The Land of Big Dreams

Georgian claims ear-pull world record

Mon 29 Oct 2007, 15:16 GMT

TBILISI, Georgia (Reuters) - Georgian athlete Lasha Pataraia might not be the strongest man on earth but he may have the strongest ears.

Pataraia believes he has dragged himself into the record books at the Alexeyevka military airfield near the Georgian capital Tbilisi on the weekend when he pulled a 7,734 kg (17,050 lb) military helicopter for 26.3 metres (yards) with his ear.

Pataraia, 27, encouraged by a crowd of his family, friends and supporters, attached one end of the rope to his ear while the other end was tied to the front wheel of the helicopter.

Followed by the cheering crowd, he pulled it for about 20 seconds, almost fainting after he finished.

Just minutes after setting a new world record, Pataraia told reporters he was already planning to set another record.

"It was very difficult, I was very nervous. But I hope in the future with both my ears to move a subject twice as heavy as this one," Pataraia told Reuters Television.

The organisers of the event claimed that Pataraia has set both the world and the Guinness record although a representative of the Guinness Book of Records was not present.

© Reuters 2007. All Rights Reserved.

Rules of the Road

You've all heard the stories, one of the charming idiosyncrasies of living in Tbilisi is the appalling driving displayed by the locals. You hear the jokes and wise cracks and think, "They're bad drivers, I get it, so are half the people on the Beltway." Oh, but you don't 'get it.' In an effort to broaden your cross cultural understanding we have compiled the following list of driving guidelines (because in Tbilisi, as in hashing, there are no rules.)

The Traffic Circle


Unlike the in US, where it is taken for granted that drivers approaching a traffic circle understand that they must yield the right of way to the traffic that is already in the circle, Georgian drivers approach traffic circles with a level of stammering discomfort similar to a guy at a party who reaches for the last beer only to brush the hand of the most beautiful girl in the room who is reaching for the same beer. The exchange goes something like this:

"Oh! I'm sorry, did you-"
"Oh, I didn't-"
"No, please. I can get-"
"No, no. It's not a prob-"
"I insist. Please, it's on me." (attempt at 'charming')
"Well, alright."

Now replace the beer with honking horns, the brushing hands with screeching tires, and the polite insistances with halting brakes and you have the dance that is the Georgian traffic circle. The exchange goes something like this:

"Is he gonna go or not?"
"Don't they know they have the right of way if they're in the circle?!"
"They're not going to move, just go."
"WAIT! WAIT! They're going!"
Hoooooonk, honk, honk.
"Freakin' Georgian drivers."

Lines Are for Beginners

One of the first things we noticed about drivers in Georgia is that no one seems to believe that the lines painted on the road are meant for them. Cars are constantly pulling out into on coming traffic to get around the rare driver who is not treating his commute to work like a drag race, only to squeeze back over the line an instant before what would surely be a fatal head on collision. What may appear to be a 2 lane road to the Western eye will be transformed to a 6 lane super highway by Georgian drivers. Silly girl, that's not a shoulder. It's a bus stop/parking space/passing lane.

The lack of attention paid to obvious traffic markings is not an original or rare complaint among Westerners here. A few weeks ago Seth and a couple other guys were joking about it over lunch and decided to ask a local "What gives?"

"The lines?" he asked. "Oh, those are just for beginners."

and that's no lie.



One Way, Schmun Way

How many times have you found yourself face-to-face with a one way street that is the only thing standing between you and your destination? "Damn!" you think, "If I could just get down that street!"


Well in Georgia, you can! Corporate monkeys sitting around their conference tables brainstorming solutions to the recent fall in profits could stand to take a page out of the Georgian Drivers Manual (excuse me, I just snorted Diet Coke out my nose at the thought of such a tome.) These people invented "thinking outside the box."

The street you need is one way in the opposite direction? No problem, simply make sure that your car is pointed in the correct direction and then throw it in reverse. Proceed to weave in and out of the oncoming traffic and feel free to honk at any inconsiderate drivers who wont get out of your way. I mean, after all, you're the one who has to drive looking backwards over your shoulder. Surely they can avoid you while looking straight ahead!

