Kazbegi (Stepantsminda)

Because I couldn't celebrate Halloween here in Georgia (they think it is an evil holiday) I went up into the mountains of Georgia for the weekend to visit my friend. He is the one that originally told me about the TLG program. He requested to be sent to the most remote part of the country up in the mountains.

I left on Friday evening in a Marshutka (the large vans) and rode in the back corner where luckily I could crack the window to try and get some fresh air otherwise I think I would have been sick. The sun didn't stay up too much longer after we left so I was unable to see the drive up the mountain, plus it was rainy and foggy as well. I wasn't sure where I was supposed to get off, I just knew it was the last stop. Luckily the people on the Marshutka were very helpful. Although, when I got out of the van there were a few young boys telling me to go with them. I was a little skeptical at first but they seemed to know I was coming. Come to find out, one of them was the nephew of my friend's hostess, who lived with them. They were very hospitable, my friend gave up his room for me and luckily most of the rooms in the house had a gas furnace because it was cold up there.

On Saturday morning we decided to hike up to the church on the hill because that is what the area is famous for that and Ice Mountain which has snow on it year round and I believe is around 14,500 ft high. It rained all night and was very foggy that day so I could barely see the church up on the hill. My friend had hung his clothes on the line the day before and so they were soaking from the rain. It didn't look like it was going to get any drier outside so before we left on the hike, we took his clothes in, rung them out and we rigged up a few sticks and string above the stove to get his clothes dry.

 After we got the clothes drier up, the rain had stopped so we left for our hike. We took a walk around town first and then headed up the mountain.
This the few from their front door. The church we hiked to, you can barely see on top of the hill.

 

 This is an old Russian truck I thought was cool.

By the time we started to hike the fog had dropped.

 

This was the start of the road up.

We had to hike through this other little village called Gergeti on the way up.

From Gergeti we cut through to a little mud trail. 

On the way up the trail I lost my footing in the mud and had a good 10 foot slide on my side down the trail. Got my left side all nice and muddy. When we were almost to the top of the hill to the church, there was a fountain. So I tried to rinse myself off with the freezing cold water.

We finally reached the church and to be able to go inside I had to put on a skirt (wrap-around) that they provided.

We stayed for a little while in the church, while we were there they started a service where they would read a bit out of the Bible (I think) and they blessed the church by spreading incense around. I was sitting by the furnace trying to dry my mud cleaned clothes. When we finally left the church it had started snowing.

 

My friend wore sandals all the way up and down the mountain.

We saw this cute old lady climbing up the hill in the snow.

The church that we hiked to after it snowed.

On Sunday (Halloween), after it had snowed all night, we took a walk around the village, up to a cemetery, to the school where my friend teaches, and to an old abandoned Russian hotel. He said it was abandoned when the Soviet Union fell which I think was at the end of 1991. I found an old Russian newspaper in the hotel from 1989.

Some cows we said hi to just hanging out on the side of the one of the village roads.

 The schools my friend teaches at.

The old abandoned hotel still had springs of old mattresses, bed frames, shoes, shampoo bottles, broken bricks and tiles everywhere, and there were a pile of sheets down in the bottom 

 

 Check out the date.

Check out these stairs...sketchy.

 
 
 It was kind of fun to explore the old building deserted building knowing it was Halloween, I'm just glad we did it during the day. That evening we ventured out and found some horses roaming the streets.

This horse was a beast, very big.

                   My little pony. 

Horse at a gas station, here's some horse power for you (haha, knee slapper).

I was going to head home Sunday evening but the roads seemed a little to snowy for comforts so I decided to stay one more day. It was a good thing too because the whole time I was there it was cloudy or foggy and I could never see the famous Ice Mountain. When I woke up Monday morning, I looked out the window and it was blue sky. I could see up to Ice mountain perfectly.

Can you see the church?

 On my way to the Marshutka we stopped by the village church.

I really enjoyed my time in Kazbegi, it was a beautiful place. My trip back down the mountain back to Tbilisi was beautiful as well and will be my next blog entry.