The first settlement of Svans into Kvemo Kartli took place in 1987. This is when the Svans from landslide-affected Chviberi (higher Svaneti) were resettled in Dmanisi, in the houses built under a government programme. Svans started to introduce their style of life in Kvemo Kartli and establish strong communities in Kvemo Kartli.
Natela Argvliani and her family are eco-migrants from the village of Etseri in Mestia district; the family moved to Tsalka in 2003 under a government programme. She is the head of the family based on her age. The programme provided some funding for houses and the family managed to purchase a modest two-storey house where Natela lives with her son Nino Kvitsiani her daughter-in-law and her grandchildren who are twins. Natela also has a daughter, Lela, who is married to a Tbilisi resident and lives there. She visits her mother with her husband and son and stays for long periods at Natela’s house as was the case during our visit.
Natela’s daughter-in-law, Nino Kvitsiani lives in Tsalka with Natela. This is not the first displacement for her. Her parents left Svaneti not long before the Abkhazia war. For 7 years the family lived in Gulripshi until they had to flee again — not avalanches but war.
Nino teaches English at a local school and also gives private classes. She married when she was over 30, had already graduated university in Tbilisi and had a job. In addition to Georgian, Nino speaks good Russian and English, has her own opinions about life and her own judgment. She is not very satisfied with life in Tsalka. In her opinion, the town is very scattered from in ethnic standpoint with every group living autonomously and having little interaction with the other groups. One can assume that the cultural life of Tsalka is somewhat narrow for Nino but she does not say this explicitly. Nino is the breadwinner of her large family. She has authority and deliberates upon household strategies. Her husband has not worked for a long time.
Other relatives often visit their family. Natela’s aunt, Margarita Kordzaia, was visiting the family during our visit. Margarita lives in Dmanisi but often comes to visit her children who live in Tsalka and stays at Natela’s place for long periods. Margarita also hails from Svaneti. Young people, as well as the elderly, are unanimous in thinking that it is easier to live in Kvemo Kartli than in Svaneti. That said, however, Margarita and Natela miss their native region very much. They have not been there for several years now but, out of modesty and self-sacrifice, do not voice their wishes giving priority to the children’s opinions and, possibly, accepting the likelihood that they may never be able to see Svaneti again. However, Natela, for example, is intensively involved in household affairs, helps with the raising of her grandchildren and makes, clearly, a not-insubstantial contribution to the household income with her monthly pension.
As Nino works mainly as a teacher, there is no one to take care of the cows and so for this reason, the family has just two with the milk used mainly for their own consumption. Nino told us that they could if they wanted to hire help for milking the cows which is currently handled by Natela, as the work is poorly paid and affordable, paid at ten Lari a month per cow milked morning and evening. 10 Lari in the village is good money and it’s important for them. There is enough milk to make cheese to sell. A blue plastic barrel in which the cheese is stored can be seen outside the house. Cheese is stored in the barrel through the summer and, when the container is full, they close it tight in order to store and sell the cheese in winter when prices are higher. Cheese is also used for barter exchange for other goods and services. Thus, cheese can be referred to as local currency.
In addition to dairy products, potatoes and hay are other sources of income for the family and for people locally. The production of potatoes for other than household consumption, however, requires larger tracts of land and not every resident owns such territory. Producing hay, too, is labour intensive both for home consumption and for sale and requires mowing, drying, gathering and storage or loading for delivering to buyers and selling. So the women look after the cows and make cheese and this daily work feeds the families and is the main source of income for this family and for almost everyone else here.
Finally after years of waiting punctuated by the protests of desperate rural inhabitants who have at times blocked it to highlight their plight, the Batumi-Akhaltsikhe central road, which from the top of the Goderdzi pass to Khulo is little more than a dangerous track, is to be constructed into a proper road. The Kuwait Economic Fund has signed MoU with the Government of Georgia to help with rehabilitation of the road. The funding for the project (which is estimated at 100 million GEL) has been received as a state loan to be approved by the Parliament of Georgia soon.
Rehabilitating The road, which can be justly claimed one of the most beautiful in Georgia, will immediately enhance the lives of rural inhabitants not just in quality of life but in as a boost to livelihoods as even in its current condition the road is a vital trading link between Ajara, Samtskhe -Javakheti and Kvemo Kartli as illustrated by the fact sheets.
Map: red one is Batumi-Akhaltsikhe Road and others are the longer routes.
4 Beehives and their inhabitants from the high mountains of Ajara started their new life on the terrace of one of the largest Hotels in Batumi, Georgia, the Hilton Batumi, to produce honey for hotel guests. The General Manager of the Hilton, a keen birdwatcher and conservationist had the idea, seeking to showcase the beautiful countryside of Ajara and take this first step in illustrating the story of locally sourced food and the people who produce it.
