Day of Victory over Fascism

Ten days ago, I finally got out of the village after having stayed there for three and a half weeks. The only reason I was able to stay in Nukriani for so long without getting too stir-crazy is Hostel Tura. It's about a 45-minute walk from my house in the village, and for me, it's pretty much a bastion of awesomeness and of support. Needless to say, I spend a fair amount of time there, and I'm really lucky to have been conveniently placed so close to the hostel.

Anyway, May 9 is a Georgian public holiday: the Day of Victory over Fascism. It marks the surrender of Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union, in other words, the end of World War II. In the West we commemorate Victory in Europe Day on May 8, but due to time zone differences, I think, the former Soviet states celebrate it on May 9 instead. Now, I honestly have no idea what, if anything, Georgians do on May 9. It was, after all, a Soviet victory, and the Georgians with whom I've spoken about Russia abhor its government, understandably. At the same time, Joseph Stalin was ethnically a Georgian.

I celebrated May 9 by going to the village of Duisi in the Pankisi Gorge to see a derby. Pankisi is a valley in northeastern Kakheti that borders Chechnya. It is inhabited by Kists, and since I know next to nothing about them, it's probably best that you skim the Wikipedia article. I can tell you that they speak Kist, a dialect of Chechen, and Georgian and that they're Muslims. Jihadism has at least touched Duisi a little. There was a shop selling calendars with jihadist literature in Russian, and one of the little boys said in Georgian,"Chven vart mujahidebi, insha'Allah," or "We are the mujahideen, God willing." I also heard some Allahu Akbars when the children shot their toy guns.

I think the highlight of the holiday for the Kist children was shooting foreigners with plastic BBs. There was a group of 33 Westerners there, and we apparently made great targets. Fortunately, some of the foreigners had gone the year before, so they knew to buy guns ahead of time to shoot back. I only got shot ten or so times, but it was certainly annoying. The derby itself turned out to be a bit of a bust, but all in all, I was just grateful to be in good company and to be out of the village.