There is still time to enter the quiz – all will be revealed tomorrow so do contribute – no answer too silly!
And on to today. We are staying in Oni which is situated pretty close to the border with South Ossetia and very close to the Caucasus Mountains (home in on the map below for more details):
We spent our day getting to know the small town, once home to over 3000 mountain Jews (55 per cent of the population of Oni) who had lived here for more than 2000 years. Many left the town in the 1970s to go to Israel, with a further emigration in the early 1990s after an earthquake damaged the area and the synagogue. Now a minyan can only be assembled by including the women of the remaining families as well as the men.
We organised for the renovated synagogue, originally built in 1895 by workers from Thessaloniki and designed by a Polish architect, to be opened for us. Apparently, the communists had wanted to pull the place down after the earthquake but a sit-in by women with babies (and not just Jews) prevented it happening.
While impressive from the outside, once inside we found the synagogue quite odd and charming with folksy paintings and an impressive dome.
We continued our walk round the town meeting many more dogs than humans along the way with some accompanying us on our journey. Dogs are omnipresent in Georgia – they don’t tend to bark at humans but we have seen them be pretty aggressive with each other. Here’s a sample of Oni’s dogs to satisfy dog-lovers’ curiosity:
The town has a central square, with evidence of some civic pride:
The broad streets are lined with houses with a few of the older wooden ones and many with what look like permanent Christmas decorations on their roofs:
Our host took us to visit his wonderful workshop where he works with traditional patterns such as these balcony supports. He also makes chairs as well as many other items in wood:
We were presented with really beautiful honey spoons which he polished up before giving them to us:
And then we drove up the road to see the view of the Caucasus mountains, stopping only when the road disintegrated because of a landslide last year. But what a sight!
Oh, so many wonderful dogs.
So many and so gentle ( though not with each other when territory is involved)..
Hurrah the sun has come out. Sue, you must be relieved.
Steve wants to know what wood is used by the carver
Sunny today and raining tonight – fortunately have managed to pack for all weathers this time. The wood is oak according to the master craftsman.
Does anyone actually live in Georgia……or have the dogs taken over and people are afraid to come out?? I would certainly be nervous unless they were all sleeping dogs with no intention of being disturbed so I am in awe of your cool.
The quiz beckons.
My guesses are 1) a fired clay vessel used for serving wine at the table.
2) The hole looks to me as if it is housing the rim of a much larger vessel for making/containing wine – probably a giant terracotta jar such as an amphora – which is underground – therefore not visible in the picture. I think this is a wine-making method inherited from the ancients which provides exactly the required conditions for success.
3) The washing-up brush look alike……Heaven only knows what it’s made of, is it twine? Could it be a device for sampling the wine in the underground jars to establish how well developed it is? My theory being that it gets soaked in the wine and the wine maker sucks it like a lolly to decide?
4) Or is a device for popping the newly formed clay serving vessel into the kiln for firing?
Nika is holding a horn from a Caucasian wild goat, I think. Could that be what Georgians used to use for quaffing their local/homemade wine?
Happy travels.
There are I suspect as many dogs as people but all amiable ( and most asleep) except when challenged by each other. They all seem to belong to someone . Indeed we met one young woman who said a particular dog was hers and called Louis. So, the quiz : you’re mostly right on pictures 2 onwards – all wine related. I love the idea of tasting the wine using the cleaning tool though the gourd like object is for tasting not firing. High marks all round though!
If I’m the only entrant can I please be the winner (whether the answers right or wrong)?!?
Of course! Sadly there are other contestants but you’re in the top three I think..
Are those reindeer on the roofs? (Eg do they roam in the mountains up there?). The stray dogs look like the many we’re seeing here lying all over the Zagori villages – surprisingly docile, friendly, and appearing well fed even though no one seems to want to tell us exactly why. (the big aggressive sheep dogs we sometimes meet in the mountains are a very different story!)
Good question about the reindeer – I have no idea if there are any deer in the miles and miles of really beautiful forest – there are no signs by the road for any animals and of course we haven’t walked any trails though probably couldn’t identify scat of any kind if we came across it ( city dwellers!). Hope you’re carrying sticks to ward off mountain sheep dogs!
You have certainly got ‚inside‘ this small town but one thing that I don‘t think you have mentioned yet, is what you are eating and drinking??
Also had it been a Sephardic Jewish population. It seems so from the decorated renovated Shul but perhaps the ‚renovators‘ had free rein and designed a synagogue that would like to attend?
The man from Totteridge that we met in the synagogue said there had been both Ashkenazi and Sephardi synagogues in a place he’d been way up in the mountains but they’d merged so I guess maybe the same here? M may know more.
What a fantastic chair – part traditional design, part crazy modernism!
Answers (guesses, to be accurate) to the quiz. I think the common theme is the making of pots. The earthenware jar in the first pic is the end result (no idea why it has a hoole two thirds of the way up!). The second looks exactly like a tandoor so I reckon it’s a kiln. The long handled tool is for putting the pots into the kilns and positioning them. The vessel with the long handle is used for adding liquid or other substances to the pots while they are being fired. And finally the horn is for taking a well deserved drink from after you’ve faffed about with all that.
Well, definitely top marks for thematic consistency even though chosen theme is wrong ( apart from drinking horn). Most of the pictures are wine related apart from the first one which is really obscure ( oh yes, I can hear you muttering, and the rest were obvious?). Agree about the chairs – I thought they were fantastic
What a really charming folksy synagogue and such a privilege to see it. Wood carving looks like a lovely interaction too.
It was a lovely day altogether. We met a man from Totteridge in the synagogue with his father!
I’m hoping the evidence for my dormouse theory gets picked up! Easy to get behind when catching up after being distracted for a day or two and put in a chat when everyone has moved on. But here it is again in case missed…
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/jul/24/baked-dormouse-and-other-roman-delicacies-come-to-oxford?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Well, I’ve read the article and clocked a new word – glirarium- and thought, on the whole, dormice have had a rougher deal from the destruction of their habitats than from being fattened with acorns and chestnuts , seasoned with honey and poppyseeds and then eaten. But then I’m a bit of a metropolitan elitist so what do I know?