| Rondine: a peace omen in the Caucasus, Tbilisi |
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 Tbilisi, Georgia, July 2010
Davit, a 27 year-old Georgian, escaped with his family from Abkhazia in 1992. Abkhazia is a beautiful region of Georgia, on the Black Sea, that proclaimed itself independent after the war that left around 20.000 dead in the cemeteries. As a refugee in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, Davit was selected by Rondine for its International Hall of Residence. Today, having finished his studies and his three-year coexistence experience in Rondine, he is back in his country and is accompanying us on this friendship trip in the South Caucasus.
With him we go to one of the big refugee camps in Baku where thousands of Azeris that escaped from Nagorno-Karabakh have been taking shelter for years (official estimates talk about 700.000 evacuees from that region, theatre of one of the many Caucasian wars and today contended with Armenia). A journalist interviews Davit surrounded by a lot of children playing without toys, among the dust and the rubbish: “I was like them - he said - It was a terrible experience. For years, five of us lived in the same small room, sharing toilets with other tens of people. It could drive you crazy.”
Evacuees from the camp take us from one room to another, from floor to floor, in the enormous crumbling barracks that make you want to escape straight away. We listen to the pain, in the end, it’s similar for any refugee in the world: the memory of your own house, the desire to go back. Dead or alive, the request for sons and nephews is always the same: at least take me back. A mother persistently introduces us to her daughter who is apt for the selection for Rondine’s project to study in Italy. We listen, but we cannot say yes straight away. When other people’s pain adds to your impotence you feel really bad. In the school of a new refugee camp the head master shows us the photographs of his own school in Nagorno-Karabakh and then the photographs of the destruction of war. He precisely indicates what is left of the ghostly windows and he describes: “My office was here, the secretary, the class rooms…”.
But the trip is long and the Caucasus extensive. We leave the Caspian sea and go inland. For many miles we cross a desert which is full of oil pipelines and power lines. The first with gas or oil which in great part is sent to us, in Italy. The tie between Italy and Azerbaijan is… lubricated! The tea ceremony is like a restorative oasis, difficult to explain to Italians. The closest analogy is that of a small motorway grill, but it’s something different. Everything is more simple and bare , very dignified. Tea, served with fruit and honey or very sweet liquids, is savoured sitting down, calmly. Some families are next to us with children included in the ritual. You clean your hands from sugar in a fountain with fresh mountain water.
Along the hillside area, passing strange villages, we reach the border with Georgia. It’s not a critical border: Georgians and Azeris have good relationships. But everything is difficult anyway. Never ending waiting times. The group s unusual: there are Italian, Macedonian, Israeli and Russian passports. There is also a diplomatic passport: the ambassador Giuseppe Cassini. What is an ambassador doing with people who promote popular diplomacy? He is a friend and precious consultant: these are issues that you always have something to learn about. The Azeri bus leaves us on the road, a Georgian bus is waiting for us on the other side. We walk, luggage in hand, among post-war wrecked lorries and few cars, crossing a bridge over a stream that descends from the mountains all around. Nearly all of us pass: the young Russian, the Ingush and the Chechen are stopped for two hours for verifications. The Chechens and the Ingush, in the Russian Federation, on the other side of the Caucasian crest, supported the independentist efforts of Abkhazia and South Ossetia during the Russian-Georgian conflict in 2008. The border guards do not trust them: they are potential enemies for Georgia. Only the telephone calls and assurance from the ministry solve the problem and the barriers open for the last members to join the group, that receives them with an applaud. During that time only five cars had gone by.
It’s already night. In the woods, the managers of the refreshments store serve us meat from a fire that is lighting up the countryside. Used to the old European borders we tell our Caucasian friends about our crossings when we were young and had to hide duty free chocolate or cigarettes: France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria… someone was then dreaming that borders and customs would disappear. And so they did. This gives hope to those who listen and awakes gratitude and responsibility in the speakers.
Franco Vaccari, president of the organization “Associazione Rondine Cittadella della Pace”
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