Latvia and Estonia

Spending a couple of weeks in Estonia in February and March, I inevitably found myself making comparisons with my experiences in Latvia six months earlier. In many ways, Estonia has tremendous advantages. Efficient, well-run, self-confident, benefiting from the close relationship with nearby Finland. Not afflicted by the corruption that burdens Latvia, economically successful, a trail-blazer in internet technology, one of the earliest ex-communist adopters of the Euro, Estonia is a thoroughly modern country, with a bright future.

When the prime minister asserted recently that Estonia would be among the five richest countries in Europe (a claim that would be laughed out of court in any other ex-communist country), even many foreigners in Estonia were convinced they would do it. Proud of their achievements, for example in having successfully fought off an organised cyber attack a few years ago, many Estonians are convinced they are one of the most developed, most advanced countries in Europe. They are years ahead of almost every other country in terms of IT penetration, they assert, waving aside the doubts of foreigners that their on-line systems, including internet voting, as well as on-line banking and sophisticated ID cards, might be open to fraud as elsewhere in the world. They are simply better and more advanced than the rest of us, they maintain. Is this smugness, or just an honest appraisal of their strengths?

That self-confidence is in marked contrast to Latvia, buffeted as it has been by the recent global economic crisis, racked by multiple corruption scandals. Yet in important respects Latvia seems healthier, more at ease with itself than Estonia.

The two countries share in common a heritage of deep trauma from the Soviet period, with its mass murder, deportations, colonisation by Soviets, the drip drip effacement of the native Baltic cultures and languages. Both of them have struggled to come to terms with the large Russian populations that remain. Latvia contains more Russians than Estonia, yet seems to have had greater success in integrating them, and in earning their adherence to the independent Latvian state.

It is striking that in Estonia, despite the large proportion of the population that is Russian, there are very few Russians in prominent positions. That the mayor of Riga is a Russian, that the head of Latvia's anti-corruption office was a Russian, and that prominent positions in other state bodies have been held by Russians, seems to have been widely accepted by Latvians. In Latvia, Russians have become an important factor on the political landscape that cannot be ignored. Not so in Estonia, where many Russians complain of feeling unwanted, treated like aliens. Why is that?

One suggestion put to me was that there was quite a large number of Russians in Latvia, especially in Riga, even before the colonisation policy that followed the Second World War, going back to the annexation of the territory to imperial Russia in the 18th Century. Russians have been a part of Latvian life for a long time. Many of the longstanding Russian residents are educated people, well-integrated, able to take on prominent roles. In Estonia, by contrast, there were relatively few Russians before 1945. Most of the Russians who came since then were industrial workers, not educated people, who have since lost out and been marginalised by the decimation of old Soviet industries in the 1990s. Perhaps that is a partial explanation.

It seemed to me that the two countries have different approaches to citizenship. That in Latvia, they have gone further towards embracing a more civic understanding, according to which all citizens, whatever their national origins, can be accepted as belonging, and can participate equally in the country's life. Watching a film about Soviet rule in Estonia, and the independence movement at the beginning of the 1990s, with its stress on Estonian folk traditions and songs, I felt there was a more 19th century type of ethnic belonging at work here, according to which only ethnic Estonians could ever be truly felt to be part of the national life and culture of the country. That Russians would always be outsiders, no matter that they may have been born there and have no other country.

The result is that, whereas Russians have taken big strides in Latvia, many of them being well integrated in the country's public and business life, that has not been the case in Estonia. There, by contrast, a large Russian population feels unwanted, resentful, marginalised. But they are not going to go away. Most Russians who wanted to move to Russia did so long ago. Fearing the threat from their big neighbour, many Estonians seem anxious that their Russian population might be a potential fifth column. That the majority of them are not Estonian citizens, even 20 years after independence, seems not to trouble them unduly, however. Most Estonians are unwilling to take steps that would ease the naturalisation of more of the Russian residents in their country. But that is surely a mistake. As fully integrated, Estonian citizens, would not the Russians of Estonia be more likely to be loyal to Estonia? I believe that is the lesson from Latvia that Estonians would do well to learn. Not to say that everything is perfect with the Russians in Latvia. But in bilingual Riga, Latvians and Russians appear more at ease with themselves and with each other than is the case in Estonia. Being rich will not solve all Estonia's problems.

