Wolf‘s Jump

Don’t get me as if I didn’t know what a passport means for the state. I understand everything, I understand the meaning of every letter and every page. The only thing I totally don’t understand is death. No, more accurately spoken, I cannot grasp murder. I don’t get murderers. How can they continue living after taking someone’s life, how can they?

Do you know your passport number by heart?
Do you know your passport’s date of issue?
Do you know how many pages your passport has?
Do you know what is illustrated on its pages?
Do you know your passport’s validation date or issuing authority?

Do you know what is written on the first page of your passport?
Do you know that you, as the holder of the passport, are under the protection of the state?
How often do you check the suitcase for your passport?
Have you observed how you behave before passport control?
Do you get anxious? I do.
Have you paid attention to how they behave with your land’s passport at the control?
Have you felt their attitude towards your passport or your country? I have.
Have you seen it being diminished? Or the holder being personally insulted?
A monitoring camera captures two Russian border guards on Georgian territory, chasing a 33 years old man, they shoot him, the man falls, with his face down to the ground, they fire an extra gunshot on top and run away.
How do you behave, when you realize that you have forgot your passport?
Did something similar happen to you? It did happen to me.
How do you behave in such a moment?
Or if it didn’t happen to you, how would you behave if it would happen?
It appeared that the 33 years old man was a Georgian. The investigations didn’t mention any word concerning the reasons or nuances of the crime shown in the video.

How do you behave when you see that border guards are spitting in your fellow-villagers passport?
How do you behave, when you know what his or her passport means to the state?
When you understand the meaning of every number and every letter in it?
You understand everything, but the only thing you totally don’t understand is murder, more specifically you can’t get murderers. How do they manage to continue living after that?! You ask every time.
A 33 years old man witnessed humiliation of his fellow-villager. The boarder guard opened the passport and spit in it. So this guy intervened…

How do you feel, when you hold a passport, that has written on its first page, that
as Its holder, you’re protected by your country?
Does it make you proud?
Happy?
Do you feel safe?
You probably feel power in the knees when you stand at the border, am I right?
How do you behave, when your passport and your nationality endanger your safety?
How do you behave?
(Meaning, how would you behave?)
How do you behave, when you understand, that in just some seconds you will be becoming a hero and everyone will notice your existence?
Do you worry? (Does it make you anxious?)
When you’re not an ordinary mortal anymore, how do you behave?
Answer me, do you get anxious? I do.
Imagine your not a simple dead person but a dead hero.
What do you feel? (meaning, what would you feel?)
How do you behave, when you can’t take it anymore? And anyway, how much can one bear?
Yes, this is the real reason. A 33 years old man brought his guests to the border to see them off. Saw there the humiliation of a boy. What are you doing, he pointed out to the border guards. They felt insulted and sweared at him, he sweared back, then they ran after him and shot him down.
Have you thought about this?
How do you behave when you can’t stand it anymore and give the nameless boarder guard a slap in the face for insulting your fellow-villager for his passport?
What do you feel? More accurately, what would you feel?
Pride? Power? Dignity?
How do you behave, when they grab the passport out from our hands and tear it apart over your head?
When they load their guns and point it towards you, what do you do?
You run?
After this you are no ordinary dead person anymore, but a dead hero…
When running is already pointless, what do you do?
Think good before answering.
Answer me. Do you run? I run.
How do you behave when, you run towards your country and two border guards chase after you?
How do you behave, when you get that there is just a little bit more left?
Who are you thinking about? Your mother?
Are you regretting it?
Who are you thinking about, when you have just a little bit left before becoming a hero?
Answer me, are you regretting it? I am.
-He had guests, they were leaving the house, lets stay 15 minutes longer to talk to the mother, but they leave after 10 minutes. Nothing would have happened, if he had stayed for 5 more minutes. He rushed, rushed and rushed to his death.
Do you think about heroism? Or do you have ever thought about it?
What is heroism?
Are you a hero?
How do you behave when hundreds of video cameras are screening you, more than ten thousand eyes are shedding tears cause of you, and hundreds of thousands are saying that you are a hero, a hero of your country?
Meaning, you could have been.
Think good before answering me.
Does it change something?
What is the point of being a hero?
What is heroism?
Who is a bigger hero, someone who sacrifices his or her live for their national flag or someone who safes a pupil from a high-speed bus?
What is heroism?
Is sacrifice a necessary condition for heroism?
Is a victim necessary for it?
What is heroism, an affective state or an intrinsic principle?
Is being a hero egoistic towards your family?
Who is (becomes?) a hero?
How should a hero be? How should she or he look like?
What eye-color should you have to sacrifice yourself for the country?
How should a hero be dressed?
Are education and values of importance?
Is age of importance?
What kind of working place should you have? Do you need to have a family?
Of what importance is the sacrificed sex?
Who is more of a hero, a female or a male hero?
Whose task is heroism, woman’s or man’s?
Who demands from you to be a hero, your family, the society or both?
And who are you sacrificing yourself for, the family or the society?
Whose victim are you?
Why do you need to be hero?
Answer me, whose victim are you?
When you are a 33 years old man and have the whole life in front of you, what for do you need being a hero?
How do you behave when they ask you to spit on your flag?
How do you behave when you know that this will save you?
Would you spit on it? I would.
Would you do it if you knew that no one except you will know?
How do you behave when you run with agitated steps to your country, that is protecting you as the holder of your passport?
How do you behave when you know that you can’t run away?
When you feel deep inside you two bullets. When you’re dead for good. When you fall with your face down, what do you feel?
Meaning, what would you feel.
Don’t rush, think before answering.
Think about it and answer me, what do you feel, when being unprotected is the reason of your tear-flooded existence?
You’re dying, falling with your face down, laying in mud, you can’t move your body, nothing can help you anymore, they have to carry you away.
You died.
Are you regretting?
Answer me, are you regretting? I am.
When people are watching and not moving from their spots
No one is helping you
What do you think about?
Are you regretting?
When your murderers are running away in a rush,
When an ordinary man’s life is leaving your arms like a curse and in the name of heroism death is creeping inside you and when you stay alone, absolutely alone, when you’re a hero, laying in mud, dead, what are you thinking?
Meaning, what would you think?
When you have no idea that your murderers will stay unpunished. And if you know that they will get away with your death and you will get public recognition, tears, mourning, a hero’s pension for the family, old unattended parents, some private objects, clothes, birth and death certificates and dates, a perforated passport, a document about your person and your nationality, that does not do any good to you anymore, how do you behave?
Do you choose heroism?
Answer me, are you choosing to be a hero?
Think good before answering me!
You will choose to be hero, because it is the only choice you have, and one that was not made by you.



