the caucasus.

date. 2025

city. baku, tbilisi

December 24, 2025 – Almaty to Baku

Almaty.

That’s where we finally said our goodbye. It’s where I walked you downstairs, splashed across the slushy courtyard, opened the door to your taxi, and let you disappear into a cloud of smog.

It’s where I huddled in the bathroom, choking on my sobs. You came in and put your arms around me.

It’s where I’ll always no longer be yours.

It’s where we watched our last movie, drank our last tea, shared our last bed.

What’s that phrase again? ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.’

I usually buy mint Colgate toothpaste. This time I bought SPLAT. Your favorite.

A tube of toothpaste.

Who would have guessed that it would be a tube of toothpaste that sets the clock on our relationship?

How long does it take to finish a tube of toothpaste? Two months? Three?

My last tube lasted nearly 5.

Does that mean that you’ll be with me for 5 more months?

Now I’m flying to Baku. A trip I’d booked a month ago; to spend the period from Christmas to New Years. Alone.

I’d imagined a grand Caucasian expedition. Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia in 8 days. A prelude to my trip to Russia this summer.

I’ve spent lots of time in Eastern Europe, a month in Yugoslavia, and a year in Central Asia. And now a week in the Caucasus -- trying to stitch together some concept of the Soviet Union. If that’s even possible.

The USSR collapsed just as I was born. In a sense, I grew up in a world far too fragmented to comprehend itself. Empires lay shattered, their torn carcasses bleeding out across the globe. And yet, the US burned as brightly as ever. I am reminded of the golden torch on the Statue of Liberty. I remember craning my neck to get a glimpse of her from the backseat of my parents’ minivan, as we crossed the Brooklyn Bridge. As if just seeing her, standing tall in the colossal shadow of the Manhattan skyline, just seeing her green gown and starry crown was all the proof I needed. Everything would be alright.

But I’m not in NY. And my lady is gone.

December 25, 2025 – Baku

Baku has been a series of unfortunate events.

When booking my flight to Tbilisi, I had the option of a short or a long layover in Baku. I’d never been to the Soviet oil-rich port city before, so I chose the longer 9-hour stopover.

I recalled my teenage stopovers in European capitals on my way back and forth from Israel. Those stopovers (snatched from the jaws of my reclusive childhood) were my secret adventures and my first introductions to ‘the world’.

But when I handed my passport to the border agent at Heyder Aliyev Airport, they simply handed it right back: “Visa.”

Oops. This has never happened to me before.

The day before, I had gone skiing outside Almaty, hoping to distract myself from the breakup. I’d returned home late, tired, and sore as hell. Then a red-eye flight to Baku, and here I was – rejected at the border.

The good news is that I could apply for an urgent visa – it would only take 3 hours and cost me $72. It was either that or sit in the airport for 9 hours. Or book a new flight to Tbilisi.

I chose the visa.

Rather than just sitting on a bench for three hours, I went back through security, using my ticket, and checked into a lounge.

After a couple hours and a few coffees, I went in search of the exit but strangely couldn’t find any way to leave the airport. I went to the info desk where a young woman informed me that I couldn’t leave.

Huh?

Apparently, once you go through security, you NEED to take your flight.

I showed her the entry visa I’d just applied for. And I showed her my puppy eyes.

She made some calls.

“Wait here. Someone will escort you out.”

An hour later, a couple of security guards showed up to escort me out of the airport.

After a few well-earned hours in the city – I visited a really cute café called La Mia Colazione, and just wandered around the old center and expansive corniche – I came back to the airport only to find that my boarding pass was no longer valid.

Apparently, you only get one scan, and I’d already used mine when I’d scanned it earlier that day to get into the lounge.

Uh oh.

I went back to the check-in counter to print out a new boarding pass, but then they weighed my bag again and said I was overweight.

Jesus.

So, I took some stuff out and wore two pairs of pants.

Back to security and still rejected.

