August 1997
Pete Evans
Tbilisi - A Strange place to Sail
I started organising a computer and phone system for Georgia about five months ago, while EBRD found and renovated a suitable office space. I usually visit in the early stages to meet suppliers, but this time I put my trust in Compaq's judgement of the suppliers and skipped that trip.
Finally the office renovation was said to be complete and I flew out here last Wednesday via Turkey. After a long wait in Istanbul airport, I arrived in Tbilisi at midnight and got to sleep at three a.m.
Up at 0830, feeling pretty tired due to the 3 hour time difference making my body tell me it was 0530 when the alarm woke me up. Off to the office at 0930, I met our local mission advisor, a pretty 28 year old Georgian, self assured, capable, and very efficient. We have quite a few such women in this region, very switched on and well connected in the ministries of local government.
Getting things done quickly in this part of the world is not easy so I know she must be a lot more than just a pretty face. So much of my job is "Kicking ass!" as I call it. Taking "Not possible, "Tomorrow" and "Nyet!" out of the equation and getting the job done "Now!!" People have an amazing capacity to stand around and discuss every problem instead of arranging a solution and moving on to the next task without pause. I do everything I can myself and as time is short I rarely pause, simply switch tasks when I get tired or hit a problem that can't be fixed right away. I can't be very nice to work with as I insist, shout, threaten, beg - whatever it takes. But I get what I want and the job gets done. It takes a lot out of me, really long days, lots of adrenaline - after a week of focused rage and hard work I am beat.
Mariam takes me to see the office and I am horrified to find it looking like a building site. Workers are varnishing the wood floor, ladders, tools, paint, dust are everywhere. I need a completed and furnished office to install my systems in - not a building site. Tbilisi will be one of EBRD's smaller offices so I am installing a cut down system here. I bought a Compaq server, workstations, network hub and an HP printer, from a local supplier - gives us local support. I install the hardware and software into the office myself (server and email gateway pictured left). The building contractors ran the twisted pair cabling and fitted the wall points, leaving a big bundle of loose cables in the server room. I had a small patch panel shipped from England for me to install, terminate all cables, add the hub and label it all neatly (pictured right). I brought a six extension phone system from Prague which will share two phone lines and run over the twisted pair cabling system as well, giving the office the ability to move phones and PC's around the office space as required.
The young sales manager from the local computer supplier speaks good English and has been very helpful even through my ranting and raving as I try to get the systems up and running with daunting logistical nightmares and not enough time. On Friday he dropped by and invited me to go sailing with him on Sunday. Sailing!? "Where?" I asked, in surprise. "On a man made lake not far from Tbilisi." he replied, " I have a boat on balloons." "A what!?" I was determined to go sailing on the "boat on balloons", so I worked very late on Friday night and well into the night on Saturday in order to get the systems to a stage I felt confident I could finish things on Monday. I felt guilty taking time out but I have had so little chance to see the places I visit recently that I couldn't pass up the opportunity. I'm glad I didn't.
On Sunday I had a leisurely breakfast over a book then sat writing in my room until noon. The river winds through the city below. Rolling green hills unfold on the other side of the river, topped by a huge TV tower. At the base of the tower is a big acropolis like building, over looking which the city far below. A funicular railway leads up the steep mountain side from the town. Nestled between two hills, closer to me, and the river, lies a ruined castle, crowned by a big white "Mother Russia" type statue.
Georgia is a place one hears snippets about - most of it not good, war, Mafia and prostitution. But talking to people who had been here I had gleaned a different picture. A pretty green city of warm, friendly people. And so far that is what I have found.
Georgie, his brother, father and a friend picked me up at the hotel at noon, in a battered Lada. We drove through the city and into the hills beyond, finally, topping a rise, Tbilisi Sea came into view down on the far side. Surrounded by rolling green grassy hills, a long, lovely, blue lake stretched in both directions before us. We descended from the hills to the "Tbilisi Yacht Club", a dilapidated yard in a small bay, guarded by an old man with a chain across the road. He lowered the chain for us and we drove in. I was dying to see what the club contained.