Was international intervention in Kosovo a mistake?

The recent allegations in Dick Marty’s Council of Europe report linking Prime Minister Hashim Thaci with organised crime, including the murder of people for their organs, were shocking. The levels of corruption and organised crime, and the involvement of leading political figures cast doubt on Kosovo’s fitness for inclusion in European integration. They have also added new grist to the mill of those who see the disputed international recognition of Kosovo’s independence, as well as the NATO bombardment and expulsion of Serbian forces that made it possible, as huge mistakes, and one more shameful episode in the record of ill-conceived international interventions.

First to the history. Let us be clear, the KLA was a terrorist organisation. Frustrated with the failure of the peaceful resistance policy of Ibrahim Rugova to bring about the goal of independence, the KLA sought to advance that goal by violent means. Its attacks were not only against Serbian security forces, but against Serb and other non-Albanian civilians and against Albanians who did not agree with their tactics. The KLA was responsible for serious war crimes, in which several of its leading figures were directly implicated. Its terror tactics continued after the departure of Serbian forces, as it carried out indiscriminate revenge against Serb, Roma and other perceived enemies.

And beyond that, facing elections to newly created representative bodies in the couple of years after the establishment of a UN mandate in Kosovo in 1999, the political parties the KLA spawned carried on their terror against Rugova’s Democratic League of Kosovo, with numerous cases of political violence. These were not heroes and liberators as still portrayed by many Albanians and their foreign cheerleaders. Many of them were vicious criminals. That they have continued their criminal activities to the present day, and, having gained political power, have used it to subvert political structures to their criminal ends and to undermine the development of democratic institutions, should surprise no one.

So was NATO wrong to take the KLA’s side in 1999 and bomb Serbian forces out of Kosovo? Given the nature of the KLA, the readiness of NATO forces to treat them as allies was to say the least distasteful. Yet the decision to use force to stop Milosevic in Kosovo was understandable. Whether there was any viable alternative will long be debated. If there had been another government in Belgrade, an international policy of urging restraint in responding to the KLA’s attacks and negotiations with legitimate Kosovo representatives, above all Rugova, would have been reasonable.

But Milosevic did not respond to the KLA with restraint. His forces embarked on a terror policy of their own, with massacres designed to panic Albanians into fleeing. Add to that evidence of a pre-conceived plan to drive out a large part of the Albanian population, and an international policy of standing by looked indefensible. And Milosevic had form, having sparked the earlier wars of ethnic cleansing in Croatia and Bosnia. The international community had indulged him during the Bosnian peace process, treating him as the indispensable factor for peace in the Balkans, despite his earlier warmongering record. But here he was at it again in Kosovo. Any notion of Milosevic as a peacemaker had surely lost whatever little credibility it had ever enjoyed.

Restraint in Kosovo was not on Milosevic’s agenda. Neither were serious negotiations or a fair deal for the Albanian population. Again, Milosevic had form. He was the instigator of the apartheid-like exclusion of Albanians from all public positions during the 1990s. If he had, thanks to Rugova’s pacific policy, largely kept the lid on violence for most of that period, as much of the rest of former Yugoslavia burned, the whole basis of his approach in Kosovo for a decade before the NATO bombardment was to humiliate Albanians and make their life there impossible. The greatest burden of responsibility for the surge in violence at the end of the 1990s lies at the door of Slobodan Milosevic.

The argument made in some quarters that it was NATO’s bombardment itself that sparked the greater conflagration and the flight of Albanians in early 1999 should be dismissed. Given the violence that the Milosevic regime was already employing in Kosovo, and his past record in Croatia and Bosnia, the decision to employ NATO force, rather than standing by and let Milosevic have his way with the Kosovo Albanians, was justifiable (although the liberal definition of legitimate targets for aerial bombardment throughout Serbia and Montenegro was far more questionable).

Once Serbian forces had been expelled from Kosovo, the whole picture was irrevocably altered. If until 1998 talk of negotiations for Kosovo’s autonomy within Serbia might have seemed plausible, after 1999 such ideas were wholly unworkable. Independence was the only possible outcome, as was privately acknowledged even by some wiser heads in Belgrade. Those who continue to dispute Kosovo’s independence should answer the question of how Kosovo’s Albanians would ever be forced back under Serbian rule, and who would force them? The nastiness of the KLA and of several of today’s leading politicians in Kosovo is not the issue here. It is just about what is possible and what is not. Kosovo cannot be made part of Serbia again.