Don’t tell anyone, but the security guard just typed something on her computer and let me through.

A couple hours later, my flight took off and Baku was finally behind me.

December 26 - Tbilisi

Why do I say that Georgia is the spiritual capital of the world?

Is it her red crosses that fly from the balconies? Or the graffitied messages of resistance that color her grey walls? Or the golden orthodox spires that pepper her hills?

Or perhaps it’s the black-on-black outfits that Tbilisians seem to adore. Long black felt coats with sleeves so long that only the cherry tips of their smoldering cigarettes peak out.

It might be because when I visited the bookstore and asked for the Georgian literature section, I was pointed to a shelf filled with copies of “The Lives of the Georgian Saints”.

Soviet drab meets Orthodox bling.

Tbilisi exudes an unwavering darkness and a proud melancholy which seems all too accurate.

The café where I sit typing these words has a sign on the wall opposite me: MY FAVORITE SEASON IS THE FALL OF THE PATRIARCHY.

In all caps. I think you can safely delete the last three words.

And yet, at the very same time, my stroll through the Georgian Museum of Fine Arts convinces me thoroughly: Georgia is truly colorful.

My favorite hall contains the works of Irakli Parjiani who emerged from Georgia’s mountains to paint the most dazzling explorations of the Gospels. I love his series on the Crucifixion (where a lifeless Christ melts down in rivers of spilled paint) and the Last Supper (where the noisy white figures are anchored around an almost-smoldering cup of wine and a mysteriously sharp knife).

I’ve never before seen a city that crumbles upwards.

I spent my first day in Tbilisi wandering the streets and occupying the cafes. Then I went home to an empty Airbnb and waited for sleep.

I’ve lost all interest in history. I’ll just wander Tbilisi, buy some books, drink wine, and brood (in good old Soviet fashion) over all that is broken and all that is gone.

A cross provides a sense of place. A meeting. A focal point where all of life appears. A sense of being. The cross unequivocally says: I am here. Coordinates. And therefore: orientation.

A crescent provides an arc. A narrative. A beginning and an end. And therefore: a purpose. And a belonging.

The Star of David? An unsolvable maze.

All real cities suffer from an overwhelming sense of muchness.

The Georgian flag is white with 5 blood-red crosses.

I’m much worse without you. Every day I feel myself getting worse. And it really scares me.

Thank you very much for sharing that with me. The one single thing that makes any of this livable for me is that you’re doing it with me. Even if we are doing it separately. I know you’re out there and that you know how it feels.

You know, I think that breaking up was one of the most intimate things we’ve ever shared. And then you were gone. And all I had was my pain.

I know it doesn’t help to share these words. But you’re the only one I can share them with. And I don’t know how to live without sharing my words.

Without my words, I’m nothing. And that’s how I’ve felt since you left. Like nothing.

Wherever we had been in Russia, in Moscow, in the Ukraine, in Stalingrad,
the magical name of Georgia came up constantly.
People who had never been there, and who possibly never could go there,
spoke of Georgia with a kind of longing and a great admiration.
They spoke of Georgians as supermen, as great drinkers,
great dancers, great musicians, great workers and lovers.
And they spoke of the country in the Caucasus
and around the Black Sea as a kind of second heaven.
Indeed, we began to believe that most Russians hope that

if they live very good and virtuous lives,

they will go not to heaven, but to Georgia, when they die.

-- Excepted from: “Bread and Ashes” by Tony Anderson

December 28

After two days of wandering breathlessly up and down Tbilisi’s hills, I decided it was time to get out of town. I popped into one of Tbilisi’s countless courtyards to visit a tiny travel agency. Next thing I know, I’m booked on a tour for the following morning to Mount Kazbek.

I’d picked up a book by a British writer who’d crossed through the Caucasus around the turn of the century documenting the mountain tribe life and culture. So I was excited to see it for myself.