Do You Speak Horn?

In Tbilisi there are 4 forms of communication: Non-verbal, spoken, written and horn. Americans, listen up! We have been underutilizing that soft, squishy area in the center of our steering wheel for too long! Gone are the days when honking your horn meant "Hey watch it jack-ass!" or "Oh my God, oh my God, OH MY GOD I'M GOING TO DIE!" Leave it to the Georgian driver to once again open your eyes to new possibilities.

In Georgia, honking one's horn is merely a form of communication, with different honks conveying a veritable cornucopia of meanings. For example:

a short, non-aggressive honk = "I'm in your blind spot. Don't move, I'll pass you in a second."
a long, protracted blast with no break = "The light is about to turn green, why are we still sitting here? Go already! I'll pass you in a second."
2 short honks followed by a moderate blast = "Good morning Giorgi, my wife tells me that your wife is pregnant. Congratulations on your fertile seed! I'll pass you in a second."

We hope that these simple guidelines will enhance your future travels.

Little House in Tbilisi

So, Meg and I seem to be living on the TV set to Little House on the Prairie. Between the Conestoga Wagon we spotted a few weeks ago and the preparations for the winter we're doing now, I'm convinced.

This weekend we decided to take advantage of the dirt cheap fruit & veggie prices and our own bountiful harvest and start getting ready for the upcoming shortages. We went down the street and bought about 18 tomatoes and made some homemade spaghetti
sauce. We used some fresh bay leaves from the tree in the back yard as well and canned them in old pickle jars we had. (Since we're going to freeze it, we're not too concerned about truly canning them, but we did boil the jars and the button is now showing a vacuum seal.) For about the cost of 4 Georgian Lari (GEL), we made 3 jars that probably would have cost us 15 GEL. Who knows what they'll cost in February.


Also, our pomegranate trees are dumping a LOT of fruit right now. So between last weekend and this weekend we spent about 6 or so hours cutting into them and picking out the tasty seeds and sticking them into freezer bags so that we can have them throughout the winter. They're pretty good on cereal in the morning and Meg got adventurous and made pomegranate syrup one day. Maybe we'll track down a juicer and juice some. Maybe.

We've also harvested the hazelnuts from our tree, though without a nut cracker, they're just sitting there taunting me. We haven't exactly figured out what we're supposed to do with them, so odds are, we'll screw up somehow and we'll have a tupperware full of a science experiment that used to be Hazelnuts, but now is threatening to provide us penicillin.



The dried fruit experiment we tried last week, didn't work out so well. After 5 hours of drying, the apple slices weren't really that dry. They were close, but we probably need to cut them thinner or they'll probably rot pretty quickly.

In short, if our survival for the coming winter is dependent on our food stores and proper preparation, we're doomed. We may wind up foraging for katchupuri scraps with the local ferrel dogs. (We're not in east Asia, so I think the dogs are safe here.) Thankfully there are also sushi restaurants, though given the surroundings, they're a little suspect.

Meg's Lake Run

On Saturday morning we decided to make our way to Lisi Lake. We have been meaning to get to this lake set back in the hills North of our house to explore and go for a run. After breakfast we filled up our water bottles and head out. No sooner have we gotten out of the truck before I had to go to the bathroom (and I'm not talkin' #1 if you catch my drift!)

After some reproachful looks from Seth (who always remembers to evacuate his body before leaving home) and wandering around the old Soviet ruins on the lake shore looking for an out house or toilet of some kind, we finally approach two old Georgian men who are sitting on a bench. In broken Georgian we say "Good Morning" and communicate my "need." They point in a general direction past the parking lot.

We head that way and climb a small set of stairs to a crumbling concrete structure that looks like something out of the movie Hostel (thank God it is daylight or I may have lost my nerve.) Seth and I walk in and find 3 holes in the ground full of shit and garbage that look like they haven't been used in years.

