It was the autumn of 1993. The active phase of the war in Abkhazia had just ended, but in Tbilisi the war could still be felt everywhere — in the streets, on people’s faces, in the darkened windows, and even in the silence that was occasionally broken by the distant sound of automatic gunfire.
The city once known as the “city of sun and roses” had become grey and lifeless. The streets were filled with exhausted people, endless queues, and apartment blocks waiting for electricity. We rarely had electricity, and gas was almost non-existent. The empty shelves of the shops only deepened the grotesque atmosphere. In the evenings, the silence was broken sometimes by gunfire, sometimes by the commotion of drunk citizens, and often by both at once. It had almost become a kind of lullaby.
The country was sinking into chaos.
But perhaps the darkest colour of Tbilisi in those years was not grey, but hopelessness.
Europe was very far from this city and could hardly be seen.
Everything Western, which we simply called “firm” at the time, seemed almost like a chimera. Foreign clothes, Snickers chocolate bars, cigarettes, even an empty package from some Western product acquired a certain significance. Sometimes, quite by chance, we would get our hands on a thick, colourful fashion catalogue. Its high-quality photographs depicted a world that seemed to exist in a completely different dimension from ours.
Unfortunately, at the time I could only satisfy my curiosity by looking at the pictures, because the magazine was often published in a language I neither understood nor could read. Europe was close in pictures and in my dreams, yet very far away in reality.
Against this background, a proposal from my friend seemed quite interesting. At the time, one of the popular political parties was looking for young people to establish an international relations office within its student organisation. Today, when countless exchange programmes exist and almost any student can study at a European university, this might not sound like a particularly attractive proposition. But in the distant early 1990s, when students sat in freezing classrooms, reading books by the light of a lamp or a 12-volt battery-powered bulb, spending our free time playing cards or backgammon and thinking about how to “get through” yet another winter, the opportunity to meet foreigners — even with completely uncertain results — sounded quite appealing.
Naturally, we chose our titles accordingly. My friend became Head of the International Relations Office, while I became Director of the Western European Department.
As Confucius said, “If names are not correctly chosen, words will no longer correspond to the reality of things.”
In our case, the titles certainly sounded impressive, but the irony was that our entire “international office”, including my “department”, consisted of just two people.
But names mattered — or so we believed.
We began by preparing draft letters addressed to several European embassies accredited in Georgia, asking them to help us establish contact with student and youth organisations in Europe. Today, in the age of the internet and artificial intelligence, even a first-year student could do something like this in a matter of minutes.
It took us several months.
We first wrote the letters by hand and then typed them at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where my friend was doing an internship, because we had no access to a computer or printer anywhere else. More than once, almost-completed texts were lost because the electricity frequently went out. The word processors of the time did not yet have an automatic save function, and several hours of work could disappear in a single second. That is why every successfully printed letter felt like a small victory.
Our efforts paid off. Within a few weeks, we received a reply.
The German Embassy provided us with contact information for German and European student organisations, including the student organisation of the European People’s Party, and promised to make sure that our letters reached their intended recipients.
This was our first victory. We still did not know where all this would lead. We only knew that, for the first time, we had opened the door to Europe — if only slightly.
***
One evening, I had just arrived at the attic of the building at Rustaveli Avenue. That was our headquarters — the word “office” had not yet entered everyday Georgian usage.
The chairman of the organisation informed us:
— Foreigners are coming. They want to meet Georgian students, and we have to go.
— When? — I asked.
— Tomorrow.
He paused and added:
— Can you only write in English, or can you speak as well? We will need an interpreter.
— We can speak too, — we answered almost simultaneously.
As soon as I got home, I took out my old, battered Russian-English dictionary, its cover worn down from years of use. I had received it from my first private English teacher, Tamara Dmitrovna, who was Russian by nationality. To this day, I do not know her surname. She never told me, and I never asked. At my first lesson she simply said, “Call me Tamara Dmitrovna.”
That is how she remained in my memory — this strange form of address, with her first name and patronymic pronounced as one word.
I put the dictionary on the table and began preparing for the meeting.
I went over words and terms — treaty, international relations, cooperation, independence, sovereignty, student movement. I even wrote them down on a separate sheet of paper, thinking that these would be the words I would need most the next day.
I had never been further from reality.
***
The next day, we dressed up especially for the occasion.
I had my father tie my tie that morning before I left for the institute. I kept it tied like that in my pocket all day, as though my international career depended on this small piece of fabric.
That evening we went to a restaurant, where three European students were waiting for us — from Germany, Sweden and Belgium. At first sight, they looked foreign, almost strange in some way, which was probably due to their style of dress. Tbilisi fashion in 1993, especially for men, was not particularly tolerant of colourful clothing. We lived in a world of dark colours — black, blue, grey, and, in the boldest cases, dark burgundy. My own wardrobe was limited to much the same palette.
