14 May 2009
What the State Department thinks about me going to Georgia
I just got off the phone with the Georgia desk at the U.S. State Department and they said that I’ll have a great time in Tbilisi. Ken (the guy behind the desk) said he just got back from the Georgian capital and said that it’s a great place and that he envies me.
This was pretty suprising considering the State Department tends to issue very ominous travel advisories for basically any country outside of Western Europe. I remember reading through their memos on Russia before heading there and it looked like the U.S. government was convinced anyone headed to the mother country was going to meet a slow, violent third-world death.
Instead he said that the round-the-clock opposition protests aimed at toppling the pro-American president would probably “snarl traffic up” but were “basically harmless.” Ken had actually just gotten back from Tbilisi and said he had a great time. He chatted me up for quite a while about the architecture, the wine and the general atmosphere.
When I asked about going to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, he said the State Department “strongly discourages” attempting to foray into the rebel territories. Although some people have been allowed to come and go to visit relatives and what not, it’s nearly impossible for a foreigner to cross the border from the Georgian side. I already knew that.
I asked if any Americans had experienced any specific problems in those territories. He said as far as he knew none had dared enter. He probably had no idea how much his official discouragement was egging me on to get into the break-away republics.
So my friend alex went to south Ossetia a few years back via Moldova. He got duped out of about $20 ( bribe) at the border. I think so long as you pay the “special fee” to cross you can make it ( or bop a train). Key points to remember: the border gaurd gets paid shit; have a convincing set of ‘plausible circumstances’; stick to your story; ak-47 are quite inaccurate at 30m, and can fire at full auto for roughly 8-9 sec. Before running out of bullets
James
May 14th, 2009 at 7:35 pmpermalink