I am in love with Turkey . I like
the views, the people, the ruins, the food, I like relative comfort. The second
day of our trip included all of that, as we rushed out of Erzurum (nothing too interesting) and
continued our quest for ancient stuff.
Passing gorgeous mountains, we reached the Hahuli monastery,
erected in the 10th century, now serving as a mosque. The monastery
is in the middle of Turkish village and
local teenagers rudely pestered us to buy candles. We refused, joined a
group of French tourists, walked in, looked at the wall ornaments. We found a
stream of water and I was so thirsty I drank it, despite the threat of becoming
a lamb (familiar with Russian fairy tales? Anyone?). I am still alive.
We climbed down to more civilized roads, to a water dam, for
a picnic of olives and Turkish bread. Life was good. Adventures all around.
Afterwards, we toured Oshki, a spectacular basilica, the first one of four
great Georgian churches: Oshki, Svetistskhoveli, Bagrati and Alaverdi. The
three ones that stand on Georgian ground have been changed and remodeled
several times, but Oshki pretty much looks like it did – except, it is on a
verge of a collapse. The 11-century-old icons are exposed to wind and rain, the
roof has caved in and one of the hollowed-out pillars is supported by a wood
log. It is big, it is beautiful and it is devastated. Once more, our extreme
nationalism and intolerance is harming us; Turkey
and Georgia negotiated about
reconstruction of three historical monuments – including Oshki – in exchange
for reconstruction of an old mosque in Batumi .
This was followed by national outrage…a mosque in Batumi , what for (maybe for all the Muslims
that do not have enough space in existing one)?!…and as a result, Oshki stands
orphaned and sad. Villagers build houses using its walls. Tragic.
Our next destination involved massive canyon, were rocks
seemed to inhale us, crush us and eat us alive. Cliffs hanging over our car,
brown, scary, looking like a crumpled cardboard, like old man’s skin…we took a
long, unpaved, one-car wide serpentine road in the sunset, hoping to make it
alive. As we reached the top of a very remote village, we discovered that the
final point of our destination – the Ishkhani monastery- was closed for
reconstruction. On one hand, we were glad that Turkish government decided to
take care of the monument. Even in the dusk, workers kept busy. On the other
hand, Ishkani has interesting 11-th century icons that we wanted to see. Thus,
we risked our lives for no reason. We turned around and raced the remains of
daylight to get off that scary, but thrilling road.
By the end of the day, tired and sweaty, we opted out of
planned camping and crashed in a hotel in a small town of Usufeli . The room was cheap but clean. It was
placed on a cliff and our windows directly overlooked the river that lulled us
to sleep. Our journey was almost over.
Pic: the lake where we had our picnic
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