By linking the hotel with the Ajara Beekeepers Business Association, the hives were installed. Urban beekeeping is increasingly popular in Europe as bee colonies decline and new ways are sought to develop a more ecologically sensitive lifestyle as urban centers grow. The Hilton also installed a honey showpiece at the breakfast buffet, of mounted honey comb, a large map of the 10 honey production gorges of mountainous Ajara and the indigenous flora on which the bees feed with the honey and comb sourced through honey producing company Matchakhela Ltd.
These initiatives which form a part of the ALCP programme’s work in the honey market system illustrate the great potential of the honey sector to feed into the promotion of Ajara as a great and varied tourist destination.
Income received from the Hotel hives will be donated to children in need in the rural municipalities.
News travels fast and perhaps other hotels may take up the initiative now it's been advertised through the Hilton chains newsletter.
Khelvachauri Women’s Room is taking its first steps in helping women access public resources voice their opinions and participate in local self-governance. The Women’s Room model that is being replicated in Ajara was first established in three municipalities of Kvemo Kartli from 2012 and subsequently in all municipalities of Kvemo Kartli and Samstkhe-Javakheti. The first opened in Batumi with the Association of Business Women of Ajara (ABWA) in the Ajara Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) was the first of all a new type of urban and business based women’s room, with the ideas of providing business trainings and an urban connection for the municipality based women’s rooms already opened in Keda, Shuakhevi, Khulo and Khelvachauri municipalities and soon to open in Kobuleti. The rooms are proving popular with these WR’s already providing more than 1200 services in three months.
The Women’s Rooms are a municipal service, a resource and consultancy space for facilitating open dialogue between local society and municipality officials, aiming at promoting women’s participation in the decision-making at the local level and increasing their access to municipal information and services including on health care and agricultural programmes. Women’s Rooms also offer a platform for trainings and meetings, supporting new initiatives and instilling women’s active participation. The space has been taken up quickly with the Association of Young Lawyers and the School of Democracy using the rooms to raise women’s awareness on human rights, economic and educational opportunities. Visitors can use library and internet for free. All of the Women’s Rooms in Ajara are easy to access on the first floor of municipality buildings and can be freely used by people with disabilities for meeting with Gamgebeli and other officials to speak about their issues. Gamgebelis hold weekly meetings with local citizens in the W’s Rs. A Free hotline number (Khulo 0 800 100 109; Shuakhevi 0 800 000 008; Keda 0 800 100 103; Khelvachauri 0 800 100 106) allows rural women to voice their issues in the Gamgeoba.
Women’s Room coordinators and municipal Gender Advisors, were trained on the importance of women involvement in decision-making using guidelines on The Application and Implementation of the Law on Gender Equality of Georgia by local self-government bodies to increase women’s participation in the community meetings, that was resulted in significant increase from 3% (2014) to 33% (2016) of women’s participation in these meetings.
To find out more about W’s Rs ongoing activities, visit Ajara (Batumi,Khulo, Shuakhevi, Keda, Khelvachauri), Kvemo Kartli (Dmanisi, Tsalka, Tetritskaro, Rustavi,Marneuli, Aspindza) and Samtskhe Javakheti (Akhaltsikhe,Adigeni, Borjomi ) W’s Rs Facebook pages.
The first Cheese Factory in Ajara, Natural Produktsia Ltd was officially opened in Dioknisi, Khulo Municipality.
Construction of the factory started in April, 2015 and has been functioning since October. Natural Produktsia Ltd is the first and only cheese factory in upper Ajara producing Imeruli cheese currently at the largest scale in Georgia. The factory is set up with modern equipment and is producing cheese in accordance with FS&H standards. The factory collects milk from 22 villages of Khulo municipality from more than 300 farmers to date, who have now have a source of daily income. The factory processes up to 6 tons of milk daily and makes Imeruli cheese, Sulguni cheese, cottage cheese and butter. It employs 23 local farmers, out of which 11 are women. The factory is the sister factory of the family enterprise Tzesari Ltd whose factory in Sakdrioni village Tsalka produces sulguni which is sold in Carrefour in Tbilisi and in the Batumi Agrarian Market, leading hotels, such as Hilton, Sheraton, Radisson; restaurants - Porto Franco, Munchen, Pier Batumi, Riviera; supermarkets like Goodwill, Nugeshi, Nikora, Ialchin, Willmart, Absolute, etc.
Djakhangir Abasov, 2500 sheep owner from Sagarejo municipality: “It is very good and almost unbelievable that we’ll bath our ship and cattle for free. We were paying to private owners 0.5 Tetri per sheep which is 100-150 GEL for a flock plus money for the chemicals”.
Over the last 18 months, programme client Agricultural video producer Mosavali has been developing technical video lessons on key aspects of livestock husbandry and beekeeping. The videos pitched at reaching farmers through social media and no longer than 3 minutes viewing time have taken off. 9 livestock and 7 beekeeping videos have been produced and uploaded to networks.
