A Georgian Funeral

Last Saturday, I went to a Georgian funeral, and it was definitely a unique experience. The father-in-law of a teacher at my school had passed away, and all the staff at the school was invited to the funeral. According to my main co-teacher, when a Georgian dies, the body is kept at home for five days, and during that time, the undertaker visits and prepares the body for burial. On the fifth day, the funeral is held.

That afternoon, I arrived at my coworker's house, which is two houses down from my host family's, and sat with the other teachers from school on the porch. After about an hour, a little procession of family members filed down the stairs. A few young men came down carrying flowers, and they were followed by a large group of women--young and old alike. Some of the young women were openly sobbing, but their grief paled in comparison to that of the widow, who was hoarsely wailing "Vaime! Vaime!" Next, a group of men brought down the lid to the coffin, and another group carried the coffin holding the body of the man who had died. They propped up the coffin on two chairs in the yard, and all the guests awkwardly stared at the family as they grieved.

A few minutes passed before the men picked up the coffin and presumably loaded it into a van. The immediate family members filed out of the yard after them, followed by the female guests, and then by the male guests. We walked along the road to a nearby cemetery, and at this point, I realized how many people were actually there--some 200 according to my main co-teacher--and more people were still arriving. On the way to the cemetery, my main co-teacher pointed out the flowers on the road. Apparently one of their traditions is to leave a trail of flowers from the home to the cemetery. She also explained that the funeral would be followed by a  ქელეხი (kelekhi), or funeral banquet. These banquets are incredibly expensive because the family must kill a cow and feed a couple hundred guests.

We were at the cemetery long enough for the body to be buried, and then everyone returned to the house for the feast. There was a massive tent set up in the yard with two rows of tables and four rows of benches underneath it. Plates of food were literally piled on the tables. Every two or three place settings there were the following foods and drinks: bread, nazuki, a bulb of garlic, cheese, mushrooms, greens (onions, radishes, cucumbers, tomatoes, and some herbs), eggplants with walnuts, fish prepared in two different ways, chicken, jonjoli, potatoes, beets, a spinach spread, olives, mineral water, soda, and wine. In addition to all of this, they brought around huge platters of beans, beef, wheat with honey, fried potatoes with beef, mashed potatoes with mutton, and porridge with rice and mutton. It was by far the most incredible feast that I've ever seen in my entire life.