Mother Duck

No rainy day did dawn that summer and the drought scorched all water and all people.
Hope vanished and nothing than war and dismay remained.
In such a town, deserted, by people and by hope, abided a pregnant wife with her husband and their little baby.
The husband is more handsome in such a heat. His body is dried out like the land he will die for in three days.
The husband will take his pregnant wife and their little baby out from the burned city. The wife and the baby who will be becoming soon a widow and an orphan. He will put them in a cab, send them to the countryside. He himself will be leaving for war.
His wife will leave her houses garden, not knowing that she is seeing her husband the last time.
The wife will arrive at the village. She will put her baby to sleep and open her bed linen for stitching. She will fold the sides in and is just about to finish the stitching as she hears
her baby’s cry.
“He is no cry-baby, what is wrong now?”
A mallard flew in the child’s bedroom, it is flapping its wings, unable to find the exit, it is bumping on the walls. The baby woke up and cries. She grabs her child and huddles up in a corner. The duck flaps its wings. She is also afraid, runs out form the room takes her phone and wants to call her husband,
But her mother is calling:
“They brought your husband, he’s wounded in the hospital and you have to come immediately.”
She grabs her newly sewed bed linen, to put him in her bedding, takes her child and runs out.
First, she runs to her house, to leave the child with her mother, and then to run immediately to her wounded man, who in real is dead.
She passes off the child to her mother at the door. The mother is not talking anymore, she is holding her hand unable to look into her eyes.
And suddenly the pregnant woman will say:
“What are you keeping from me? What are you keeping from me? What are you keeping from me? What are you keeping from me? What are you keeping from me? What are you keeping from me? What are you keeping from me? What are you keeping from me? What are you keeping from me? What are you keeping from me? What are you keeping from me? What are you keeping from me? What are you keeping from me? What are you keeping from me? What are you keeping from me? What are you keeping from me? What are you keeping from me? What are you keeping from me? What are you keeping from me? What are you keeping from me? What are you keeping from me? What are you keeping from me? What are you keeping from me? What are you keeping from me? What are you keeping from me? What are you keeping from me? What are you keeping from me? What are you keeping from me? What are you keeping from me? What are you keeping from me?
He didn’t return, he is considered as lost. The pregnant wife won’t believe her. She runs inside and looks through the room for her husband’s corpse.
Then she calls the base. They tell her the same.
At least he is not dead. Good that his dead body didn’t await me home. She will have a sigh of relief and not the tiniest idea that soon she will be hoping for her husband’s corps.
“I’m not fearing anything.”-
The pregnant wife will say, put the newly stitched linen on her bed and lay down with her baby and tell him the story of a Greek queen.
There was a princess who was rescued by ducks from drowning and brought to the river bank to her parents, who called her in honor of the ducks Penelope, duck.
The girl grew and became the wife of a hero, whom she bid farewell for war. She couldn’t have imagined that she wouldn’t see him for twenty years. There bed was on a huge oak piece. Penelope put her linen on the oak bed, laid down and waited twenty years for her husband.
Nuisance suitors where asking for her hand, telling her that her husband died in the war. She was answering them, that she couldn’t become anyone’s wife before finishing knitting the shroud for her father in law. She would spend her day knitting that shroud and unravel it in nighttime. She spent twenty years like that. And after twenty years her husband returned and they where living happily ever after.

The pregnant wife will tell this fairytale to her crying child, having no idea that unlike Odysseus her husband will never return.
She will leave her bed and visit every wounded soldier’s sickroom and ask:
“Haven’t you seen my husband? My husband, have you seen him?”
Every night when she hears cars stopping at her fence, she is sure that her husband returned home and runs out to the gate.

God knows how many times it will dusk and dawn like this. Once, when she lays down for sleep she feels a warmth between her legs, she looks down and

She is bleeding, she is bleeding from the vagina.

She will run to the doctor. The doctor is saying:
“The child is not breathing, it is dying, it will water in the womb, you have to stay in the hospital.”

It is the 31st December, the pregnant wife is laying in the sickroom, alone. Fireworks are appearing in the window. The wife is weeping and repeating in heart:
“Where are you?”

