Batumi

Batumi is such a nice little ol’ town. Situated right by the Turkish border on the Black Sea, it has been around in some sort of a form or shape since 3BC. Yes, that’s Before Christ! As I understand, since the civil wars in Abkhazia, a small region in the northwestern part of Georgia, most Georgians started going to Batumi only recently. This is fairly evident because most of the town is in desperate need of a paint job. Also, its tourist industry is in its initial stage as experienced by the “amazing” service at an outdoor restaurant which even my Georgian friends said was awful so it wasn’t just me.

Batumi is situated within the autonomous region of Adjara which used to be run by this crazy dude but since Georgia’s Rose Revolution last year, the dude has disappeared. Actually, I have no idea what happened to him. I think he tried to become independent from Georgia and there were some sort of negotiations or something along those lines and then there was no more crazy dude. The problem with Georgian history is that no matter what century or decade, there is some sort of fighting, whether with Mongols, Turks or crazy dude, there is always some sort of fighting. So if anyone ever asks what happened in a specific year in Georgia, you can just answer by saying: “hmm, I believe there was some sort of a conflict going on at the time…” To put things in perspective, Chechnya is right north of Georgia and no one is allowed to travel into Abkhazia region unless it’s on UN mission.

Anyways, but Batumi was nice. The Black Sea wasn’t very black, in fact, it was bluish-green. The water was nice and warm, except that unlike all the beaches I’ve been to, Batumi’s beach is all rocks. So laying out in the sun and walking into the water was a bit difficult and really painful. And the worst was getting out of the water because the waves would push me towards the shore which resulted in me tumbling and half-crawling up the rocky shore to get to my blanket. Needless to say, I went swimming only once.

Research-wise, I spent about an hour at an NGO there, talking about anti-trafficking initiatives. Apparently, a lot of the women in sex business travel to and back from Turkey. And, according to our driver, most hotels employ women and take offense if guests (I assume male since no one asked me) do not partake in their services. The hotel where we stayed, although nice and brand new, turned out to be one of those types of hotels so the nights there were fairly loud. But otherwise, I didn’t really learn much in regards to my research but I figured that it was nice to get out of the city and be in the sun.

Another noteworthy thing about Batumi, well, about the Adjara region, is that it is famous for its khachapuri. Generally, khachapuri is a pizza shaped bread stuffed with cheese. It’s kind of like a snack around here and it comes in different varieties. Plus, it’s ordered pretty much with every meal so now I am completely sick and tired of khachapuri. Adjara khachapuri is shaped like a boat, it’s not very large, a single portion is the size of a large plate. Its inside is full of cheese, runny egg and butter. It’s unbelievably good and once you eat it, you wish you hadn’t eaten it at all. It’s so fatty and greasy and not that I care about fatty food, generally, I find it delicious, but after eating Adjara khachapuri, I felt like I ate a stick of butter with a runny egg on it. Yummy yet pukey.

I hope I’ll have a chance to back once more, I liked its atmosphere, it felt very much like leisurely town where people enjoy food and drinks and don’t really run around in order to make it anywhere on time. Not that anyone in Georgia is on time. It was nice.