Goodbye, Georgia

No point in going on about Georgia endlessly, when I soon have to pack for our next trip. So here are just two more issues that made a lasting impression on me, for better or for worse. And I'll start with the worse:

Women. Don't get me wrong -- the women themselves are fine. The young ones even speak fairly idiomatic English, thanks to TV series, the Internet, and so on. What bothered me is their relative absence from the public space. Public spaces belong to men. As if women still belong in the kitchen. What struck me most is the number of women in black. We saw an inordinate number of them, both in Tbilisi and in smaller towns. Imagine -- in mid summer, women dressed in black from head to toe. Obviously not for elegance sake. Seems that, according to Georgian tradition, a widow must wear black. Forever and ever. For the rest of her life. Didn't Queen Victoria do that? But that must have been her own choice... To be fair, modern women apparently wear black "only" for a year after being widowed. At least in the main cities. I doubt that applies to small towns and villages. And even then, it probably depends on the extent of social pressure -- or tolerance -- they're exposed to.

And now for the better: Sculpture. Statues. Beautiful. Everywhere. Anyone who's used to the gorgeous statues in cities like Paris, Rome, St. Petersburg -- might not see anything exceptional in Georgia. But to me it was a revelation. A Russian friend said to me - Well, what did you expect? It's a legacy of the Russian era, the Russian occupation of Georgia. Perhaps he's right - I don't know.

In the park in center of Kutaisi

Thing is, Israel suffers from a woeful dearth of artistic, aesthetic, inspired and inspiring statues in public places. Yes, there are monuments to this, that, and the other. But even those are for the most part an awful bore: klotzy, unimaginative, ugly structures. When they're not an eyesore, they're just so boring and lacking in charm or character, that you're better off just ignoring their very existence.

On the bridge in Kutaisi

Batumi promenade

Batumi promenade

So no wonder I couldn't get enough of statues in Georgia. I've uploaded just a few pics, which won't necessarily impress everyone. But I assure you there's a wide variety of styles and subject matters. TripAdvisor provides a few examples.

I've been told that the lack of statues in Israel stems from the religious commandment in Exodus, chapter 20, verses 3-4: "Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any manner of likeness, of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; thou shalt not bow down onto them, nor serve them;..."  I don't know to what extent this commandment is taken at face value by authorities in Israel. After all, you can find busts of prominent personalities sprinkled here and there. But I am told that there is, nonetheless, a long-standing aversion to placing statues in public places. God forbid someone might bow to them, idolize them, and bring upon us the wrath of the creator: "... for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me"...
[Hebrew readers: See an interesting article on the subject on the Israel Public Broadcasting Corporation site.]

To end on an optimistic note, here is one of my favorite works of art in Tel Aviv: Dudu Geva's Duck:

The Duck, by Dudu Geva, Masaryk Square, Tel Aviv.
The inscription says "Always optimistic"