Marty’s report is of great importance. Many things that were already known about the nature of the government in Kosovo, the prevalence of corruption and organised crime, and the involvement of leading figures, have now appeared with great and refreshing clarity in a document bearing the stamp of a credible international organisation. It cannot be ignored, and its findings must be addressed. There is something rotten at the heart of Kosovo that has its origins in the inclusion of unreformed terrorists and criminals in the new state’s public life.

That this came about is not just a result of the NATO bombing campaign. The real blame is with the failure over many years since 1999 of the international community to face up to and confront the real nature of the KLA’s successors, due to its fear of their capacity for violence and terror and its misguided belief that it could tame and control them, and coax them into normal democratic politics. What is needed is a much tougher and less indulgent policy towards Kosovo’s government, but not any wrong-headed notions that international intervention in Kosovo and Kosovo’s independence were mistakes.

What to do about northern Kosovo?

From Balkan Insight, 2 January 2011

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/europe-must-stay-the-course-in-north-kosovo

Europe Must Stay the Course in North Kosovo

The recent past shows EU pressure on Belgrade can deliver results in northern Kosovo. The question is whether Europe has the will to keep it up.

By Peter Palmer

Among the recent WikiLeaks disclosures, cables from Belgrade and Prishtina confirmed the unease US diplomats felt about the support of officials in Belgrade for the partition of Kosovo.

Frustration with the lack of progress in integrating the mainly Serb-inhabited north has led some international commentators to advocate Kosovo’s partition, perhaps as part of a mutually agreed territorial swap with Serbia’s Albanian-inhabited Presevo valley going to Kosovo in exchange.

But what are the prospects for such a solution, and is it necessary, or desirable?

Partition or territorial exchanges are not publicly stated policy in either Belgrade or Prishtina. When Serbia’s President, Boris Tadic, raised partition as a possible solution in September 2008, he faced condemnation in both capitals, leading him to reaffirm the official Serbian line that the whole of Kosovo remains part of Serbia.

Nevertheless, as the WikiLeaks documents show, some Serbian officials are interested in partition. While acknowledging that most of Kosovo is lost, they assert that the government in Prishtina will never rule the north.

Could Prishtina be persuaded to accept such a loss of territory? The answer would seem to be “no”, unless Kosovo were offered something in return. It is here that the idea of a territorial exchange comes into play. While it is certainly not official Kosovo policy, some officials in Prishtina are prepared to entertain the idea.

However, when considering a territorial exchange, problems of principle and practicality present themselves. International acceptance of the break-up of Yugoslavia has since 1991 been based on two principles, affirmed throughout the wars of the Yugoslav succession and the peace implementation process that followed. One is no change to the former internal boundaries between Yugoslavia’s federal units. The other is no acceptance of the logic of ethnic cleansing, or of the idea that multinational states are unworkable.

These principles remain valid and important, not least for Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose unity continues to be questioned. After the International Court of Justice’s opinion in July on the legality of Kosovo’s independence declaration, the Republika Srpska Prime Minister (now President), Milorad Dodik, drew a parallel with the Serbian position in Bosnia.

And in Macedonia, although relations between the majority and the Albanian minority have improved since the 2001 conflict, the relationship of the latter to the Macedonian state is far from settled. And, if we accept an ethnic redrawing of borders between Kosovo and Serbia, why not elsewhere, in the Caucasus, or in Moldova? Some would welcome the precedent.

Since the break-up of Yugoslavia, the international community has insisted that minority rights should be respected within existing borders. Serbia and Kosovo are both multinational states. If Serbs in the north cannot live in Kosovo, what place does that leave for the Serbs in the south? And what about the Albanians who live in the north of Kosovo and ethnically cleansed Albanians who would like to return there?

Then there are the practicalities. If Prishtina won’t give up the north without compensation in southern Serbia, would Belgrade accept such a swap? If it would, where would the new boundary be drawn? As when discussing border changes anywhere in former Yugoslavia, there is no clean ethnic boundary.

