Shut up Along the watchtower: Songs for a Georgian playlist.

The Setting: The watchtower guesthouse in Ushguli, Europe’s highest inhabited village (2200m), a mere mountain pass away from Russia.

Cast: Three Ozzie travel industry friends: Scott, Bruce, Mandy, and their Mongolian brother, Timur, all on a recci ride with guide Davit, and hosted for the night by Reza and Illya, warning us to put away the strong booze in anticipation of her son Oliver on his way home with friends from an everyday afternoon of heavy drinking. (Georgia is the oldest wine culture in the world)

The conversation: Songs for a Georgia playlist.

Mandy offered up Babushka more for the fact that many women in Georgia look like Kate Bush than for the fact that they later turn into the classic image of a Russian Babushka.
Scott offered up All along the Watchtower since we were inside one of those tall border country watchtowers that we’d been seeing for the last two days as we climbed the mountains of Svanetti to their peak in Ushguli, just shy of the Russian border.

Davit, our bike guide sitting at the head of the tabletop a moments break from editing the days droneography to toast us with the cha cha we had brought from a peasant who gave us shelter from the rain earlier in the day. Cha cha is a potent Georgian grape based spirit served up in a sheeps horn.

Davit wants to illustrate the religiosity of toasting in Georgian culture:

“When the countries were being given out by God, the Georgians had been drinking cha cha, getting a little tipsy. You’ve missed out said God when they arrived. All the lands have now been taken.”
“I’m sorry about that,” said the Georgians to God. “We were late because we were toasting you and your creations, and when us Georgians toast they are never short toasts, particularly to you God.”
God was flattered.
“Well I was keeping this special green mountain enclosed paradise for myself” said God, touched by their speeches, “but here you go.”

Reza comes in from putting away the last of the cows, a tray of cheesy bread balanced on her arm. In Russian she tells Timur that her sons and his friends, a little bit drunk from an afternoon of boozing, will be arriving soon. She spots the Borjomi bottle full of cha cha that we’d bought from a local farmer on the ride up earlier in the day, and quickly hid it.

Davit does another toast – to Georgia, to the women of the world, to friendship – which means compulsory shots. Timur cops it the worst. He is the favourite of all Georgians amongst our group for ribbing the Georgians about how much Mongol blood is within them from the numerous Mongol invasions.
He is pretty drunk by the time Reza’s son and friends arrive with their own ten litre bottle of sharp and vinegary wine. They’re wild eyed from drinking.
Gruff, and serious like resistance fighters come in from the hills in a WW2 period film.

Their wine is not as strong as cha cha, so the big long sheep horn, the curly one of the wild Ibex is brought into service.

The toasts become longer as we stall the actual drinking.

Timur wants to stall further drinking, but cannot resist toasting our hosts Reza and her giant husband Illya, kneeling on the floor before them and putting his forehead on their laps in traditional supplication.

Evereyone thinks its funny when he gets up and then says I am Coba – The Georgian name for Jospeh Stalin that Davit had earlier given to Timur.
Timur had been getting laughs from this declaration all day long.
Stalin was born in Georgia, and Davit explained that we could think of Stalin having taken over Russia, rather than the other way around if we wanted. Perhaps it was more favourable calling him Coba than Ghengis, the destroyer of the Georgian golden age, as Timur likes to remind everyone he met along the way.

“ I am Mongolia!” Timur would also declare sporadically throughout the trip, and usually to very dramatic and eloquent effect.

“Shut up. i want to make a toast,” was however the level of eloquence after Timur’s 11th goat-horn of wine.

Reza and Illya’s Son, Oliver sitting at the table did not get the shutter joke.

“We are a free people. I believe in Freedom. You don’t tell me to shut up”, said this wild cha cha eyed man of the watchtowers, standing up from his chair and sticking his chest out at Coba-Timur.
Unlike the rest of Georgia – Ushgulians had actually never been conquered by the Mongols. They famously fortified themselves with hundreds of watch towers, women and men ready to do battle in their chain mail and with their huge club like hands, and super strengthened muscles from scything the grass from fields by hand. Possibly too, they were left alone by the Mongols who preferred the long sweeping plains where they could graze their horses. the debate was beyond this level by this time.

Timur: No, just Shuddup (subtext … you’re going to love this toast more than any toast in the world because i am going to praise you so much but just shut up first so I can say it, I’m drunk).

Scott (longtime friend and drinking companion of Timur, and co-reccier of this Georgian odyssey) : “Timur you’re drunk, just sit down. none wants to hear you.”

Timur: You shuddup too. Just Shuddup. I am Mongolia!

Oliver: We are free people. you don’t tell us to shut up.

Bristle bristle gristle gristle.

Mandy and I sit on the sidelines humming lines from Sting about the Russians loving their children too, then sneak off up stairs listening to the shuddup, no you shuddup, no you shuddup from beneath our duvets, adding the song Shut up by the Back Eyed Peas to our Georgian Playlist, that will be hopefully be very un-obvious to anyone else that visits this dramatic and potentially boozy part of the world.