The yard did indeed have a somewhat nautical air, combined with the typical, grey, post Soviet decay, a few boats in various stages of neglect lay in cradles. A shiny new flag pole surprised me from one corner of the yard. Down in the bay, complete with concrete slipway, a dozen small fibreglass sloops lay at moorings, not bad looking boats - as modern looking fin keeled craft found anywhere.
The "boat on balloons" turned out to be a Russian made Hobie cat thing, about 16 feet long, with inflatable hulls affixed under an alloy frame with the usual trampoline between. A single fully battened main with a wishbone boom powered the craft. First we had to put it together though, my friends had little previous experience with boats and had done the best they could on previous attempts. Georgie's father bought the boat by mail order from Russia several years ago. It arrived completely dismantled and, for some reason, it sat in their basement for years before they used it for the first time. By then, of course, the assembly instructions were nowhere to be found. Now several local "nauticos" added their suggestions to the confusion as we fitted the partially constructed vessel together, over the next hour or two. Gentle suggestions were overruled by the local experts so I held back my advice from the already overload forum and watched in amusement as familiar fittings were turned this way and that before being installed upside down. Finally the craft was as together as it was likely to get and we carried it down the ramp, loaded a case of beer and cast off.
The sun was out and a good breeze had sprung up as we sailed out of the yacht basin; what a surprise to be sailing, this weekend, in Georgia. It felt wonderful to be on the water again, I was so glad I had not resisted the temptation to take the day off. The catamaran sailed surprisingly well, Georgie had taught himself to sail without anybody to show him the ropes so I had to restrain myself from making myself unpopular with too many adjustments of sail and course.
We spent the afternoon sailing up and down the lake. The Tbilisi Sea is a man made lake, dammed for drinking water - it's wonderfully clean and pure. We lowered the beer into the cold waters below and jumped and splashed from the boat. Then we lay in the sun on the trampoline, drinking cold beer, telling anecdotes while we drifted. These young Georgians were well educated, smart and well informed. The conversation was fun. One of them was studying history in Budapest and added to my scant knowledge of Georgia and it's history.
Georgia, with a population of around four million, is a Christian country primarily surrounded by Muslims. The unique Georgian alphabet, one of only about a dozen in the world, looks to me, something between Arabic and Iranian, dates from the fifth century. The currency is the Lari and is worth about 1.25 to the dollar. Georgia's position on the silk road has brought frequent battles over the centuries as neighbouring countries fought for control of the vital trade route.
Battered by the recent war, Georgia is having a tough time. With few natural resources they relied heavily on tourism, now lost to war and the soviet collapse. Today agriculture and a little gold exploration provides a little for the coffers but I'm not sure what provides the rest. The infrastructure is very run down. The roads are dreadful, we dodged holes the width of the road that would tear the bottom off the cars of the unwary. The power grid lacks fuel and upkeep, power is on for as little as two hours a day in the cold winter months. Georgians try to supplement heat and lighting with kerosene heaters and generators, adding greatly to the cost of living.
A beer after work with one local contact added more to my picture of life here. Salaries are abysmal, the pension is about eight dollars a month. A professor makes about twenty a month, a diplomat as little as five and many make only fifteen or so. I'm told that living a minimal life costs about a hundred and fifty, so families support their elders, wives work and husbands hold several jobs - flitting from one to the other to keep bosses placated. This goes some way to explain why things are difficult for me here as I try to get things done quickly - local contractors keep disappearing, perhaps off to their other jobs at intervals during the day - just when I need them.
I have found the people to be friendly and helpful. The food, what little local food I managed to sample, is tasty and pleasantly wholesome and the wine is well regarded though I didn't get round to sampling it as I spent almost all my time in the office apart from the Sunday outing.
On Monday I started early in the office and worked non-stop through to ten thirty in the evening to get the system completed before my departure at 0530 this morning. I arrived here in Istanbul at 0730 and will sit in the business lounge until my flight to Prague at 1430. After a frantic week's work, to sit here quietly with nothing to do but write this, is a pleasure.
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