Of the three southern Serbian municipalities in question, Presevo is almost entirely Albanian-inhabited, but Bujanovac and Medvedja are ethnically mixed. Wherever the line would be drawn, some would be left on the wrong side.

Such playing with maps does not provide solutions. It just creates more disputes. By sanctioning partition, the problem of the north would not be solved. More likely, it would ignite the tinderbox of frustration felt by many Albanians, that nearly three years after independence their country has yet to establish control over all its territory.

The premise that partition is the only possible solution for the north of Kosovo is flawed. The main point is that the north’s non-integration in Kosovo is only sustained by institutional and financial support from Belgrade. That Serbia provides funding for Kosovo’s Serbs would be fine, if its purpose was legitimate support for Serbian cultural, educational, social and healthcare needs. But not when it is used as a political tool to undermine Kosovo’s integration.

Belgrade’s obstructionist tactics include enfeebling the EU’s rule of law mission in Kosovo, EULEX. Belgrade’s consent in December 2008 to EULEX’s deployment in the north followed EU pressure and its insistence that if Serbia wanted to proceed with EU integration, it should not undermine EULEX’s mission.

EULEX is now present in the north but is barely able to carry out its mandate. The courts are scarcely functional. EULEX police can do little more than sit in the police stations. Serbian interior ministry police, in plain clothes, continue to operate. On the border, EULEX customs officials are not able to collect duties.

Given Serbia’s EU aspirations, the European Union holds leverage over Belgrade to insist that it stop its obstructionism in the north. Following the ICJ’s opinion in July, that Kosovo’s independence declaration did not violate international law, the EU put huge pressure on Serbia, including high-level visits from key member states, to get it to agree to technical talks with Kosovo.

Whether such contacts go ahead has been complicated by the Council of Europe report naming Kosovo’s Prime Minister, Hashim Thaci, as an organised crime boss. But questions about high-level crime and corruption in Kosovo are separate from the issue of the country’s future relations with Serbia.

EU pressure will need to be stepped up anew, both to ensure the talks proceed, and to make sure they have meaningful content. Enabling the courts, police and the customs service to function properly in the north are key technical matters that should be addressed. Brussels should not allow its mission to continue to be humiliated.

If Belgrade were pressurised into taking a more accommodating approach, there is no reason why things should not change in the north. In more than a decade since the UN mandate in Kosovo began, the pattern has been one of gradual progress, with occasional setbacks, as things that had once appeared impossible became possible.

Who would have thought three years ago that one would see the level of Serb participation in Kosovo’s institutions in the south seen today? That was possible because Belgrade did not have the means to control Serbs in the south, whose daily reality is that they live among Albanians and unavoidably come into contact with Kosovo’s authorities.

And in the north, while Kosovo institutions are present only to a very limited extent, pragmatic accommodation by some Serbs there is already greater than many in Belgrade realise. From the contacts between Kosovo Serb police and their counterparts in the south, to the acceptance by many northern municipal officials of Kosovo salaries, some northern Serbs already balance between Serbia and Kosovo.

Such pragmatism should be encouraged. But the prerequisite is that Belgrade cease shoring up the hard-line, obstructionist holdovers from Slobodan Milosevic’s era who continue to hold sway there.

It is no time to despair about the integration of the north into Kosovo, nor to look for the type of solution that has rightly been rejected elsewhere in the Balkans. The EU has the means to secure a change of policy from Belgrade. It is true that the EU is divided over Kosovo’s independence but the five non-recognisers have all lined up behind the call for technical talks. None opposes EULEX’s mission in the north. Spain and Greece have taken a pragmatic line of late, making a more robust EU approach realistic, if the same will that was evident following the ICJ opinion is sustained.

Peter Palmer is a former Kosovo Project Director and Balkans Project Director of the International Crisis Group.

Five weeks in Latvia

At the end of my five-week stay in Latvia, I visited the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia, in Riga, which commemorates the Soviet and German occupations of the country from 1940 to 1991. I had been there five years earlier, during my first visit to Riga. I found it moving then. The story of a small nation, caught between two much larger powers led by wicked regimes, struggling for survival.