I was picked up at 9am and then we raced out of town, north, first stopping at the Zhinvali reservoir built by the Soviets (like much else in the Caucasus and Central Asia). As with most grand Soviet projects, progress came at a massive human cost: in this case, entire towns remain submerged deep under water. When the water level gets too low, I’m told, the spires of Orthodox churches pierce the surface.

We spent some time wandering around the spectacular Ananuri fortress complex overlooking the north end of the reservoir. To my naïve eyes, it looks like a cathedral, but as I quickly learn, everything in the Caucasus doubles as a fortress. Cathedral slash fortress. School slash fortress. Wall slash fortress.

As we turn right onto the Military Highway, my guide Dmitry explains that this road was first built by (guess who?) the Russians to enable their troops and weapons to penetrate more easily into the Caucasus. Just to the west of the highway is the city of Tskhinvali occupied by the Russians since their 2008 invasion. I guess old habits die hard.

The Georgians (as well as the Armenians) have endured millennia of perpetual occupation by the Persians, the Babylonians, the Ottomans, the Romans, the Russians, and so on. Through it all, the people have held stubbornly (and violently) to their language and identity. If you look at a map, the Caucasian countries are tiny lands (around 4 million people in both Georgia and Armenia) surrounded by massive superpowers (Russia, Turkey, and Iran). At the same time, the Caucasus is strategically placed on the border from Asia to Europe, at the heart of the new Silk Road. How did they resist being swallowed up like many of the peoples around them?

The many Georgians who I ask tell me the same thing: We are much older than our invaders. There is nothing we won’t do to be free. And indeed, the Caucasus have sired some of the most brutal fighters. The UFC champion rankings are absolutely littered with Georgian, Chechen, and Dagestani fighters. Dmitry tells me that growing up in Georgia, there were only two things to do: drink and fight.

We stop in Pasanauri for wine tasting and lunch. By ‘wine’ I guess they mean ‘alcohol’ because we were already three shots into some kind a grape-based vodka called Chacha before our lunch even arrived. I can’t tell whether the Georgians take more pride in their booze or their brutality. Perhaps, as Dmitry suggests, they go hand-in-hand.

Next, we stop near Gudauri – the famed ski resort – for honey tasting.

And then onto Kazbegi. As Dmitry informs me, if you haven’t visited Kazbegi – renamed in 2006 to Stepantsminda -- you haven’t visited Georgia. (“What are you even doing in Georgia, if you don’t go to Kazbegi?” he asks before answering himself. “Drinking, I guess.”)

This entire time, we had been driving steadily higher through the Jvari pass into the looming mountain range. White peaks dotted with the occasional religious shrine or fortress. The town of Kazbegi itself is splayed across the lower portion of one of the more spectacular mountain slopes, as if it too had stopped to take in the mystical view. We switched to a 4x4 to take us up to the Gergeti Trinity Church (slash fortress) where frigid winds choke us and icy slopes have us clinging to the ice-cold handrails for survival.

The view is grey-white and absolutely punishing. Surely the moon is more hospitable. Mt. Kazbek rises eloquently just opposite our perch.

On the drive back down, we follow a van that occasionally slides a few meters before catching itself against the deep snowy embankment on the roadsides.

About 30 minutes south of Kazbegi, we stop at the Friendship Monument built by the Soviets in 1983 to commemorate 200 years of “partnership”. Dmitry’s voice absolutely drips with sarcasm.

In any case, the monument – colorful mosaics framed against the snow-clad mountains – is stunning.

However this was no easy matter:

it was not just that the stalk pricked me at every turn,

even through the handkerchief I had wrapped round my hand;

it was so terribly tough that I was five minutes struggling with it,

breaking through the fibres one by one.

When at last I succeeded in plucking the flower,

the stalk was in shreds and the flower itself no longer seemed as fresh and beautiful as before.

And apart from that it was too crude and clumsy to go with the delicate flowers I had in my bunch.

I was sorry that I had needlessly destroyed a flower

which had been fine where it was, and threw it away.

