A Trip to Georgia
During the summer of 1997, 12 or so of my friends and choirmates in Darbazi and I decided to take a tour of Georgia. While there we were joined by the trio Kavkasia, an American trio who also sings the music of the Republic of Georgia. Our plan was to sing at concerts, learn songs and to absorb Georgian culture. The tour lasted different lengths for different members, depending on how much time they could arrange. As for myself, I was there for four weeks. My sister, Becca Whitla, and her husband, Alan Gasser, had already been there for a week before I had arrived, so they had settled into the apartment we had rented. As a result, it was easy for me to get comfortable. This apartment was in downtown Tblisi, the capital of Georgia, and was to be our home base during our adventures.
Tblisi is a beautiful city of approximately 2 million people. The main language spoken there is Georgian, which is not related to Russian, although that is the second language of most Georgians. The buildings in Tblisi are exquisitely beautiful and many are quite old. There are numerous gardens, monuments, and cultural centres. The city is now going through many changes as capitalism is exerting itself for the first time since the Soviet Union fell. Who will pay for upkeep of its infrastructure (e.g. hospitals, electricity, civil servants) for the moment seems uncertain. Georgia's economy is closely linked to agriculture and this can also be seen in Tblisi where much of its surrounding area is covered in fruit orchards. Even the communist built apartment buildings often have grape vines growing up the walls with different parts of it tended by apartment dwellers.

Darbazi live in Concert at the University of Tblisi

All of this drinking and singing took place about noon. Then we continued our journey. Enhanced in spirit and spirits, we arrived in a town near Mesdia called Lenjerry around 5 in the afternoon. Hear we stayed with Islam Pilpani and his family. Islam is leader of a group that specializes in Svan music and his whole family are musicians trained in many styles of Georgian music as well as European music. Of course there was a supra prepared for us and the singing went far into the night. The next morning, Andrea, John and I, accompanied by Gia, separated from the rest of the group and went back to Tblisi to leave the Trio Kavkasia to study under Islam Pilpani's tutalage.
Back in Tblisi we developed a friendship with another Georgian music group called Georgika, a young group of singers who perform with great gusto. In their group, they have several instrumentalists who play traditional instruments known as salamuri (recorder type), panduri (three stringed fretted lute type) and chonguri (four stringed unfretted lute type). I was lucky to get some lessons from Alico on the panduri and chonguri. He was extremely adept on both instruments. During this time, I was also able to have some instruments made for me to take back to Canada. I had a panduri, chonguri (pictured below), and several salamuri ordered and manufactured by Gkako, who is a master instrument maker in Tblisi. Gkako also demonstrated Georgian hospitality by giving me an instrument called a diduki (a double reed woodwind).
Our next adventure was traveling to Guria with Georgika and a Chechnian choir. Guria is a part of Georgia in the west on the south shore of the Black Sea, famous among other things for its songs of complicated counterpoint. We traveled in a large school bus with many additional friends to make the journey more enjoyable. When we arrived in Guria we were reunited with our friends from Kavkasia. The main reason for this trip was to sing in an annual music festival. The festival was to be held in the evening so the afternoon was free to enjoy equestrian activities. Georgians love horses and many songs are devoted to horses and horse riding. Two main sports were on the agenda for the afternoon - horseball (a game similar though more robust than polo) and a game played with spears, where one rider chases another and must touch him with his spear. The champion of the horse race was given a Darbazi T-shirt as a victory prize.
The evening was started with a concert that featured many older singers that sing styles not common today. The American Kavkasia received a standing ovation from the Georgian audience who were amazed to hear foreigners sing not only Georgian songs but also a particular Gurian style known as crimanchuli (a type of virtuostic yodeling).

After the concert there was of course a supra. In this case it was a feast for several hundred and it was a raucous occasion that at one point had horses galloping through the dining room.
Our traveling group united once again, we together made our way back to Tbilsi, a trip that should take only a few hours. However, when a vehicle breaks down in Georgia it often is left up to the driver to fix the problem on his own. Our schoolbus had several mechanical problems. This did not dampen our Georgian host's spirits and they seemed to look at the delays as opportunities to engage in games of physical competition. During the first delay they played a game where one team would link arm-in-arm and shoulder-to-shoulder in a circle crouching over. The other team would leap upon them until they collapsed. At the next delay, we were near a mountain river so we all had a refreshing swim in its rushing waters. The trip that should have taken 3 hours eventually took 12 hours, but the experiences we had were wonderful. When we arrived back in Tblisi I only had a few days left before we had to leave, so there was hardly enough time to say goodbye to all my new friends properly.

by Mike Whitla