During my visit this time, a controversial issue that raised its head again and again was the Latvian Legion; Latvian Waffen SS units formed to fight with Nazi Germany against the Soviets. It was impressed upon me that most of the young men drafted into the legion were not volunteers, that they had no real choice. For Latvian men who refused service in Germany’s war effort, the alternative was labour camps. Yet I felt uncomfortable with the fact that the legion is widely celebrated.

On 16 March every year, the date of a battle against Soviet forces, ceremonies mark the legion as national heroes. While Latvia was part of the Soviet Union, Latvian émigrés, many of them ex-legionnaires, marked the event abroad. And following the restoration of independence, it was marked in Latvia itself. 16 March was an official national remembrance day in the late 1990s, although that official status was removed in 2000, under international pressure.

But the day is still marked. Young men from far-right organisations, one of which, All for Latvia, has just secured six seats in the 100-member Latvian parliament, line up with Latvian flags. Even some mainstream politicians visit the cemetery where members of the legion are interred.

I think Latvians who mark 16 March have got the balance wrong. One Latvian American who had moved to Latvia in the 1990s told me of his admiration for an uncle who had been in the legion, who had inspired him to be a Latvian patriot, and to return to the country. That Latvia found itself in such an impossible situation, occupied by the brutal Stalinist regime in 1940, which eradicated its independence and murdered or deported many of its people, and then by Nazi Germany the following year, was a national tragedy. Latvians were traumatised by the events of 1940 to 1991, when their land was colonised, their language and distinctiveness threatened with extinction as they came close to being a minority in their own country.

In 1941, many Latvians welcomed the Germans as the lesser of two evils, and saw in Germany the hope of greater respect for Latvian culture, and even for restored autonomy. It was a misplaced hope. The Nazis’ long-term aim was to deport much of the Latvian population to Russia, colonise the country with Germans, and Germanise the remaining Latvians. And what of Latvia’s Jewish population, sent to death camps, with the involvement of some Latvians, some of whom later joined the legion? Even though there is no suggestion that most legionnaires subscribed to Nazi ideology, is it really right to commemorate them as national heroes, as freedom fighters? Some did, it is true, carry on the hopeless struggle in the resistance for years after the Soviet return to the country.

Like all those, Latvian, Jewish and others who suffered at the hands of the appalling Stalin and Hitler regimes, the legionnaires should be commemorated as victims. For half a century, Latvians had no control over their own destiny, buffeted as they were by the forces of geopolitical affairs. Like in some other occupied countries, Latvians sometimes found themselves fighting on opposite sides. Some had been drawn into the Red Army in 1940, and others were committed communists. What I liked about the Museum of the Occupation was that it acknowledged all sides, and the tragedy that afflicted all Latvians, those who found themselves fighting for the Soviet Union and for Nazi Germany, the massacred Jews and the long-suffering civilians caught in the middle. Latvians were tragic victims in the war, and that is what should be marked. There was nothing heroic about the legion. Martial celebration of the legion’s military prowess on behalf of Nazi Germany is out of place. I found the Museum of the Occupation moving this time too, because it gets the balance right.

Zagreb's Dolac market

Strolling in Zagreb. Walking without any particular purpose, just for the pleasure of being there and the things around me. Walking slowly, quite often meeting someone I know, stopping for a chat, or joining them at one of the many street cafes, being introduced to the people they are sitting with. Slowly wiling away the time. Coffee at Pif, on Preradovićeva, with all the other thirty and forty-something wannabe intellectuals, or in the garden of the archaeological museum; Ice Cream on Bogovićeva; beer at Mali Medo, on Tkalčićeva, or on Kaptol, opposite the cathedral.

Dolac

For a feeling of general well-being, ambling up to Dolac market, past the flower sellers, and up the steps. Visiting Dolac was one of my most striking impressions of Zagreb when I first went there 24 years ago. Walking among the stalls, with the peasants from the surrounding Zagorje region selling their own produce. The fresh cottage cheese and soured cream (delicious with garlic); the filthy eggs (the dirtier, the better is a good rule); little bundles of vegetables and herbs, all you need for the base of a great soup; the seasonal fruits – lots and lots of plums at the moment; the Dalmatian section, with figs, and olive oil. In the autumn there are piles of chestnuts. In spring, it is wild asparagus. In years past, there used to be wild mushrooms, including ceps (vrganji). Unfortunately those have gone, apparently due to the annual toll of poisonings (which I suspect were mostly suffered by people who picked their own, rather than buying them on the market). Although I am told they can still be bought under the table.

