By Jett Thomason

A few years back I got the chance to visit the Black Sea coast several miles from the Turkish border in a town called Batumi. Batumi has been a major port since the Russians won the land from the Ottoman Empire in 1877. This was the first port to begin shipping out the Industrial Age petroleum from Baku on the Caspian Sea. The resulting economic boom still defines the city’s architecture, with its crumbling facades resembling Paris much more than Moscow.

Old Turkish fort and orange groves in Batumi, Georgia

The city is hemmed in on two sides by the Black Sea. Since Georgia’s independence from the USSR, petroleum has resumed flowing out to docked European tankers.  The city’s prosperity increases markedly as the streets work their way towards the port area, the source of the Batumi’s wealth.  Heading in the opposite direction, I rode on a bus to some more distant neighborhoods. The simultaneous backdrop of snow-capped pines on the surrounding hills and the sea lapping on the pebble beach is striking.  All the homes in the suburbs have orange groves heavy with fruit. The winter rains swept fruit into the streams and into the ocean, and the ocean swept them in turn onto the high-water point of the stone beaches. Like a dotted orange line, the eye is brought from the washed line of oranges along the Black Sea shore and up through the orchards of the nearby houses.

Getting by with Russian

I was able to get by in Georgia on my grammatically terrible Russian. The Georgian language, however, is very distinct from Russian with a different script in addition to an unrelated linguistic structure. The Georgian alphabet is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen.  Curly and bent letters bear absolutely no resemblance to either the Latin or Russian alphabets and traveling here is an experience with illiteracy. Finding addresses demands multiple requests for directions.  I had to wait for a sympathetic passerby before entering the correct side of a public restroom.

The Orthodox Church of Batumi, Georgia with a port crane in the background

As a devoted coffee drinker, I was exceedingly pleased to land in a country unconquered by Nescafe’s Instant Empire.  Instead, the Georgians take rightful pride in their lovely Turkish-style coffee. The heads of men and women in cafes bounce like oil derricks as everyone sips on the sweet coffee. The head activity is not just the Georgian animated conversation style, but also (as I discovered) the only way to keep the nose clean of the coffee ring around the top of the narrow cups.

Stalin’s Time in Batumi

One of the few tourist sites here is a museum dedicated to Stalin’s short stay in Batumi from 1901 to 1902.  It is impossible to enjoy such an experience – akin to a Hitler museum in Vienna – but it is insightful. Stalin, a Georgian, came to Batumi to organize a Communist cell at the end of 1901.  As far as I could tell from the museum, this work only contributed to a single demonstration in March of 1902 and a few illegal newsletters.

More interesting than the amateur paintings documenting these episodes from Stalin’s youth is the history of the museum itself. Opened during Stalin’s rule in 1936, the building housing the museum was one of his boarding house residences for a few months. The exhibits include a simple bed where he slept and a rag that was apparently a towel indicative of that which he may or may not have used during his time there. These are displayed as venerably as saintly relics in a Catholic church.

A city street in Batumi, Georgia

After his death and denouncement in the mid-1950’s, the museum was closed by Soviet authorities. Georgians still regard Stalin as a great leader and an important native of their land. Despite despising their domination by Russia through Czarist and Soviet times, the Georgians re-opened the museum in 1995. The curator and her husband had nothing but warm regard for the native son who was responsible for tens of millions of Soviet deaths.

Stalin’s Legacy in Georgia

After being led through the museum and fending off all my historically provocative questions, the curator asked me to join her and her husband for coffee in their office dominated by a massive portrait of Stalin. I tried to ask them their opinions of this man that the world finds so hideous. But for them, this was ancient history.

As their single visitor of the day, I instead discussed salaries and housing prices in America, sipped coffee, and ate toasted hazelnuts with my hosts.  As they sent me off with instructions of how to get to the train station, it was impossible to connect them with any of the evil perpetrated by the namesake of the museum. Instead, Batumi is marked for me by the hospitality, and the coffee, of the Georgian people.

processing coffee at Finca Esperanza Verde

Blog of a Modern Nomad

By Stephen Bugno

“I tried to buy a ticket too, but they’ve run out of seats,” says the only other Gringo on the bus.

There has to be 200 of us packed into this former American school bus. And without a ticket, this means we’ll be standing for the two-hour haul over the mountains to Matagalpa. This is our first time on an “express” bus, opposed to the “ordinario” or “chicken” buses which do not require an advance purchase or have seat numbers.