I don't have a choice, either I add my donation to the hole or I take the truck home. I am really looking forward to this run. Seth and I walk back outside and each take out the photo copy of our passports that we run with in case of emergency. We tear the edges of blank paper around the copy off for me to use as toilet paper. Seth, the constant gentleman, crinkles his paper until it takes on the softness of Quilted Northern. After I drop the kids off at the town landfill, we head out for a truly cool run along the ridge line surrounding the lake.

Now, If I don't get some serious "tough chick" points for that there is a problem with the world as we know it.

Tbilisi HHH Celebrates #200 in Telavi

What better way to celebrate your 200th hash in a country that is known for its wines, than by going to a wine tasting? On Saturday morning, Meg & I packed our bags for the weekend and met some folks to drive the 2 hrs to Telavi. The drive was overall uneventful and much better than the drive to Shatili. (Read: the roads were paved the entire way.) We showed up, checked into our hotel -- which was surprisingly quite nice, though they didn't have enough beds for all of us due to a shipment problem earlier in the week. (Somehow they found enough cots to fill our needs.) We went for a hash in the beautiful country side around two old monasteries (one seen here). The run was great fun, despite the trail disappearing at points.

The guy who had set the trail earlier that morning came back with stories of highly agitated shepherds who were beside themselves when they spotted him running through their pastures dropping handfuls of flour every 20 feet or so. One shepherd approached him and gestured to see this mysterious white powder that he was dotting their fields with. When he handed over the bag of flour the shepherd reached a hand inside and took a handful, asked in Russian, "May I?" and proceeded to put the handful of flour into his shirt pocket.

After hearing this we were not surprised to discover that many of the trail marks which had been carefully laid earlier that day had disappeared. Either the shepherds diligently rubbed out the marks to keep the crazy Westerner from returning with his friends or they scooped up each little mound of grain to run home and start baking bread for the coming winter.

We then went home and had a "supra-lite" -- which is to say a supra composed mostly of foreigners and only lasting 6 hours. (That's a lot of heavy wine drinking in my book.) The food was great and I think the wine was good, but who really knows. (For real supras, apparently they budget 20L PER PERSON.)

Some of us staggered up in the morning for breakfast, then we had a quick little hangover hash outside the hotel. (I got nominated to live hare it as I think I was the only one really willing to carry a 5 lb bag of flour around in the morning. I found another shepard that was none too thrilled about me throwing white stuff on the ground.) We came back, cleaned up a bit and went wine tasting before we drove back home.

Man's Best Friend, Meg's New Nemesis

I write today in an appeal for help. Family, friends, I have come to you for guidance and trusted advice over the past 30 years. I come to you today because I need to find a way to deal with the feral dogs outside my apartment window. For the past 3 nights I have been treated to, what sounds like, several stray dogs intent on killing, or at least slowly torturing, one another in the parking lot behind my apartment. They hold a standing appointment at 2:45 am with encore performances at 4:15 and 5:45. These are not merely obnoxious barks, these are calls to attack mingled with the agonizing cries of the defeated. I nearly broke down this morning and committed the classic ghetto act of screaming out the window: "SHUT THE BLANKETY-BLANK UP!"

Fortunately I was able to maintain a shred of dignity and instead, got dressed and walked over to the house at 6:30am

My trusted confidants, if you have any guidance (or a small handgun) I would be in your debt.

This blog enters the 21 Century. (Beating Georgia by miles...)

Hey, so for those of you who have made some comments, I made some technical changes / discoveries this week with the blog.

• For those looking for RSS Feeds. You can put the following into your RSS reader (Firefox for me) and it should give you the feed.

• http://spartanoverseas.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

• Also, for those who were trying to post comments but found you had to log in to do that: I believe I have changed it so that anonymous posts now work. If you're going to be anonymous tho, please at least sign it so that I know you're there.

I may change the RSS feed to feedburner to keep better stats of who's subscribed to the feed, etc, but I need to look at that more. Changes to that feature will be posted here first.

Thanks for reading all. Send us comments as its the only way we know you're reading it!