Beauty Saloon Music: Artists/Articles

Some of my first images of Georgia come from the grainy, converted VHS tape of my brother's wedding celebration in Tbilisi with the family and friends of his Georgian bride, Eka, whom he had met the year before in Damascus, Syria. The celebration featured a seemingly endless table piled high with bread, cheese, khatchapuri (the ubiquitous cheese-filled bread of the Caucasus), dolmade (stuffed grape leaves), kabobs, and copious amounts of wine. At one end of the table, an irrepressible character, Eka's uncle, would rise every few minutes with a fresh glass of wine in hand and propose a new toast to which the two sides of the table featuring long lines of Georgians looking seriously intent on the task at hand would soak in his words and a full glass of wine in one well-practiced motion. For indeed, in Georgia, feasting is a high art, hosting is a sacred occupation, and drinking is a necessary skill. The ringleader of any supra, as these feasts are known, is the tamada, and it is the job of the tamada to make sure that the supra unfolds with an ordered and dignified pleasure. The central duty of the tamada is to lead the succession of toasts that focus the mind on the important things in life (such as mothers, children, friendship, nature, God, peace, love, and of course Georgia) even as the jugs of homemade wine imbibed would under normal conditions act to dispel clarity. But this is Georgia and normal rules do not apply. The drinking horn is a transcendent vessel.

Needless to say, it was clear from early on that this was my kind of place. I had heard about its breathtaking mountains, the relaxed beaches of the Black Sea, the storied history of Tbilisi, and of course its famous traditions of hospitality but what truly drew me in was the idea that singing and playing music were such natural and important parts of most social gatherings. Unlike so many parts of the world where people spend much more time listening to mass-produced recordings than making their own music, Georgia is a place where music continues to be an organic part of everyday life rather than something relegated to the radio or forbidden to all but professionals. It was with this atmosphere in mind that I set out to Georgia with a microphone in hand to try to experience some of the music that fills people's homes and lives. Spending five months living with Eka's extraordinarily hospitable and helpful family, my idea was to slowly build a network of musicians through family connections and try to record some sessions in informal and natural settings with those interested in being recorded. On numerous occasions I found myself not only dazzled by the talents of individual singers and musicians but somewhat in awe of the collective cultural wealth of the Georgian singing tradition.

In a society riven by economic collapse, civil war, corruption and soaring crime since the break-up of the Soviet Union, the traditions of the supra and polyphonic singing are ways for strangers and friends alike to come together, build trust, speak of common values, and sing with united voices. Besides bringing great joy to life, undoubtedly their primary calling, these twin pillars of Georgian culture, the supra and polyphony, provide ways for loved ones and strangers alike to experience a sublime togetherness even if for only one enchanted evening and defuse the dark, chaotic forces of suspicion and violence that at times surround them. Without these inspired institutions of social cohesion, it is difficult to imagine that Georgians would have had the cultural resiliency to survive not only the post-Soviet chaos of the 1990s and early 21st century but so many devastating, disorienting, and alienating periods in their history. Tbilisi is a city said to have been razed to the ground over 30 times in its history by some of the best in the business, Tamerlane himself destroyed it along with the rest of Georgia repeatedly over the course of 20 years before his death in 1405 (Anderson, 63).

It is precisely this Georgian melange of tremendous joy in wine and song, rigid highlander rules of hospitality and honor, and a sense of total unfettered chaos to the point of absurdity that puts so many foreigners under its spell, including me. For example, many great Russian writers such as Tolstoy, Lermontov, and Pushkin all found themselves entranced by the Caucasus and Georgia in particular, full of respect for its people even as they were colonizing them. The romantic image of Georgia continued throughout the Soviet era in Russia and elsewhere. John Steinbeck wrote of this phenomenon in his Russian Journal, "They spoke of Georgians as supermen, as great drinkers, great dancers, great musicians, great workers and lovers. And they spoke of the country in the Caucasus and around the Black Sea as a kind of second heaven. Indeed, we began to believe that most Russians hope that if they live very good and virtuous lives, they will go not to heaven, but to Georgia when they die" (Anderson, 120). Despite being a place where in my experience most taxi rides include breaking down and pushing, where taking a shower involves a complex overhanging container designed to store and heat the water from the random periods when the electricity and running water are actually working and which I found out the hard way is remarkably easy to electrocute oneself on, where I saw politicians brawl in open sessions in parliament, and where highway banditry is not only a living tradition but a growth sector in the economy, so many of my experiences there lead me to a similar sentiment.

Unlike city dwellers in so many countries, many modern Georgians are not only the inheritants of a sophisticated and deep urban culture but are simultaneously very connected to the land and patterns of rural life. Even in the cases of people born and raised in Tbilisi or other major cities, most Georgians have strong ties to ancestral villages and spend summers and other vacations visiting or go to work during harvest times. The soil is their direct source of food, wine, and physical sustenance and the mountains are their source of awe and spiritual awareness. Rural churches in Georgia are often built in the most remote, breathtaking areas because they are less communal meeting places than they are personal sanctuaries to go, light candles, reflect, and pray. This sort of individual spiritualism survived the years of official Soviet atheism for many Georgians. This unbroken link between rural traditions and urban existence has allowed for the enrichment of both and the development of a vibrant, unified national heritage centered around the supra.

For me the supra experience is unique in that it allows both loved ones and strangers to speak truly, unguardedly, and poetically about the things that are truly important to them. Although it's true that the tradition can be suffocating at times (there are times you maybe don't feel like having 12 shots of vodka with beef innards for breakfast just because you have a guest or maybe you're tired of listening to the same old spiel from your uncle about the importance of family or mothers or whatever), but in my experience the tedium of the supra ritual is rarely felt and primarily it is a very pleasant way to commune with others and often it is a truly uplifting occasion. It is both high-spirited fun (i.e. downing a large drinking horn of wine and tipping it over at the end to show it is completely empty to the last drop and saying things like "may your enemies be vanquished like this") and philosophical. To get to the heroic core of Georgian philosophy as expressed and reinforced in the supra, there is no more importance source than Rustaveli. His description of a lover represents a classic ideal of Georgian culture that emphasizes physical bravery and strength but also eloquence, intellect, and a generous, overflowing spirit.

"A lover should be even as fair as the sun itself, deep of mind, possessed of riches, generous of heart, in the flower of youth, and with time at command. He should have eloquence of tongue, a good understanding, endurance, and the strength that brings victory over mighty antagonists. He who falls short of this is not to be reckoned a lover" (Rustaveli, 5).

The brilliant late 19th and early 20th century poet, Vazha Pshavela, sets the mood for the field recordings made during this journey in Georgia with the opening verse of his classic poem "The Snake-Eater":

The Khevsuri had come as guests,

Tsika, their host, had brewed the beer.

They sat on the flat earth roof and drank,

downing the beer, cup by cup.

Some played the three-stringed panduri,

and sang loud songs as they plucked the strings,

putting their listeners in the mood

for tales of heroes and their deeds.

Ablaze with worship, the verses spoke

heroic names; the old men smoked,

the smoke hung over them like fog,

they puffed their pipes and told their tales,

invoked and blessed the heroes' souls,

recalled and praised them, to arouse

the young: "It's up to you now

who can be a greater man!" (Pshavela, 69)


Anderson, Tony. 2004. Bread and Ashes. London: Vintage. (Highly recommended for anyone interested in Georgia, or who simply has a brain and a sense of humor.)

Rustaveli, Shota (translated by R.H. Stevenson). 1977. The Lord of the Panther Skin. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Pshavela, Vazha (translated by Douglas Rayfield). 2002. "The Snake-Eater," Three Poems.