The overhead luggage racks are loaded, children are sitting on laps, the central aisle is filled with standers. Our bags have already been hoisted up to the roof-rack and secured under a tarp. As we wait to pull out, sweat drips down my face and most everybody else’s as well.

We’ve spent the past day-and-a-half in the colonial city of Leon—church hopping and museum visiting—making this the first time we’ve done any traditional sightseeing.

Nearing sundown and already into the higher elevation, a cool breeze blows in the window. About half of those on the bus have gotten off, so we’re properly filled now without any people standing. From the window, Emolyn points out the vegetables in the street stall that we’re seeing for the first time: beets, carrots, potatoes, green onions. We roll through Sebaco and let a few more passengers off; the bus driver’s assistant lowers a bicycle and some wooden furniture from the roof down to a girl below.

At twilight we pull into the mountain town of Matagalpa. Within ten minutes we’ve checked into the Hotel Alvarado, a family-run guest house with adequate $10 rooms. For a little city, Matagalpa is lively: the sidewalks are crowded and music is pouring out of almost every shop. We head to Cafe Artisano right away, which our guidebook describes as “the bohemian hang of choice”. Dehydrated from our bus ride, we opt for a cold pinolillo—a toasted, milled corn drink with pepper, cloves, and cacao—over a beer or coffee drink.

For dinner we move on to a comedor, an inexpensive cafeteria-like restaurant that serves out plates of typical Nicaraguan food. We fill up for $2 apiece. For a beer we head to Picoteo Cafe, a packed bar/cafe with wooden paneling and a low ceiling. It is smoky inside. A litro bottle of Victoria costs less than $2 and lasts the two of us the entire evening. A three-man band including a guitar, bongos, and a giant bass-like guitar are playing tunes for different tables. I´m wondering if they´re playing for tips or hired by the bar when Emolyn adds “they´re like a jukebox.” The tables pay them in advance for requested songs.

At 7:40 the next morning we´re back on the big yellow bus headed for San Ramon, a village 12 km to the east. Gifford, the general manager of Finca Esperanze Verde has agreed to meet us and take us up to the farm. FEV is a working farm, an eco-lodge, and a non-profit. At 1,180 meters, its 100 plus acres have hiking trails that wind through a steep second-generation cloud forest.

Shortly after arriving, as we’re having a cup of FEV’s finest organic coffee, two men and a women arrive in a truck from Managua. Within minutes, the guy with the huge Nikon hanging around his neck asks if he can take our photograph for the Nicaragua Tourism Association. After all, we are the only guests here and we look relaxed, sipping our coffee looking out to the spectacular mountain view.

He snaps away and then we follow him down to the small coffee bean processing area of the farm and he continues photographing. The model, a woman in a dress, poses with a big smile and glides her fingers sensually through the green coffee beans drying on a rack. But we are more interested in the processing. The beans are picked shiny green and red around December, then de-pulped, fermented for 40 hours, soaked in water and stirred with a wooden paddle, and dried on site. Further down in Matagalpa they are sun dried longer, sorted again, graded, cupped, and shipped out.

FEV sells about 10,000 lbs. of coffee per year and get about double the price of conventional beans because they’re certified organic. They export directly to Counter Culture Coffee, based in Durham, NC which sells it as Café San Ramon.

We enjoy our two days at the lodge: hiking in the rain, reading and writing under cover of the pavilion, drinking coffee in the mornings, trying to stay warm at night.

Sunday morning we pass the butterfly research center as we pull out from the farm, and start down the hill in the extended cab Toyota pickup. Just then we hear a loud, deep howling from the trees. Giff slams on the brakes and points into the forest—it’s a Howler Monkey. We get a good look at him and continue on our way.

At the bottom of hill, we get out to the main dirt road, and Giff gets out. He’s playing a game of the Nicaraguan national obsession today and hoping the afternoon won’t be as rainy as the morning was. Yes, it’s baseball day today, and half the team is already standing in the back of another pickup dressed in miss-matched nylon jerseys, ready to play.

Another employee of the farm hops in the driver’s seat and shuttles us the 18 kilometers down to San Ramon with beautiful mountain views the whole way.

Posted by Stephen Bugno, Dec 2009