Sunday, April 29, 2012

The Green Monastery and the Cave-City of Vardzia

Yesterday was a good day.  The TLG program announced on Tuesday that there were free excursions available for us volunteers, and gave us a list of the first ten from which to pick our top choices.  I filled them out and on Thursday found out I was one of the first twenty-five to apply for my first choice, the Green Monastery (mts'vane monast'eri)--or more properly, St. George's Monastery (ts'minda giorgis monast'eri); it is called "Green" because of the gorgeous and lush forest in which it is nestled--and Vardzia, a must-see if you're in Georgia.  The great thing with these excursions is that there are twenty-five of them, and though we're only guaranteed one, we can go on more, if we request to and it wouldn't mean stopping someone else who hasn't already been on one yet.  They start in different places throughout Georgia and, other than the cost to the cities they depart from (for me, eight lari each way, if it's to Tbilisi like this one was), are free.  Of course, when I go to monasteries, I'd prefer to stay for a couple days and see the liturgics and daily life of each community, but again, these are free--and if I want to go back and spend more time at some, I can do that in June and July, and this way I'll know at which I might be more truly interested in doing so.

So anyway, since it left the city at 8:30 AM on Saturday, I left Friday night for Tbilisi and stayed at my host father's cousin's.  Georgians are great--meet the the first time and they'll often still invite you over to their place (and mean it, and write directions and phone numbers to prove it), or even to exotic far-off sights in Georgia, on more rare occasions.  In the morning, she (this cousin of my host father) helped me find the meeting point, and we headed off through some very beautiful and diverse landscapes, then through Borjomi (absolutely gorgeous), until arriving at the Green Monastery.  It's very small now, but is very old, and once was the center of one of the biggest monastic areas in Georgia--before the Turks invaded and martyred them all (thousands, at the least--I don't remember the number perfectly).  It's got a beautiful, if relatively small, church, with the most gorgeous re-creation (hand-painted; not as an exact copy, but very close) of the Sinai Pantokrator that I have ever seen.  There was a service going on when we got there, which was wonderful (a hieromonk, monk, and pilgrims (or locals) in attendance; the igumen was outside speaking with pilgrims), and afterwards I went into the "new," to quote the guide (17th-century), bell tower, where, to my surprise, I saw (and venerated) the bones of a few of the monks who had lived there.  Unfortunately, we couldn't stay too long (the inherent problem with this sort of trip), so we had a nice picnic in the (lush and gorgeous) forest just outside the monastery grounds and then headed off.

We then went to an old fortress (no recollection on the name; sorry), where after taking some pictures, I had an interesting experience:  as I was climbing up a wall, my camera came out of my pocket, slid off the wall top, and fell twenty or thirty feet, banging off another rock wall on the way down.  I wasn't too worried about it (better it than me, yes?), and had fun trying to find a way around to where it fell without risking the same sort of fall myself--just as a downpour came upon us.  Another volunteer, along with the guide, found an easy way to it (I created a delay with all this, but at least one with some adventure and entertainment), and managed to retrieve it for me (for which I am quite grateful, of course!).  Amazingly, other than some gouges in the plastic (which made it difficult to open the lens cap the first time), it worked fine.  It may be an old camera, but I guess it was made to last.