And there are some nice little restaurants around the periphery of the market, selling fresh, wholesome produce. Especially worthwhile is the little seafood place next to the fish market. On my first trip to Zagreb in 1986, I was enthralled by the tanks of live fish, even quite large carp. My landlady from student days, the inestimable Sonia Bićanić, told me that when they bought a carp, they used to keep it alive in the bath for a few days to get all the mud out of its system. Sadly, the tanks have gone. But the fish is fresh and good. The little restaurant is well supplied from the market. Its food is simple and unpretentious, low-priced and satisfying. You can eat anything from the market, but most people take sardines, and bakalar (dried codfish) on Fridays. I love bakalar. At this place, it is a thick soup, heavily laced with garlic. Why do Zagreb restaurants only sell it on Fridays?

Dolac is still an invigorating place. Twenty years ago, staying in Zagreb with my dear, late friend, Darka, I told how in England such markets had found it hard to compete with the large-scale distributors of mass-produced, homogeneous, tasteless fruit and veg. I feared the same would happen in Croatia. “No”, she said confidently, “we like our markets”. I was partly right. New hypermarkets have indeed sprung up around the outer rings of the city. And much of Dolac is now taken over by commercial sellers rather than peasant producers. Finding a tasty tomato on Dolac is no longer so easy. But some of the peasants cling on, smiling faces and delicious produce. I hope there continues to be a place for them. With the spreading fashion for farmers’ markets, there is surely hope.

The old town of Tbilisi

I love wandering the streets of the old town in Tbilisi. Not the streets which have been smartly renovated, and are now crammed with cafés. Rather those that have not been renovated, with their uniquely Georgian style and charm. With their often brightly coloured facades and balconies, sometimes going right the way round the building, and the colourful plants that twine among them, they give the streets a feel of romance. Many of the streets are shabby and dilapidated, the houses cracked and broken, beyond repair in some cases. If to the outside visitor they appear picturesque, to the residents they probably seem draughty and uncomfortable, images of poverty rather than of charm.

I find it peculiar that these beautiful, albeit rundown streets of central Tbilisi are not more attractive to better-off residents of the city. Rather, it is the Vera, Vake and Saburtalo districts, with their modern apartment blocks, that are favoured by the smart Tbilisi elite. In some cities, such as Zagreb, it has been the newly prosperous, the advertising executives and bankers, moving into the older central districts, buying up from impoverished residents who could not afford the maintenance or renovation of their buildings, that has been an important dynamo for restoration and repair. Not so Tbilisi.

For all the charm of the ramshackle dwellings in Tbilisi’s old town, they must of course be renovated, and in some cases, unfortunately, the only solution is to tear them down. The main hope is that the rebuilding will be done sensitively, in keeping with the style and traditions of these neighbourhoods; that there will be the same attention to detail, for example in the often ornate trellises around the balconies.

Some recent constructions give cause for concern about the aesthetic taste of the current leadership. The gaudy footbridge over the Mt'k'vari river is placed right next to the old town, below the castle, and surrounded on all sides by fine old churches. Some modern constructions built among older buildings, such as the pyramid at the Louvre, seem inspired. This bridge seems horribly out of place. When I first saw it, I thought it looked like a sea monster, or a giant slug. More disrespectful Tbilisi residents dubbed it “the tampon”. And then there is the president’s residence, a rip-off of the Reichstag. Perhaps the policeman who tried to stop me photographing the residence was actually motivated by embarrassment.

The president's residence, behind the giant slug bridge

There is a place in Tbilisi for larger, more monumental buildings, around Rustaveli and the squares at either end. The beauty of the narrow streets of the old town is in their small-scale simplicity. For now, I am grateful I can enjoy walking those streets, aware that they will not for long be as are now.

Post-industrial wastelands

Tbilisi nowadays is a scene of feverish construction and renovation work. Spending time there, a visitor can easily be seduced by the obvious progress being made. Over recent years, the city has visibly changed for the better, even if not all the new landmark constructions are to everybody’s taste. It is not only the appearance. Chic new cafés have appeared, and new restaurants appealing to more exotic tastes, such as Japanese and Thai. In spite of problems, and despite the nearby Russian threat, Tbilisi is a city on the up.