The child will survive. The pregnant wife is returning home. Her mother had washed the bed linen and is ironing. A thought will strike Penelope:

“Maybe he died? Maybe he is not alive anymore?”

She will immediately cast out those thoughts from the heart, make her bed and lay down

Knocking on the door.

She rushes breathless to the door, opens it. It is a soldier, who is not looking like her husband at all.
“They brought corpses. 12 corpses. We don’t know who they are. Skeletons covered in camouflage. You won’t be able to identify, but you still have to come.”

She will follow. She sees a skeleton of a man on the table.

“How can I identify him? Those are bones.”

Says the woman.

“We will need a DNA test, somehow we do have to find out if this is your husband.”

The wife will go to her husband’s father.

And the father will say:
“No, I don’t believe it, I know my son, nothing can kill him, I will sit on that stone and wait for him”

And he will sit on a stone and wait for him, two months long. Later he will die on that stone in anticipation for his son.

And the mother will say:

“He is alive, I can feel it, I would feel if he were dead. My heart will tell me if he is not alive anymore. A mothers heart knows better.”

And one week after her husband’s death she will die on heart failure in a bus.

The wife will give then the saliva of her child to the soldier and wait.

She sits, she lays down, she eats, she goes to sleep, stands up, feeds the child, tells him fairytales, cleans the room, prays, cries, puts curtains over the windows, hides the clocks, and then when she loses the count of days, when she confuses day with night, when she gets accustomed to waiting and prevails over impatience

There is knocking on the door, it is a soldier

“It is your husband. That is sure as death”

And this wife will say:

“Oh despair, I am not a queen
And neither did my husband return from war.
He will not return, I’m the bride of solitude
Nothing can help me

And never have I been Penelope
I’m a duck, a mother duck, desolate
Whos children will tail after
And loneliness will eat up the youth”

The soldier will show her a video for identification.

The wife will immediately recognize her blood-stained husband, who’s spine is being crushed by someone standing behind his head.

And the wife will say:

“My god, is he beautiful, who can it be else?
Neither do I want, nor can I watch this.
I knew his wide handsome shoulders well.
His body was more familiar to me
then this damn body of mine.
To see my cursed spine
I need to stand with my back to the mirror.
Every morning I was gazing at his spine
I remember its length, its form, its temperature
His body is more familiar to me
then this damned body of mine.
How can I watch this? How should I watch it shatter,
for that my love has grown twice as big as for mine”

She said this and felt a warmth in the legs. The second child will be born tonight, who’s birth was awaited by the husband impatiently.

The pregnant wife will turn to mother duck.
The children will tail after mother duck.

Mother duck will talk a lot. She will not stop talking about her husband, his strength, his beauty, his heroism, his loyalty, his devotion, his stubbornness, his staunchness.

And when mother duck will be asked

“How have you been?”

She won’t be able to say anything, because she cannot remember anymore how to talk about herself.

Georgian Passport

• Why do people look so bad on passport photos?
• Page 02, citizen Gigi Rekhviashvili, born on 20 May 1997
• Citizen Irakli Sirbilashvili, born on 15 September 1993
• Irakli Kakabadze, born on 24 December 1992
• Page 02, citizen Bichiko Tcheishvili, born on 15 June 1996
• Citizen Konstantin Machitadze, born on 20 March 1990
• Citizen Giga Datiashvili, born on 20 September 1993
• Why do people look so bad on passport photos? They look always so startled and scared…
• Page 03 is variegated with border stamps. I crossed the borders of Turqey, Iran and Latvia completely legally
• I got my passport in February. I was going to Kishinev and went directly from a rehearsal to take the photo. I remember that I was very tired and worried. I thought that I would be having that passport for the rest of my life. I remember I was wearing a rolling that Nutsa, my wife, gave me. I hated it, it was also too big for me.
• Visas of the Czech republic and Italy, with terrible photos of mine and the inscriptions Visum and Visto.
• Page 10 Svetitzkhoveli, a crossed dome from the 11th century. In oral tradition it is said that it’s builder Arsikidze was chopped off the hand.
• That time I heard that they were giving out for free passports to students, or to everyone, I don’t remember exactly. I had drunken a lot the day before, but as I had planned it already I didn’t delay it and went. As I arrived I found a sea of people. I had to wait for four hours in the que. There I regretted to not have woken up one hour earlier. After many trying I at least fitted the face to the biometrical camera. I think all this is exactly expressed on my photo.
• Page 13 Svanetian towers, Svanetian man are riding on horses.
• Page 14 and 15, Vardzia, a cave monastery complex from the 12-13th century.

Page 16 –

• They went with a Niva for firewood over the border.
  I don’t know, they say they were placing there barbed wire fences and they took them then…
  -Yes, people say, they were in the forest for firewood.
• I haven’t heard anything else either.
• Everyone needs firewood. It is cold now, it’s winter. What shell we do?

Page 18 – Bagrati cathedral, it was blown up by Ottoman troops in 1692, the cupola was destroyed. In 2012 the Georgian government roofed it again and installed there even an elevator for reasons no one can grasp.
Page 20 – uphill there is a post, and those things are placed there. You know, the things they put those huge bullets and shoot with. They have four of those placed there. On that day they drove those through, with big cars. If they don’t shoot three times, it means that war has started and you have to get ready for it right away.