After the fortress, it was a short trip to Vardzia, and luckily the rain stopped before we got there.  It was a sight to see--an entire city hewn in rock and cave in the 12th and 13th centuries.  In fact, a very important trade city and dukedom (with rooms for the queen, as well).  What I did expect was its bigness--and it filled its measure.  It was big, and we didn't even see all of the portion visitors are allowed to see (as it was both a city and a monastery, and still has about ten monks or so, certain places are reserved so the monks can live a quiet life even with all the visitors)--not only that, but this is only what's left; it used to be enclosed in rock and more tunnels, not visible from the outside at all, and has been greatly damaged by earthquake and invasion.  What I didn't expect was quality of craftsmanship--but they had tons of arches and decorative grooves as well as practical yet aesthetically-pleasing shelves and niches everywhere.  Of course, in olden times they had normal wood furniture and the like in all the rooms, too.  It's crazy to think about--living by candle-light (as I would assume, since these were all enclosed in rock), going up and down steep and dangerous staircases on a daily basis.  And oh, what the noise must have been!  Think of a town's noise, all shoved  into close quarters, with nowhere for the sound to go but echoing through the whole place.  And there are still monks living there, maintaining the churches (there are a few, though we only saw the main one, which still even has its 12th or 13th century frescoes (for example, one of three pictures (this one an icon) of St. Queen Tamar painted from life) and living the life, keeping the monastery a monastery, and not a relic or a museum.  It was a wonderful experience (even though it did begin to drench us with rain again halfway through), and I'm very glad I went.  Before leaving off Vardzia, I'll quickly explain the name:  when St. Queen Tamar was a child, she was brought to where the monastery would later be built by her uncle, and was happily running around playing.  At one point, he lost her, and called out for her, to which she replied, "var, dzia," or in English, "[I] am [here], uncle."  Strange name for a city and a monastery, but there you go.  This same uncle started building the city in the late 12th century, and St. Queen Tamar finished it around 1210.  It is certainly a sight to see, should you ever get the chance.

The only other problem with this sort of excursion (if from Tbilisi) is that we come back way too late for me to catch the last marshutka to my village, meaning I have to miss Sunday Liturgy for it.  I thought about asking to spend the night at Vardzia so I could experience Liturgy there, but since we didn't talk to any of the monks, I decided not to try to impose in such a way.  If I do another excursion, though, I think I'll ask to stay--I both want to get more out of these monastery trips, and certainly can't go on missing Liturgy on Sundays.  But as for this time, I think it worth it.

In Christ,
Teopile/Theophilos Porter

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Pictures (And a Ton of Them)!

January 25:

More snow, as you can see.

Our snowman got covered pretty quickly.


January 28:

And yet more snow...





He kinda died.



January 31:


And at school.



February 10:


And yet again...







February 28:


My host sister had a blast doing a "fashion show" with my (very big even for me) coat, and wanted me to take pictures.  It was quite funny.





March 24:

Our new cow.  Very, very adorable.


Its older "brother" seems to like it.


And here's a blurry picture of him coming toward me.





Our garlic.

Violets.  (A very plain flower, in my taste, but Georgians love them for some reason; perhaps because they're the first flowers in spring?)





A couple hens sitting on a ton of eggs we put under them (so we can get some new chicks).

The mountains (from the house).



My first walk of the season; this is just outside Ch'ik'aani, more toward the mountains.  This and the next few pictures are of the northern mountains that border with Russia.










These next pictures are looking across the valley of eastern Georgia (to the west, in this picture), and back toward Ch'ik'aani and the southern mountains.







March 25:


More pictures of animals around the property.









March 28:

A nice spring day...

...so I took another walk, and got to see lots of butterflies and things...







...and the beautiful mountains...



...travelling along the road less travelled...

...which ended up taking me into somebody's field...



...and orchard.



And there were some of the biggest thorny, brambly bushes I have ever seen before on the sides of this path.




March 31:


I took another walk, and there were lots of different, beautifully flowering trees along the way.

I went a little farther than normal, and started up on the mountains.  You don't have to get very high before you can see a ton, in this flat region of Georgia.





Above the church (which you'll see soon) on this mountain are a couple buildings, with no roof whatsoever, and completely enclosed, with no door.  I have no idea what it's all about, but one of them had part of the wall cave in, so I could see what appears to be a cross in the middle of one (I went inside it, but there's no clue as to what it is; no writing or anything).  None of my family has any clue what they are, either.  War memorial of some sort?  But then why have it enclosed and inaccessible?  They're certainly not upkept.











There are tons of these little bugs around.  I have no idea what they are.  Any guesses?  (There are also a lot of much bigger, more exotic beetles and moths around in the evening, now that it's warmer.)




The inside of the small church on the hill, which I thought was quite peaceful and quaint.  It is the doing of one man in Zinobiani, as I later found out, who is now in Germany, working to get up the money to finish it as he would like.  It's a wonderful thing to do, dedicating your time and efforts into building a new church for the use of the people (Zinobiani as of now only has one small room in an abandoned old building with icons and stuff, which I'm sure is not consecrated as a church).  It's also left open, which is really awesome, in my opinion, as then anyone (like myself) can go in whenever they want to pray in peace.