These three young people, however, looked relaxed and completely at ease. There was something about their clothes that I had previously seen only in the pages of those European fashion catalogues. One wore a light pink shirt and trousers of a strange colour that, to this day, I still cannot name. The others wore combinations of colours that I personally would probably never have dared to wear in Tbilisi. They, however, seemed not to have thought about it at all. They were simply wearing what they liked.
Now, so many years later, all this may seem rather amusing, and thank God, colourful and carefree young people now walk through every neighbourhood of Tbilisi. But back then, their clothes seemed almost as foreign and distant to us as their countries. Europe, which until then we had seen only in the pages of magazines and in foreign films, suddenly stood before us — in the form of three young people who looked freer, stranger and more colourful than we did.
Within a few minutes, however, it became clear that our outward differences were the smallest of the differences between us that evening.
After the very first questions, another thing became clear: for us, it was strange that they knew nothing about Georgia; for them, it was equally strange that we knew almost nothing about Europe beyond the clichés we had encountered in the books of the classics.
After the greetings and introductions, we sat down at the table.
And then the Georgian feast began!
***
All my studying the night before and my painstaking work with dictionaries suddenly became completely useless.
Treaty?
International relations?
Sovereignty?
Which Georgian toast requires such words?
There was friendship.
Brotherhood.
Love.
The guest.
Our ancestors.
Georgia.
Life.
And, of course, embraces and affection.
The first toast was still possible to translate, more or less clearly.
By the second, things had become more complicated.
After the third toast, gestures joined the words.
Then — facial expressions and mime.
Finally — elements of pantomime.
And at some point I realised that I was no longer translating into English. I was trying to explain something for which English words simply did not exist.
Our European guests gradually found it difficult to ask questions as well. They could not understand why every Georgian kept repeating almost the same toast.
Why did people sometimes stand up and sometimes remain seated — and why only the men?
Why did we clink glasses for one toast but not for another?
Why was one toast short while another seemed endless?
We were no less astonished by the fact that they did not know who Saint Nino and Mirian were, who David the Builder and Queen Tamar were, or the history of our alphabet. We were surprised that they did not know that the first Georgian cross was made from a vine branch and a woman’s braid, and that both women and the vine are sacred to Georgians, just as Christ is sacred. How could you not know that the guest is a gift from God?
To us, all of this was so self-evident that their lack of knowledge caused a certain embarrassment.
We explained.
I translated.
They listened. They understood some things and failed to understand others, and simply nodded.
Then we drank again.
And the more we drank, the less important the meaning of the words became, and the more important the meeting itself became.
This is the magic of wine, its unique, inexplicable, almost divine power. It seems to connect people by itself — not through the mind, but through the heart. And this connection is the most genuine, the purest and the strongest.
That evening, we both discovered wine diplomacy!
We also discovered that difference does not mean an obstacle. On the contrary, it is a treasure — diversity, accepting what is different while preserving your own values and your own culture; experiencing, understanding and appreciating the unfamiliar while remaining rooted in your own traditions. That is what a person should strive for.
The next day, probably none of us could have repeated exactly what we had talked about. But for all of us, it was the beginning of a great friendship.
Years later, when I was studying in Germany, I met the German friend I had made that evening in a beer bar. After several pints, when people usually tell more truth than they had intended to before a meeting, the conversation turned to that dinner.
He told me that the evening had made an unforgettable impression on them.
“You were completely different people,” he told me.
Too emotional for us.
Too loud.
Too passionate.
But we felt such warmth that we fell in love with Georgia and Georgians forever.
I remember those words.
Perhaps because it was only then that I first realised something I had not understood that evening.
At that meeting, we were not trying to offer Europeans cooperation. We were trying to explain Georgia to them.
Our history.
Our kings.
Our alphabet.
Our hospitality.
Our wine.
Our toasts.
Everything we believed they simply had to know.
But in the end, we taught them most about Georgia through things that cannot be explained in words and can only be felt with the heart. And that was thanks to the divine liquid — wine — which we have been tending and cherishing for some 8,000 years.
Many years have passed since that story.
I have lived in several European countries, met countless Europeans, and heard similar words about Georgians more than once.
Yes, we are loud.
Yes, we are energetic — and lazy at the same time.
Often, we are also rather naïve.
But we are warm and, in some way, genuinely open-hearted.
Perhaps that is what became most visible during that first encounter.
In 1993, in preparation for my first contact with Europe, I learned English words, believing that those were the words I would need.
That evening, I used none of them.
Instead, I discovered that there was another language — the language of toasts, wine, smiles, handshakes, embraces and respect for the guest.
And my first meeting with Europeans, which was supposed to take place in English, ultimately took place in precisely that language.