• I’m standing on my knees, trying to point my face to the camera. I’m rushing, there is a long que at the photo booth. 3,2,1 it’s ready! Look how terrible the photo is. I have drooping lips and tip of my hair dropping down in the middle of the forehead. My eyes look weird as well, I think I’ve looked somehow wrong in the camera. I think about trying once more, but there are so many people outside, also some people in wheelchairs, that I can’t stay much longer. “It is what it is” I think and go out. All this looks much worse on paper. I am looking grumpy, I am looking accordingly to the pain from kneeling that long.

Page 22 – The rose revolution. People and flags.
Page 23 – At the end of this part of land is a garden. I went there at day time, at 2 am, and it was then they came to me. Flee to the mountains like birds, they say. As if I was in someone else’s land.
Page 27- An unforgettable view on Tbilisi.
Page 28 – As if I was in all the wars. First the collapse of the Soviet Union, then the civil war from where they brought my dead uncle and then the fall of Gali

1. I’m tired in the passport picture. I went straight from work to take the photo. I was wearing a white shirt from the hotel and was sleep deprived. After I saw the photo, I realized that I was having contracted eyebrows on that photo like on any other similar photo. I think that I resemble myself the least on a passport photo.
   Page 30 – There is a house. She is called Zinara. The electricity line is placed along the roof. Half of her house is taken away from her. And how many children does Zinara have? She has four children, though a half room…imagine- there is the kitchen. But they can not enter the kitchen at all anymore. I’ve been in that house. And you know, it’s such a thing! It has put red x-es on top, three pieces.
   Page 33 – The Batumi harbor, the sea, a sunset and palm trees.
   Page 34 – I was 9 years old as we came here via the Enguri river. Our fingers were freezing. Mother was sharing her sock with me and my brother and we where putting both our fingers in the sock, so that also my 7 years old brother
2. I was having a horrible phase. I hated everyone and everything, but first and foremost myself. When I looked in the mirror I was seeing a totally diferent person, I was that embittered. I was seeing a wrecked person. During the whole summer I was planning to go to Greece to my aunt, I was to be working on a ship. When I look at the photo now, I still see a stranger. I had dark circles under my eyes from sleep deprivation, the face reddened, and to put it short, I was already hopeless with life. I was also thinking often about suicide.
   Page 35 – There is not placed a barbed wire fence, so it is our territory. We go, plough, sow, farm. They come to our territory, yes? Who is controlling them? No one.
   Page 36 – The fresco of Shota Rustaveli.
   Page 37 – Some people where dragging a woman to the Ochamchire railway station and setting her on fire. I am 9 years old. This woman, set on fire, runs around, cries, screeches something indistinguishable, she is probably crying for help. Her flowered dress is flaming up more and more. Mother is covering my and my brother’s eyes with her hands. But we are still looking. The woman is crying, rolling on the ground, she is trying to put the fire out but fails. Then she is standing up, going in to the crowd, she is crying for help, running through the crowds. Maybe someone would have helped, but at that moment they shot her in the legs so she would stop running. Why didn’t they shoot her in the heart and just kill her? She was gulping down the flames and wailing time to time. The hair and the face were already catching fire. People were standing dumbfounded and just staring.
   Page 38 – They buried the corps. On the fourth day the family went to the new graveyard to mourn. On the ninth day they are calling out, but they didn’t let them in. They fenced the graveyard, put their flag and the graveyard is mined.
   Page 39 – Of course we are scared! Why has fate cursed our lives?! We can’t bring out the cattle and we cannot cross over ourselves. Not long ago, children where sitting here, they were herding the cattle. They sneaked up on them with guns, made the children to kneel and urged them on.
   Page 42 – Grape harvest, wine jars, a cart and white grapes.
   Page 46 – We spent our entire childhood with playing war games.
   Bang, you’re dead!
   Bang! Bang! You’re dead, dead!!
   Bang! Bang! Bang!
   Us children were shouting to each other for years
   We grew up in this bang-bang and really turned out to be dead, we didn’t manage to learn anything
   We didn’t find anyone and neither did we find the power to protect ourselves in this life.
   Page 48 – Niko Pirosmani’s “Deer” – the last page of the Georgian passport.
   
   
   
   
   Full with Death

Father- we waited 26 days for him.
Me and my wife were staring to the street 26 days.
Joy ran over our faces, as they told us that he would be returning…
Imagine, parents rejoicing over the arrival of their dead son.
After 26 days his coffin appeared at the end of this alley. That was the last time I felt life generating in my knees…
He returned home to me torn and tortured, but it still mollified me. He took his mothers tears with him and he was granted the soil of his village at last.
Brother- This flag waving over the house roof right now, used to hang at his bed. He died for this flag and for this country.
Father- my son survived the war, though died away after it.
Do you figure life going on for someone who has met the death of his child?
My existence, a shroud-covered living…
I didn’t expect it. In contrary, I was encouraging my wife and my daughter. Then I saw it in television at my workplace. They found his passport in his pocket and were showing the first page to the camera, that page where is written that its holder is protected by Georgia, and there I saw the picture of my son. They said he died in the solitary confinement of Tskhinvali. I can’t remember how I arrived in Didube. It seems that I took a Taxi, I came up here. The streets were full of people and the sounds of a weeping mother in the air.
Brother- 26 days were we waiting for him after that.
Father- 26 days long we welded with our eyes to the street.
Brother- Chill crept in those days and I was sitting in the car with the engine running. I was not turning it off. Awaiting him every moment. Standing there and waiting on the road. Thinking- now he will come, now my brother will return.
Father- I knew he wouldn’t return alive after falling pray to them. I knew that!
Brother- He was saying himself, that being captured by them was the only thing that scared him.
Father- He died for this soil and for this land…
Brother- In the confinement he told his boys, if nothing else, to not leave his corps on that land.
Father- What can soothe someone whose child has died?
What can soothe a dead son’s father?
Could there be anything else than death itself for giving me a relive?

