm Syndrome was inevitable.

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Ilan Greenberg is a New York-based writer who reported from the former Soviet Union from 2002-07.

COMMENTS

Remarks from the Fray:

When I was in Moscow a couple years ago, the Russians had cut off many Georgian imports. We went to eat at a Georgian restaurant and they had no Georgian wine, one of the targeted imports. The Georgians were peeved and apologetic, but took it all with an air of "this too shall pass." I wonder how they're doing now.

To over-generalize about Russians, they tend toward unwarranted suspicion, thinking anybody who insists on doing things differently is a spy or at least up to no good. They do not value ethnic and cultural diversity, and that's an understatement.

Of course, this is to be expected from people who lived through Stalinism. Peasants in the countryside are still suspicious of foreigners and urbanite Russians to a stunning degree. Russian soldiers and police are likely to be rude and even abusive to foreigners, and some of them make money on the side by helping pickpockets steal from tourists.

I found Russia to be fairly unpleasant, and I wouldn't go back.

--Arlington

(To reply, click here.)

In 2003 with the courage which Americans can identify with in retrospect to the American Revolution, the people of Georgia held what is known as the Rose Revolution. In a tremendous show of unity and non-violence, many people including many young persons held single roses as they marched against the puppet dictator from Russia, President Eduard Shevardnadze after a bogus election. Although the government thought the cold and rain would end the demonstration on the first day, it continued as people shared ponchos and took turns warming themselves in churches. The elections were eventually nullified and free elections were held in which Shevardnadze lost.

Maybe that is why people admire Georgians; they stand for what they believe in.

--TheRanger

(To reply, click here.)

(8/17)

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