As you can see, it's nothing fancy, but there's certainly nothing wrong with that.



St. Andrew (Andrea) the First-Called and First Apostle to the Georgian Lands, and St. Nino, Equal-to-the-Apostles, Enlightener of Georgia.  These, as is the case with many of the subsequent icons, are in good, traditional Georgian iconographic style.

 St. Barbara (Barbare).  This is a major saint in Georgia, but when I asked, assuming that it was the Great Martyr Barbara, I was told that this was probably a different saint, who was not a martyr (as far as my host mother knew; and she would be a good resource, as she taught Christian History and hagiographies for many years until it was banned as a school subject by the government), and somehow helped children and/or the ill (in having an orphanage and hospice, perhaps?  If only my Georgian was better...)  But it doesn't seem to be the same saint (she seems to have been a Georgian, I should note, and the Great Martyr Barbara wasn't), and her icons certainly don't have the general martyr's cross in her hand.

 Kings Vakht'ang Gorgasali and David (Davit) the Builder of Georgia, great revitalizers of the Orthodox Church in Georgia.

I tried to get a better angle for lighting.  Forgive my difficulties in this.

 The much-beloved icon of the Theotokos, Shen Khar Venakhi, or "Thou Art the Vineyard."  (There isn't much on the web I could find about this icon, but there's a little bit on this page; search "I would like to make" to find the two paragraphs about it quickly.)

Again, forgive the lighting and angle issues.

 An icon modeled after the Iberian icon of the Theotokos.  This is Byzantine style, not Georgian; Byzantine icons are also fairly common in Georgia.

 A somewhat stylistically unusual icon of the Theotokos.  Definately back in the Georgian tradition.

Another icon of St. Andrew.

An icon of the Image Made Without Hands (not to be confused with the image of St. Veronica).


 Another icon of the Theotokos.


 The center icon-stand.  The church must be dedicated to St. George the Great Martyr, a much-beloved saint in Georgia, and relative of St. Nino (though he never actually set foot on Georgian soil, as far as we know).

The church, as viewed from the outside.

A few families' vineyards (anywhere from 3 families to 8 or so, I would guess).



April 1:


And more pictures of life around the house.












Another walk.

You probably can't see them, but there were a bunch of tadpoles swarming around (there are tons of frogs and lizards out and about now that it's warmer).


April 9:

My icon corner now.

Top row:  Sts. George and John of Betania, whose graves I have pictured in "New Pictures! [And a Short Blurb on Mortality, Oddly Enough]" under January 2; St. John (Ioanne) Tornik'e; St. Andrew the First-Called; St. George the Great Martyr.
Second row:  Iberian icon of the Theotokos; Shen Khar Venakhi; the Holy Archangel Michael; St. Ketevan the Queen-Martyr of Georgia
Bottom:  Ascension


This is the plant they use in Georgia instead of palms (even though they have palms aplenty) for Palm Sunday (the name of the day in Georgian is named after this plant, not palms, of course).  It is green all year 'round, thus symbolizing everlasting life.  They put these behind their icons in their homes on Palm Sunday, and leave them all year, burning them in the tone (the traditional outdoor oven used only for cooking bread and a few other baked foods) each year when they put the new years' behind the icons, out of respect and to kind of "cleanse," in a sense, the tone and have the plant go only into the air and food (as opposed to burning it in the woodstove with the garbage and wood).


April 10:

Some flowers and trees around Ch'ik'aani.



This is a very beautiful plant, which, now that it is warmer, is just dripping with these flowers.

Unfortunately, a somewhat blurry picture.







On another walk.  Compare the greenness of the mountains here to the pictures on March 31--I remember the change; I took a walk one day, and it was all brown.  I went two days without a walk, and on the third--bam! they were bright green!













April 14:


And another.




April 17:


The first chicks of the season!  They're adorable!


And don't really mind if you just pick them up!






Well, that's it for now, except for a picture of an icon which I took on Bright Tuesday (the 17th of April), which I will show and discuss in a subsequent post.  I hope you've enjoyed the pictures!


In Christ,
Teopile/Theophilos Porter