Bruises were all over his body. A stranger was laying in front of me.

Brother- My father joined me a bit later at the identification. First thing I told him- I think it’s someone else.
Father- He was all blue and red, perforated…

Brother- On his forehead was a wound. They covered his face with makeup.

Father- They tormented my son to death!

Brother- His skin was peeling off like a circle around his mouth, his nose was extremely thin, translucent. You couldn’t have recognized him.

Father- It’s already 26 days that he is dead and the corps is in decay, they explained us.

Brother- His cheeks were hollow and mold was covering his face.

Father- I was staring at my son like at a stranger. The only familiar thing was his grey hair. He greyed prematurely.

Brother- He had a cross on his finger. A tattoo. He held that finger bent. I opened it, it crumbled down in my hand.

(Pause)

Father- If they didn’t had killed my son so viciously, if they had just killed him with a bullet, maybe it would have been more bearable.

Brother- How tortured he was!

Father- In this week, In this week you’ll see him, no not this week, the next week, Those were 26 days of torment, a tormenting time

Nailed hands

A – His hands were nailed,
Nailed hands,
Nailed, Nailed
Nailed hands

(B is joining as if they were friends)

His hands were nailed,
Nailed hands,
Nailed, Nailed
Nailed hands
His hands were nailed,
Nailed hands,
Nailed, Nailed
Nailed hands…

(ამას ალბათ არ ვთარგმნი? B ) – A – ს რამდენჯერმე გაჟღერების შემდეგ, როცა შექმნის) რიტმიკას შემოვა B

B – I, Me myself, I unveiled his hands.
I wanted the whole country, the whole world to see it.- The face areas too…

– His bruises where covered with makeup.

– Then later, also blood flew from his ears.

– He had a bullet pierced through his right ear…

– Also in the legs…

– I didn’t see his legs, but the boys did and yeah, they said…

– They said that his right leg was also terribly battered

– The police chief himself is supposed to have said on Friday to let him free

– “I investigated and couldn’t find any of the allegations you made against this man.”

– His back was hurting and he was wearing a shirt. It wasn’t sewn it was entirely knitted. It was stained all over and was torn into four pieces.

– His hands were all burned and smashed, the forensic examination showed that he was missing the brain, the heart, the liver, everything, he was an empty shell.

– And the legs! The legs also

– The policemen crushed his legs, they shattered the legs- Yes, I didn’t see it myself, but they told me. His legs were all torn and blue.

C) His palms are burned.
His hands are all blue and torn.
My son’s burial flowers are choking me
Two fingers are severely battered,
The fingers where first smashed and then pierced
I am clinging to my son’s looted corps
Metal is looking out from his fingers
They threaded metal through his hands to assemble the torn parts
They even put makeup on his face
My son’s robbed corps
My heart-missing dead son
My boy’s battered hands
My boy’s battered warring hands
Nailed palms
Death saturated it’s heart
I will kill death’s son too (ვააა ეს მაგარია, დამბურძგლა)
My boy torn to shreds, my shredded boy
My son’s burial flowers are pouring out from the house’s windows
My flower covered son is stinking
My hand nailed son is stinking

 