And the same can be said for one or two other towns in Georgia. Central Batumi is a building site, with tall buildings going up along the seafront that seem to be more Dubai than Black Sea. As in Tbilisi, perhaps even more so given that it is concentrated in a much smaller town, the gardens and fountains, the cafés, all give an impression of rising prosperity.

But travelling across Georgia, the country in between Batumi and Tbilisi presents a different picture, which reminds of how much hardship the country has endured, and continues to endure. Following the end of the Soviet Union, and the collapse of the Soviet market, most of Georgia’s economic base was wiped out, almost at a stroke. The series of wars, civil strife and near anarchy of the early 1990s, and the decent of the country more or less into a failed state, added to the woe. The visible legacy of this is the industrial wasteland around several towns across Georgia, industrial zones that no longer have any industry, just the skeletal remains of industrial buildings. On my first visit to Georgia, at the end of 2003, I was told one of Georgia’s main exports was scrap metal from its abandoned factories. Another major export has been its people, who left in droves in the 1990s, unable to make any kind of living in their homeland.

Six years ago, as an election observer, I spent a few days in the western town of Samtredia, the ugliest town in Georgia I was informed by our interpreter, who hailed from Tbilisi. Yes, our driver, a native of Samtredia, agreed readily, smilingly, almost proudly, Samtredia was indeed the ugliest town in Georgia. Driving through the town’s former industrial zone, we passed acres of decay and decrepitude; tumbled-down warehouses and factories, their windows smashed, ceilings falling in; twisted, rusted metal and old bits of machinery. And among all this were people, somehow scratching a minimal living in this de-industrialised wilderness.

And yet I and my colleagues enjoyed wonderful hospitality in Samtredia. Right there, at polling stations in amongst that wasteland, we were offered food and wine, coffee, and, on a couple of occasions, even marriage (surely a sign of desperation, even if delivered with a smile). One evening in Samtredia, we were invited to a party at a local restaurant. There we were treated to a typically Georgian, gargantuan spread, complete with the obligatory toasts, to which I was able to respond with genuine warmth and emotion, so moved was I by our welcome.

And there are many other towns depressing to visitors, much like Samtredia. This trip, I stopped briefly in Khashuri, a town in central Georgia, a grim, dusty, dilapidated place, with almost nothing I could see to provide relief and give its residents cheer. The obligatory fountain, almost identical to ones placed in towns around Georgia under President Saakashvili, designed, no doubt, as a simple, quick measure to brighten places up and make their people feel a little better, seemed out of place to me, as if mocking its dismal surroundings. What can it be like to live in such a place?

And yet, as I found in Samtredia, some do manage to keep their spirits alive. But the people of Samtredia, Khashuri, and other towns in a similar plight deserve better. The spending being lavished on Tbilisi and Batumi should be shared around a bit more evenly.

Vardzia cave monastery

A western European travelling in Georgia is again and again struck by the wonders of a cultural heritage which, despite its rich achievement, is almost unknown to the rest of the world. In the middle ages, when the great gothic cathedrals were being built in Europe, marvellous basilicas were also being built in the Caucasus, in their own, distinct style.

On this trip, I travelled for the first time in southern Georgia, visiting the spa town of Borjomi, from where the celebrated mineral water comes. From there I travelled on to the 12th century cave monastery at Vardzia. Founded by the great Georgian Queen Tamar, it is said, in its day, to have had thousands of apartments hewn into the cliff face, as well as a complex irrigation system. Severely damaged by an earthquake a century later, it was ransacked by Persians in the mid-16th century.

So what we see today is an echo of its one-time glory. But it still impresses. Wandering around the caves, neatly carved, with arches, ornate doorways, shelves and alcoves where icons must once have stood. Exploring the tunnels dug deep into the rock brings back the boyish spirit of adventure. The church is well maintained, its frescos vivid and with a liveliness and sense of movement that one often sees in Georgian churches, in marked contrast to the rigid forms of Byzantine religious art that one finds throughout most of the Orthodox world.

A few monks live there now, in a small section of the monastery, their caves fronted by wooden walls, with doors and windows. I watched as a monk rinsed his frying pan, leaning out from the ledge in front of his cave.

