My second trip to Georgia

26.09.2022

The second plein-air trip to Georgia was full of adventures, and not very pleasant ones. As I entered with great adventures, so I left Georgia late by plane, looking for a place to stay, etc. - I got during the first mobilization and the outflow of potential recruits from Russia to Georgia. If don't remember about it, then I saw Svaneti and fell in love with her. Even an 8-hour road from Tbilisi to Ushguli prepared for the meeting - relatively flat landscapes were replaced by higher and higher mountains, and here I am in the highest mountain village of Georgia, seeing off the sunset, sliding gold from Mount Shkhara. Of the three days, two days there was a thunderstorm, also beautiful, but it was difficult to write sketches, the wind blew even from the balconies of abandoned Svan houses. Therefore, I had to change the route and stay for another day. So I managed to write 6 sketches in Svaneti. There are wonderful shepherd dogs in Svaneti. For my affectionate look, they guarded me and warmed me. So at 6 in the morning, when it was already getting colder to +5, and I was catching a golden sunrise on the mountains, a big woolly dog lay down on my feet while I was writing a sketch, and I periodically warmed my frozen fingers in his fur. In Kvariati everything was expected to be familiar, there I wrote two more sketches and used up all my canvases. When I got to Tbilisi, I took my last year's canvases from last year's owner and managed to paint another sketch in Jvari three days before departure. In Svaneti, I also managed to visit the Church of St. George the Victorious in Ipari and study its frescoes. I continued studying the Georgian iconography of George the Victorious already in the Parliamentary Library of Georgia, where, I hope, I studied all the sources. And, of course, I got to the Nativity of the Virgin Mary in my favorite Cathedral of Sioni with my favorite choir.

There were ambivalent impressions from the trip, it was a difficult route with obstacles, trials and inconsistencies, interspersed with very happy moments of acquaintance with the beauty of Georgia.