C – I’m clinging to my son’s putrid shell
They wanted to subdue him and failed…

The voice from the whirlwind

All that sadness will suffocate me.
I was on an exhibition. The photos were good. Taken at villages bordering the occupied regions. The exhibition space was also not bad. But the sea of people and their noisy chatter were disturbing me at the viewing.
All that sadness will suffocate me.
I took a glass of wine. The waiter was very polite. Walking around, smiling, handing us wine glasses. He didn’t had even time to look at the beautiful pictures.
All that sadness.
I see, they have built a stage at the village. Girls in flower-patterned, flash red dresses are dancing a round-dance. They have their hair veiled and are dancing somewhat confused. In front of them are a lot of people, probably their parents. They are taking photos of them. The sun is shining, and the golden veils are flashing in the sun.
Will suffocate me.
I see a small girl. She is wearing a bright green national dress and is dancing in the yard. In the back is her house and on the balcony on an old torn couch is sitting a small boy. He is probably her brother. The girl is dancing as if this house wouldn’t be hers and the brother wouldn’t be sitting on the balcony.
Probably
I see two women hugging and although they are not looking similar at all I’m sure they are siblings.
Sorrow ( ან Sadness)
I see a woman sitting in a cable car, she is looking out of the window and behind her is an entire city.
Will probably suffocate me
I see a woman playing on the accordion. She has her eyes closed and no one knows how many times she has sung that song in all her life.
All that sadness will suffocate me.
I see children standing in the fog. There is probably just one swing in the whole village and they are waiting for their turn. One child is wearing glasses.
Sadness will suffocate me.
I see that girl, who was dancing in her yard. She has taken off her dancing costume, halfway removed her makeup and is so sad, that I think how small she is for that much sadness.
Sadness will suffocate me
I see a bridal party. A woman has her arms sprawled out and is dancing. A girl is wearing a dress and shoes of same color. It seems she has prepared with care.
All that sadness.
I see they are projecting on the wall a video call with that girl who was dancing in her houses yard. She is wearing that same green dress and in the background is her house.
The viewers are sitting in front of her and asking questions:
“What is your name?”
“How old are you?”
“Do you love to dance?”
“Are you going to school?”
“Your so beautiful in that dress!”
“How many siblings do you have?”
“Where is your mother?”
“You’re so pretty.”
“Are you nervous?”
“What dance do you love the most?”
“Want to be friends?”
“You don’t like to answer me?”
“Are you shy?”
“What a good girl you are!”
“What is the name of your village?”
“Do you like to study?”
“Is your school far away?”
“Do you commute by feet?”
“What subject do you like the most?”
“What do you do in your leisure time?”
“When is your birthday?”
She is answering the questions while trembling with fear. She is nervous, scared off and is trying hard to smile. She is more daring with girls, and shy with boys. I’m getting really mad. Why are they hemming her in? Why are they making her nervous? She is to small for all that.
Probably it will suffocate me.
I’m standing and can’t hold my tears back. I’m standing hidden from the video camera, so she can’t see me, so she doesn’t shy back from a boy.
All that sadness.
I’m ashamed that I’m behaving like this. I’m ashamed that I’m monitoring her and objectifying her.
Let it suffocate me.
I’m leaving the room outraged, I’m disgusted with myself. Then I think that this is an ordinary environment for her. That for me it feels like being fenced in.
So much sadness.
It is easy to watch her on a picture, but when you see her live, when she is on the other side of the video camera
This sadness is suffocating me
I’m trying to perceive her as a piece of art and forget that she is existing for real.
Let it suffocate me
Forgetting and removing that responsibility, just to be a mere viewer and nothing else.
Let it (ან If only)
To not let it become a burden. If only there wouldn’t be sadness.
That much
I want it to be just a piece of art
If only
I want it to stay fenced in.
Probably
I look at the place where she leaves like to a fence.
All that sadness will probably suffocate me.
Ethnography is a fence
That much sadness will probably suffocate me
I’m meeting ethnography in the exhibition room
Probably
The place you live can become ethnographical exoticity and can appear in an exhibition room, a theater or a cinema
That much sadness will probably (ან can) suffocate me
The place you live in is art
That much sadness will probably suffocate me
The place you live in is an exhibit
Probably
The place you live in is foreign and interesting
It will probably suffocate me
The place you live in is a place where no one would like to live but visit the exhibition with big curiosity
Probably
The place you live in is a place where you wouldn’t live yourself if you could and you’d go and visit that exhibition.
Sadness will suffocate me.
No one knew of the place you live in, now everyone knows, and will forget about it soon again.
All that sadness will suffocate me.
The place you see every day is much easier to view for me on a photo. I’m so tired that I can’t figure you existing for real behind that scene.
It will suffocate me.
You are sitting on the other side of the camera and are waiting for your spectators, you’re nervous, will they like you and will they like your place? Your trembling with the whole body and answering probably the 40-th time to the question “how old are you?”.
That much sadness.
And your age is not defined by the time but the place you are living in.
The sadness will suffocate me
When the place you live is the only choice you have and a choice you haven’t made yourself.
The sadness will suffocate you, if
The orchard is chopped down to heat your house, because the border has swallowed the forest.
If
Black water runs from your tap. The spring is beyond three villages.
Or
If this border has swallowed your friends, your acquaintances, your relatives, the school, hospitals, the building of the district municipality, the football ground, herbages, the fields, the villages mill, houses, yards, orchards, an old church, the graveyard, as if it never existed
If
You’re hungry and your siblings cry doesn’t let you (რულს არ გატარებს ar vici ras nishnavs, arc googlma)
If
You’re hungry, you’re cold, you can’t do anything about it, because on the question “how old are you” your answer is “nine”.
If
Hope has also been placed behind the border
If
You have never loved, because you don’t believe in love anymore
Or
In empathy
Neither
In kindness
And neither in anything you have not seen
If
You get that you are an exhibit in a gallery
If
They look at your picture with concern, cry and experience catharses
Sorrow will suffocate you
If, after all this, you can greet the girl behind the video camera and tell her that she’s so pretty
Sorrow will suffocate you
If you’re afraid but are smiling still politely and are ready to be looked at
If
Rays of the dawning sun are flashing your forehead, your veil and your artificial braids
Sadness will suffocate you
If you understand
You will start thinking
You will dig deeper
You will grow
And you will remember
That
The place you live in is exotic for those who are not living at that place, they have no idea about that place and no idea about your existence, like you have no idea about them and the places they are living in
All that sorrow will suffocate me.

