A little late again, still learning. This is hard without a smart phone!

Anyways, yesterday I thought I would give you a look at the heating system for my room. Some Turkish made electric heater/fan/humidifier, which was starting to burn my floor a bit so it is now elevated with the help of a lockbox and Sergei Dovlatov.

If you can’t develop new film, you can always tape a mostly ruined medium format negative up in your window and shoot a photo of that, right?

That’s what I was thinking.

I was still learning how to use my new Moskva-5 when I took this roll. I wasn't advancing the film far enough before taking a new picture so ironically the only thing that really came out in it was the test shot I took of me in the mirror. Most of my interesting works are accidents as it turns out.

Today, I checked Civil.ge and saw a headline I have been hoping would emerge for a very long time: “Saakashvili Calls for ‘Active State Involvement’ to Boost Agriculture.”

President Saakashvili said on March 8, that “active, direct state interference” was required in order to turn country’s “medieval agriculture sector into the agriculture of the 21st century.”

YES! Friggin’ finally.

More than half of Georgia’s population works in the agricultural sector, yet that industry only represented 9 percent of Georgia’s GDP in 2010 — down from 14.8 percent in 2005. Furthermore, Georgia has great agricultural potential with a good climate and 11.5 percent of it’s territory being arable land according to the CIA World Factbook. But, because most of Georgia’s farming and infrastructure remain undeveloped, Georgia imports 80 percent of its food, leading to an annual trade deficit of $1.3 billion — quite a lot for a country whose total GDP is $11.23 billion (official exchange rate).

Misha! Misha! Show us the way! (free roaming pigs outside Annanuri)

Read the rest of this entry »

Okay, so I’m a little late on this one (in most time zones), but I was once again thwarted in photo processing efforts — turns out I also don’t have measuring cups, which generally help when making chemicals.

Nevertheless, I persevere and give you fun with a slow shutter in a dark bar.

This is what happens with Estonians have birthdays.

This time I was lucky enough to catch a lion in his natural habitat — the depressingly cramped and muddy Tbilisi zoo.

If I lived here, I would be one very disgruntled and hungry lion.

Apparently the dormant grape vines in my courtyard produced an apple and a lemon. In winter! Weird.

I promise I'll stray farther from home for the next one. I discovered today that I don't have a large enough vessel in which to make a batch of developer.

I finally decided to get a photo-a-day going here on Three Kings for two main reasons — 1.) I haven’t been updating Three Kings nearly enough and 2.) I haven’t been taking nearly enough photos.

In this particular one, I bring you into my office. This is my workspace in my living room in the aftermath of Georgian mother’s day (No mother’s were present, but … well, it’s Georgia).

Keep tuning in, sometime this weekend I’ll develop a roll of film that includes shots from Abkhazia, snowy Tbilisi, and my cold kitchen.

Gilocav mothers! ... yesterday ... taken with the help of my assistant, a Promaster Classic Combi 25 tripod.

Sunset in Sokhumi

Here’s part three of my four-part series on Abkhazia in the Faster Times. In it, I discuss how Sokhumi/Sukhum is shaping up two-and-a-half years since the Russian recognition. I also look at how the massive Russian investment is affecting local politics. The first of my two articles on Abkhazia will appear in the March 7 issue of Liberali magazine.

Enjoy, and, as always, click on the ads

Anyone who has traveled through the former Soviet Union knows that 50 or more years as a part of the socialist empire had profound effects on the countries involved. Today, twenty years since the Soviet Union’s fall, cities from Berlin to the Pacific coast of Asia bear the legacy of Lenin in their skylines, popular culture, and mentalities at both the administrative and family level.

This is particularly true in countries that were barely industrialized or urbanized before the arrival of the Soviets. Traveling east away from Europe, you will find ancient cities where 90 percent of their present-day structures were built during the Soviet times. This is not the case with Sokhumi, however, which was once a thriving port and playground for the Tsars and nobility of pre-revolution Russia. After the Bolshevik invasion, the grand palaces that dot the Abkhazian coastline became dachas for the Soviet elite. Many of the breezy houses with gated gardens full of flowers, palms and tangerine trees that make up most of Sokhumi’s structures have been taking in the salty sea wind since long before the red revolutionaries stormed the Winter Palace and the  Avrora fired the opening shots of Soviet century.

But, in many ways Sokhumi feels more Soviet than the austere industrial towns of Russia or the extravagant capitals of the ex- SSR’s. This is because, while even the poorest nations of Central Asia have upgraded infrastructure here and there and allowed foreign food and clothing chains to open franchises across their territory — Abkhazia has remained closed zone. To continue reading, click here.

In part two of my sojourn towards Abkazia, I finally arrived via Georgian and Russian checkpoints, conversations with a couple of new friends and marshrutkas of widely varying quality.

I was worried that it ran a bit long, but as anyone who has traveled in this region knows, there is simply no way to capture the richness of absurdity you encounter in 800 words or less.

I’ve not started working on Day 3, and the first article produced by the trip will be coming out in Liberali magazine March 7.

Enjoy.

Marshrutkas come in all shapes and sizes.

There are the shiny new Mercedes mini-buses like the one I took from Tbilisi to Zugdidi, and there are sputtering old commuter wagons with DIY seats, which, like the rest of the vehicle, are held together by duct tape, twine and prayer. There are sedans that also technically qualify – mostly 60’s model Volgas and Zhigulis – where every non-claustrophobic person in the neighborhood packs in and rides along a specific route, either splitting the fare or paying a set fee (the word “marshrutka” is short for “marshrutnoe taksi” – a fixed-route taxi in Russian).

As mentioned above, I got lucky with the first leg of my westward journey towards Abkhazia, spending the five-hour ride from Tbilisi to Zugdidi in a stunningly new and clean mini-bus, albeit in the worst seat for a tall person – the back left right corner. Still, at the station, several taxi drivers came up to me offering to drive me to Zugdidi for 200 lari ($120) as opposed to the 15 lari ($8) for the marshrutka ride, a price based purely on my Western appearance I am sure. Fat chance.

I sleepily arrived in Zugdidi’s central square around 1 p.m. and I had already called ahead to Dato Patsatsia, head of the Zugdidi-based Human Rights Centre, whom I hoped to meet with in the city. He met me shortly after I climbed out of the deluxe German marshrutka and led me to a massive Samogrelo-style house where a few human rights workers typed away in a small cold office full of maps and posters. To continue reading, click here.

Hey all, just to toot my own horn a bit more, I thought I should point out that I got a piece in the Februrary-March issue of Investor.ge that is now up on their website.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an amorphous term, but several organizations and businesses are now trying to make it a concrete reality in Georgia.

According to Michael Cowgill, president of the Georgian American University, CSR is a business mentality of self-regulation on three levels – economic, legal/ethical and philanthropic. In other words, being profitable while being fair to clients and employees, and spreading the wealth.

Cowgill, a vice president on the AmCham Georgia board of directors, is also a member of the steering committee of the Georgia chapter of the Global Compact, a worldwide grouping of UN agencies, private businesses and civil society groups promoting responsible corporate citizenship — something Cowgill said is often lacking in Georgia.

“When I teach, it’s all in threes. The most successful companies treat employees, clients and owners all with some equal priority,” he said. “Georgia has been known for placingthe emphasis on owners rather than clients, with staff even further down the list.”

The Eurasia Foundation has sponsored CSR classes at five Georgian universities and Global Compact Georgia is currently focused on educating Georgian companies on the benefits of such policies; awards are planned for corporations that take such advice to heart.AmCham Georgia is hosting the Global Compact Georgia Network this year.

To continue reading, click here.