But what strength and vigour, I thought,

recalling the effort it had cost me to pluck it.

How stoutly it defended itself, and how dearly it sold its life.

-- Excepted from: Hadji Murat by Lev Tolstoy

December 29

I met up with a middle-aged British couple, a colorful South African woman, and a quiet Japanese lady just outside the Opera House at 10am.

We were joined by our trusty guide who packed us into a van for a day trip across the southern border and into Armenia.

As opposed to Dmitry from the day before, today’s guide (who I’ll call T) was only too happy to discuss politics. According to T, the country of Azerbaijan isn’t real (but a Soviet project), the Chechens stand no chance of independence (since their leader is a Putin puppet), and Russian is a barbaric language fit for a barbaric people.

To be honest, I’ve found Georgia to be one of the most political nations I’ve ever visited. Even their parliament building overlooking the handsome Rustaveli Boulevard (named after the celebrated 12th century poet) is covered in graffiti. The wide stairs leading into the main courtyard are blocked by a row of tents covered in posters reminding the ministers that Russia is a terrorist state and that Nazis are not allowed. (The Georgians seem quite set on expelling the nazis – I’m unsure why it’s taking them so long.)

Tbilisi itself is teeming with Russian ‘expats’. I ask T why the ‘enemy’ population is so warmly welcomed. He says that the émigrés hate their own government just as much as the Georgians do.

We pass through the town of Marneuli, which T tells us is the regional symbol for coexistence – with its diverse population of Christians, Jews, Muslims from all three Caucasian countries. He says that every religious holiday is celebrated by the entire city, regardless of faith. He also informs us that the Georgian Jews are not responsible for the killing of Christ, since they arrived in Jerusalem too late to participate in Jesus’s trial.

Phew.

Just outside Marneuli is a large statue of a mother with her two young sons. The mother has her hands on their shoulders. The sons carry a large sword twice their own height. The monument is titled: They Will Grow.

T says that although a Georgian woman must watch her sons fall in battle, she can take consolation in that her youngest children will soon grow old enough to fight as well.

(I try my best not to point out the strange placement of this war monument just outside the city of peace.) In any case T informs us that war and peace are not opposites. If Georgia is to retain her independence, peace requires a constant state of war and rebellion.

Just before the border, we pass an old Soviet air force base, where the Russians would test their MiG fighter jets, invented by a pair of local Armenian boys just a few miles away.

We cross uneventfully into Armenia. Only I had to talk with a special immigration officer since I have an Azerbaijani stamp in my passport.

Compared to Georgia, Armenia feels like a medieval serfdom.

The drive is very pretty – winding our way along the deep canyons – but the villages are absolutely derelict. During Soviet times, this region was a bustling copper mining region, but after the collapse, everything was just left in place. Rusting railroad lines, abandoned metallurgical factories, collapsed bridges, swinging cable cars, and rows and rows of the 5-story grey apartment buildings that fill the USSR, from Warsaw to Dushanbe.

Frozen in time. Completely silent. Like a monument or a photograph. Or an accusation.

We spend the day visiting northern Armenia’s most impressive churches (slash fortresses) dating back to the 10th century. Akhtala, Haghpat, Sanahin, Kobayr. The large stone structures overlook a scene of desolation. Their insides are mostly bare. And cold. And timeless. Fading frescos recall ancient saints whose very names remain as powerful as ever – enough to inspire and galvanize a nation of warriors.

It's a sobering day. The icy wind rips mercilessly through these mountains, punishing everything in its path. There is nowhere to hide.

A light rain has fallen

Moistening the great field

If anybody says anything bad about us

Let our daggers rip his heart out.

-- A traditional Georgian toast

January 1

I spent my final days in the Caucuses all alone. I picked up some gifts for family back home. And pondered the feelings of loss and time. And hope.

I wish I could end with something sentimental and stirring. But to be honest, I just want to go home.