Equation

Ketevan Tsamebuli street
Subway station Samasi Aragveli
Vakhtang Gorgasali street
Abo Tbileli street
Kote Apkhazi street
Gia Abesadze street
Square of 9th April
Maro Makashvili street
Tamriko Tchovelidze street
Heroes square
Saakadze square
Jiuli Shartava street
Demetre Tavdadebuli street
Tsotne Dadiani street
The nine brothers Kherkheulidze street
Junkers street
Giorgi Antsukhelidze street
Shindisian heroes square
Giorgi Mazniashvili street
Guram Gabiskiria street
Mikha Khelashvili street
Ushangi Sopromadze street
Zurab Iaradjuli park
Grigol Peradze street
Akhaltsikhean brothers street
Giorgi Beruashvili street
Fourhundred Meskhi street
The Shindisian heroe’s street
Aza Adamia street
Natia Bashaleishvili street
Eka Bejanishvili street
Manana Melkadze street
Didgori street
Imagine for a moment that the notion of a hero doesn’t exist, imagine for a moment that self-sacrifice and principles doesn’t exist, dead, murderers and examples doesn’t exist, essential histories do not exist and therefore also medals, streets, squares, subway stations, that are reminding you of your duties, reminding you that someone died so you could have been born, and if it will be necessary you also have to die for someone to be given the possibility to be born. And if I cannot? If I’m scared? What if I don’t need a street named after me? What if I don’t want to be a hero? What if my flag is just some rag to me? What if I renounce self-sacrifice? If I spit on it? What happens then? What happens then, if I am supposed to be a hero, but I am not one?
Why are they more exited about the birth of boys? One more warrior? One more who will sacrifice theirself for their country? Do they rejoice the birth of someone who is ready to die for their country? Who won’t forgive anyone for insulting their flag, who will die in sake of honour, of the land, of principles and whatnot, what matters is that they will die.
Yeah, but I’m not like that. I am my land’s dashed hope. I am that one who won’t be much good for warfare. I am that one who will choose disgrace over death, I am that one who will never have their street, who will not be mourned for in public funerals, who won’t be brought flowers from the whole country, whose name won’t be given to children. I am that one who dies nameless, peacefully of old age.
I am not a hero!
And it is my right, if this is my choice!
I am not a hero!
And I don’t intend to die in torture.
I want to grow old, witness the greying of my hair, the crawling of my grandchildren at my feet.
I am not a hero!
And I don’t intend to ruin my youth with premature death.
I am not a hero!
And I will dash the hopes of my family, acquaintances, friends and everyone who wants my death.
I am not a hero!
And I don’t understand why one flag is the whole country.
I am not a hero!
And I can’t get what difference it does make if I walk over that flag.
I am not a hero!
And I can’t know what you will think about me if I’ll spit on that flag without even regretting it.
I am not a hero!
I don’t even think about heroism.
I won’t be any good as a safeguard.
I love my life, my wife,
My children, my family, my mother and my father need me.
I know I am a family person and I have nothing to do with heroism.
Yes, I love my wife and my home;
Yes, I love my dog and my garden;
Yes, I love my mother and my friends;
Yes, I love life and also working hard for it to become better;
Yes, I am satisfied with life and I don’t intend to lose anything;
Yes, I intend to get old; Yes, I will live as long till natural death doesn’t take me;
Yes, I will walk over the flag. Yes, yes, if I know that I will spare my life with walking over a flag, I will walk over that flag.
Yes, I won’t even blink an eye. Yes, I will even spit on it.
Yes, I will do what they tell me. Yes, I don’t want heroism, I have the right;
Yes, war is not my place; Yes, I am a peaceful person;
Yes, I am not a hero; Yes, if it will be necessary I will crawl under a table “cowardly”, or how they say I am a wimp, a sissy, a weakling, a chicken, a scared-cat, craven;
Yes, I am all that;
Yes, I will do anything to save my life;
Yes, yes, to go home; Yes, to my children, yes, yes, to my wife, yes, yes, yes, to my mother, yes, yes, to my father, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes…

Monologue of the Dead

I am to be carried by other’s hands
Both arms and both legs are taken from me.
Two knees.
Calfs from both legs and hands from both arms.
I have no heart and neither a liver anymore,
Neither kidneys and nor a stomach.

I’m in a startling state…
I am to be carried by other’s hands
I’m cut down from the ribs to the pubic bone
I am to be carried by other’s hands…

I don’t have an ear anymore and
My eyes are covered with scales,

My speech is taken,
I am to be carried by other’s hands!
When did I suck death’s breast? When?

I am to be carried by other’s hands
Nothing can help me now,
There is nothing that can help me,
Nothing is helping,
Nothing will help me.

I am to be carried by other’s hands
Nothing will uncover my mysterious death now
I am to be carried by other’s hands
You can’t hold my hand,
I will crumble,
Though I am to be carried by other’s hands

Blood is leaking from my ear and I am thinking:

Oh, you early poisoned youth!
Skilled hands and strong knees,
You wide shoulders of mine!

Oh, you hot blood and frequent breath!
You lost days and years,
You sweet youthfulness of mine!

Oh, you desired and unmet,
Hopeless expectations and hopes,
You embittered family of mine!

Oh, you, my eager curiosity,
You sleepless nights of labor,
You hard work of mine, all in vain!

Oh, you risen in difficulty,
Rejoiced and triumphed,
You pure myself, now to be carried by other’s hands!

---

Drag me with your hands!
Both of my hands are torn!
The left ear attached
Early greyed hair combed towards the non-being

This is not my nose,
It is different
Maybe more beautiful than mine was, but it is not mine.
The makeup can’t cover the wound on my forehead anymore.
What a startling existence I am in
This is not me!
This is not me!
This is not me!
This is not me!
This is not me!

All the curses should have reached me and
Mother should have not given birth to me at all
Or I should have moved myself away from here

This me is not me!
A startling state I am in,
Come and take what you want, how…
I am a stranger,
I am a different man and
Maybe I have no right for that,
But take anything you want
This is not me!
I am soil, soil!
This me is not me!

I can’t recognize myself,
I don’t resemble myself.

I am not a man,
Not a man,
I am soil, that’s what I am
I am this land!

