A Putin Voodoo Doll

On visiting Georgia during war in Ukraine. Plus: Georgia adventures at Freya's Wine, Gogo Wine, Lost Ridge Brewery, Lapati, and Samtavisi Marani.

A Vladimir Putin voodoo-doll, purchased from Tbilisi restaurant Shavi Lomi, August 2022.

Travelers to Georgia in 2022 will be struck by the proliferation of Ukrainian flags alongside the nation’s own five-cross flag: posted beneath residential windows, above storefronts, painted on walls beside highways. Since I last visited Georgia in 2019, a global pandemic has occurred and Russia has invaded Ukraine. But this is the most visible change: the blue and yellow Ukrainian flags, multitudinous testaments to the kinship Georgians feel with their neighbors across the Black Sea.

For most of us, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine feels like a situation without precedent in our lifetimes: a “superpower” nation engaged in war at the edge of Europe. For Georgians, who endured a Russian invasion as recently as 2008, and whose nation remains today under partial occupation by Russia, Putin’s new war is déjà vu.

That’s what I told my girlfriend earlier this year, when she voiced concern about traveling to Georgia during war in Ukraine. Sure, Russia could attack Georgia at any time - but it was that way before the war in Ukraine, too. Georgians simply live with this dynamic.

WHAT ELSE IS NEW

It is less visible, to tourists like myself, but Georgian society is presently reeling from a massive increase in Russian tourism and emigration since the invasion of Ukraine.

“Now we have a Little Russia here,” says Kakheti vigneronne Keti Berishvili. “And Russia will come to ‘protect’ its citizens very soon.”

Some Russians are fleeing crackdowns on media and free speech. Some are establishing ways of evading sanctions through Georgia (which, controversially, has not applied economic sanctions on Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine). At a time when Tbilisi’s disproportionately tourism-based economy is still reeling from pandemic travel restrictions, Georgian businesses have reacted with acute ambivalence to the influx of new visitors.

“Economically, Russian patrons have given a boost to the hospitality business, which as been slow to recover post-COVID,” notes American painter-turned-winemaker and Georgia restaurateur John Wurdeman. “But many Georgians feel Russians should be home protesting against the war and against Putin and his cronies, rather than eating khachapuri and starting nightclubs in Tbilisi.”

Some renters refuse to rent to Russians. Many businesses place signs on their doors, explaining in no uncertain terms that Putin supporters are unwelcome. Shavi Lomi, a renowned modern Georgian restaurant in the Upper Plekhanov neighborhood, goes a step further, offering, as a menu item, a Putin voodoo doll, which arrives packaged in a recycled plastic Russian cookie wrapper with a note saying, “Russian Trash.”

A NOBLE STRUGGLE?

Among the many reasons a visit to Georgia is an emotional experience is the faint, potentially deceptive sense of participating in a noble struggle. If one aim of Russia’s 2008 invasion was to destabilize Georgia in order to retain it within the Russian economic and cultural sphere of influence, then visiting and pouring one’s tourist lari into the Georgian economy feels, in some way, like an expression of support for Georgia’s continued independence.

Yet, as conversations during my recent visit made clear, the vague sensation of virtue that comes with a visit to Georgia depends somewhat on the virtuousness of the Georgian government. On the subject of Russia’s war in Ukraine, the ruling Georgian Dream party’s cautious, equivocal response has lagged far behind public opinion. Meanwhile, Georgian Dream’s founder, billionaire former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili - whose influence throughout government remains a subject of speculation today - is notorious for maintaining what a June 2022 EU resolution described as “personal and business links to the Kremlin.”

“The EU is giving money, so the government says, ‘Oh yes, we’ll do reforms,’” says a Tbilisi-based musician friend, who had taken part in the 2019 protests against the Georgian Dream government’s overly accommodating posture towards Russia (and the subsequent police brutality against protestors). “But they just want the money.”

“I think our government is more pro-Russian,” says Berishvili. “Its application for EU membership is just to make it look like they’re not.”

Shavi Lomi’s voodoo doll is a peculiar symbol, in this regard. It cost 30₾ - about the equivalent of three taxi rides across Tbilisi. On some level, it represents the monetization of performative anti-Putin sentiment. Is that what the Georgian government is doing, too?

AN ALTERNATE REALITY

The cuisine at Shavi Lomi is stunning, anyway. Sometimes it’s best not to overthink things. (I am haunted by plate of lamb kebabs skewered upon, and overpoweringly redolent of, whole cinnamon sticks.) Georgia in 2022 remains a mind-bending, life-changing destination.

For conscious wine lovers, Georgia feels like an alternate reality, a glimpse of a very different twentieth century: one in which wine production persisted at the scale of the family unit, withstanding, at least partially, the wholesale professionalization and rationalization that occurred elsewhere in the world.

As my girlfriend put it, as we walked through Tbilisi on her first day, “Usually when you go someplace, you can relate it to something you’ve seen in a film. But this is like nothing I’ve ever seen. I can’t place it at all.”

I felt that way too, on my first visit. It has taken me over three years to feel comfortable writing anything about it at all. But here we are with a whole Georgian-themed Issue 8.5. It contains:

• A DISPATCH on LIFE IN GEORGIA DURING WAR IN UKRAINE by American painter-turned-winemaker-and-restaurateur JOHN WURDEMAN of PHEASANT’S TEARS. (No paywall.)

• A PHOTO ESSAY of HARVEST 2019 with Artana vigneronne KETI BERISHVILI of GOGO WINE.

• An INTERVIEW with American singer turned insanely precocious Imereti winemaker ENEK PETERSEN of FREYA’S MARANI.

• A scintillating VEGETARIAN LUNCH at JOHN WURDEMAN’s LOST RIDGE INN. (No paywall.)

• A stormy SUPRA with SHIDA KARTLI vigneron MAMUTA KIKVADZE of SAMTAVISI MARANI.

• A chat with BEAUJOLAIS-trained French expat winemaker and pet-nat specialist VINCENT JULLIEN of LAPATI WINES in Gare Kakheti.

And, as promised in last issue, one more piece on Burgundy:

• A PHOTO REPORT of VIN NOE’s late summer BURGUNDY wine salon HAUT LES MAINS. (No paywall.)

In other news, my forthcoming book, The World of Natural Wine, is still available for pre-order via Amazon or Book Depository or any excellent local independent bookstore near you. It comes out September 27th¹. I’ll be in touch soon with details about launch events in Paris, London, and throughout the USA.

In the meantime, raise a glass of chacha² to Georgia! And another to Ukraine.

Aaron

1. For anyone wondering why copies have been appearing in the wild before then: it appears that Book Depository shipped 122 copies early by accident. Shoganai.

2. Georgian grape marc spirit.