Armenians and Georgians-or however you like, Georgians and Armenians-always compete against each other. It seems like there is not one field where each side can show its advantages. Who is more ancient? Who accepted Christianity first? Who plays chess or soccer better? Who…In a word, the list goes on and on. There are even debates on evident things, such as whose wine or brandy is better.
Recently, I had the opportunity to tour around both countries. The question “who” was on my mind the whole time and subconsciously I came up with a theoretical comparison between the achievements and failures of both countries. You have poverty in villages and then you have extreme poverty. Perhaps it’s not really like that, perhaps villagers are not that poor, which you can see just by looking at their clothes. But it’s hard to picture them selling produce on the streets day and night just when they acquire a little money. If you can’t find them, you can easily mix Georgian villagers with Armenian villagers. Or if you know about the mutual hatred, you can mix Armenian villagers with Georgian villagers. There was one thing that I can surely say: water supply is terrible in the villages. That’s a major problem in both Armenian and Georgian villages (of course, the villages that I visited). Both the Armenian and the Georgian villagers have the same things to worry about. This year’s heat may lead to negative consequences for agriculture in both countries.
The roads…we can consider them wonderful. It doesn’t matter if the improvement of roads of Armenia is due to funding provided by the “Linsie” fund, while Georgia did it thanks to grants. But what a failure-only the major highways are in good condition. The last time the streets of the outskirts were asphalted during the Soviet Union.
The capital cities of ancient countries are somewhat similar to one another. The central parts of the cities are flooded with light and there is no theme park that doesn’t have a café nearby for adults and youth to go. The conversations were the same-politics, U.S., Iran, Russia, Karabakh, Abkhazia, the snow in Argentina, plane accidents, soccer, world injustice in general, Pamela Anderson is getting married or if she’s already married, to go to Sevan Lake or Kobulet for fun under the sun, etc. The people with me who didn’t understand Armenian or Georgian didn’t see a difference in pronunciation and the alphabets, which have become a topic for debate for both countries, weren’t any different either. They also didn’t differentiate between the churches and the architecture is the same for someone who doesn’t understand.
The most important and, most diverting thing, is that people in both countries-whether in the city or the village-are no longer in depression, which was a result of the feeling of being left in the middle of nowhere. In fact, this characterized Armenians and Georgians about 5-6 years ago. Now everything has changed. Whereas a couple of years ago the middle generation pictured life as being able to take care of the children, now that’s not the only reason for living. However, people in both Armenia and Georgia place children above everything else. It just seems like people have woken up from a long sleep and are looking around. That instills the spirit in the.
Of course, this is all subjective, on the surface and I don’t intend on going “deeper” into the issue…But I’m happy to see that countries have gotten back on their feet and are moving forward slowly yet surely.