Why did you leave me?
God, God why have you left me?
I don’t know yet if I am me or I am not myself
I am in a startling state! I am not me!
I can’t feel anything, nothing
I can’t feel anything, nothing
I can’t feel anything, nothing
I can’t feel anything…

I am to be carried by other’s hands
I am not anymore and won’t be ever again.
I am nothing and neither have I been anything ever.
I am not anymore and neither have I been anything else.
Interjections are dried up by self-mourn

I am not a man,
Not a man,
I am soil, that’s what I am,
I am land!

Oh, love this myself,
Love your symptoms,
Love this rotting,
This is not me!
I am not me!

I am to be dragged by hands, I am no man anymore
The smell of balsam and flowers are suffocating me,
I am lying in my gutted rotted body,
Oh you myself, how did your shadow turn to a coffin’s shadow on the road!

I am not a man,
Not a man,
I am soil, that is what I am,
I am land!

It seems familiar, but it is not mine,
This is not me, this is not my body,
It looks like mine and is not mine.

I am not a man,
Not a man,
I am soil, that is what I am,
I am land!

I am empty and heavy
I am heavy and are getting heavier.
I am to be carried by other’s hands
There is no hope,
Hope is in my coffin,
In a zinc coffin and reeks beside me.

I am not a man,
Not a man,
I am soil, that is what I am!
I am full of soil!
I am land!

Take my body parts
Come, come, come take them with you!
Take my looted body piece by piece
Nailed hands
Molded capillaries of a robbed heart
Shreds of a lost liver

Everyone will be exhausted from dragging me
I am soil, that is what I am!
I am corps, that is what I am!
I am land!

Take my parts and hide me, rush!
Hide my soil self, in soil,
I can’t recognize myself anymore, I am not me,
Burry me now, this is not me

I am not me,
This is not me,
I am not me
This is not me

Oh, shell the black river of forsake pass my name soon
I am soil, that is what I am…
Shell I forget myself soon
I am corps, that is what I am…
Shell we forget soon…
I am not a man…
Oh, shell you tire from dragging me soon
I am land…
And leave me somewhere on a reeking road

Oh, shell it happen soon
Shell the whole world forget me soon.
Don’t write about me,
Don’t name streets after me,
Don’t recall me
I am not me
I am corps, that is what I am
I am land!

I can’t remember and why can’t I remember?
Why can’t I remember?
Why can’t I remember when death brooded its eggs under my skin?!
I am land, I am not me, this is not me, I am not me, this is not me, I am not me, this is not me, I am not me, this is not me, I am not me, this is not me, I am not me, this is not me, I am not me, this is not me, I am not me, this is no me, I am not me, this is not me, I am some startling state, I am not me…
Oh shell you soon,
Shell you soon forget me
Divide me, disperse me,
Forget me, Piece by piece, forget me
I am corps, that is what I am
Not a man, but a land I am!

I am not me
Don’t recall me
Forget me
I am corps, that is what I am
I am not me
Forget me, I am land
I am not me.

Equivalent euation

The best way to unwind the disgraced is to spit in their face. That I know for sure.
I remember vaguely. I’m a child. Probably six years old and I walk on the street with my mother. It is snowing heavily, a biting cold. I have to pee, but I’m holding it back. There are two blocks left till home. I am forcing on myself endurance, because I know that I’m ought to… but at the end I can’t hold it back any more and I pee in my pants. First my legs get warm, then they get cold and I tell my mother
“Mom, water got in my feet.”
I am lying to her. I’m ashamed. I know that I had to hold it back, I know that I had to endured it.
My mother grabs me and we continue the road running. It is snowing.
We go home. Mother is bringing me to the bathroom. She is undressing me, she sees through everything and smacks me greatly. But it is not hurting, in opposite, it pleases me and I’m glad to have gotten what I deserved. For that I could not have hold it back till home, for that I defiled myself.
And I perceive each smack as a purge from my sense of guilt. I believe that this is the only way I can get healed.
After that I’ve kept in mind well that one is ought to endure till death. It is obvious though, that I never really accomplished to do that. But I always remember that I’m ought to, that I’m ought to endure till death, because people like dead. People love fatal, irreversible incidents, that cannot be helped.
In 2013, in Dizi, at the border of occupied lands, Ilia Beruashvili threw occupants out from his garden with his bare hands and saved that way four homesteads, the villages cemetery, a church, and up to thirty hectares of land from loss. There was a lot of talk around this matter in Georgian and international media. He was beaten, he was offered money, he was being scared, but he did not give in. He says that if others wouldn’t have been scared off either, maybe things would be going much better.
Ilia Beruashvili is trying now to claim his land, which he himself saved from occupation.
He has won the case at the municipal court of Gori against the public registry of inner Kartli, based on presented documents and photo documentations. It was decided by the court that the land is property of Georgia and of Beruashvili.
Probably thirty hectares of land is not important enough for the government to send a group of people to the region for mapping the borderlines once again. That’s why now the public registry is suing the Georgian citizen in the court of appeals and awaiting the decision if the land will be approved for Beruashvili, or if the land will be handed to the occupant regime.
Ilia Beruashvili endures. He endures like he was taught to. He says he can’t count on the state, and if he sees occupants on his land he will blow himself up and take them with him.
Then probably everyone will hear about him. Then when the situation will be fatal, when he will die.
So, I will sit here and wait till he blows himself up. There, I will seat myself and wait. And afterwards I will cry.
Till then
I’ll endure.