Leaving the monastery, I walked down through a long, steep tunnel. At one time, the complex was accessible only by such secret passageways. They did not in the end protect it. But Vardzia is still a marvel to see today.

Travels by dolmuş and marshrutka

Touring in Turkey, travelling between small towns and villages, inevitably meant becoming familiar with the dolmuş, a minivan, or shared taxi. The word means “full”, and originally that meant they left when they were full-up. Nowadays, they mostly go according to a set timetable. If the route is busy, it is wise to turn up a little early to be sure of a place, and to avoid having to sit on a stool between the seats. Generally, they are a bit old and grubby, but I usually found them OK. And they are cheap. Drivers were usually helpful and, despite the language barrier, endeavoured to oblige by dropping me exactly where I wanted, pointing out the next bus I needed to take in case I had to change in order to reach my destination.

A peculiarity of travelling by bus or dolmuş in Turkey, at least in the north-east, is that unacquainted men and women are not allowed to sit next to each other. This adds to the complication of finding a place, as I was obliged to sit in a row of seats with other men. Sometimes, when new passengers were taken on board, people had to be shifted around, to keep the balance of the sexes right.

In more remote places, the dolmuş often transports goods as well as people. Travelling from Yusufeli to the village of Barhal, along a rather rough road, on the roof we had stacks of wooden panels, to line the walls of someone’s house, as well as a mattress. Inside, between the seats, was a television set, as well as sacks of bread and boxes of eggs.

My one really bad dolmuş experience was travelling from Kars to Ardahan. Sometimes, one finds oneself sitting near some rather unwashed people, and one just has to get used to it. But on this journey, there was an individual who was beyond the pale. The pungency of his stench, whose constitutive elements I do not even want to think about, made me retch. I do not believe he had washed either his clothes or himself for months, possibly years. Sitting behind me, he repeatedly murmured to himself in a low, gruff voice. He seemed to be beyond society. I spent most of the journey with a hand tightly clenched over my nose and mouth, in misery. When he finally got out, I thought I sensed a collective sigh of relief.

In Georgia, and around the former Soviet Union, the dolmuş is known as a marshrutka (a Russian word), but it is the same thing. Except that the Georgians have invented added thrills to the business of travel. Georgian driving can be eye-poppingly scary. The disregard for traffic lanes, the habit of swerving from one side to another, of gaily crossing over the central road markings into the line of oncoming traffic, all astonish visitors from countries with more staid driving practices. Then there are the testosterone-charged races I have witnessed down the long boulevards in central Tbilisi. Crossing the road is an adventure in that city. The impatience of Georgian drivers is such that they often cannot bear to wait in the right-hand lane at a road junction, and jump the queue, pulling over into the left lane, scooting ahead when the lights change, just in time to avoid the oncoming traffic. I saw a bizarre example of this in Batumi, when waiting at a railway crossing for a goods train to pass. Impatient drivers on both sides pulled into the left-hand lane, hoping to give themselves an advantage. The result, once the train had passed? Complete blockage, obviously.

I had only one previous experience of riding in a marshrutka, a journey from Tbilisi to Gori and back in 2004, to visit the Stalin museum. Some international organisations ban their staff from travelling by marshrutka, given their drivers’ reputation for extreme recklessness. I learned the reason why during my marshrutka journey from Borjomi to Vardzia, a winding road much of the way, often not metalled, and with steep drops in some places. The driver drove at such a speed that when he was flagged down by would-be passengers he had to slam on the breaks, usually coming to a halt much further down the road, having to back up (also at speed) some way in order to take them on board. He seemed unconcerned for life or limb. How he had made it to middle age driving like that is a mystery. Several times I found myself closing my eyes, unable to watch as he tore into another sharp bend. On two occasions he appeared on the verge of losing control as he hurtled into a bend that was just too tight, slamming on the breaks and struggling with the steering wheel. Once, as we stopped to pick up a party of Ukrainians, I relaxed the grip of my hands on the seat in front of me, and realised that the muscles in my arms were tightly clenched, such was the tension of the journey. Setting off again at the same manic speed, the Ukrainians and I exchanged worried glances. For the Georgian passengers, all was apparently completely normal. What a relief to arrive back in Borjomi in one piece (to change on to another marshrutka for the journey on to Tbilisi).

A visit to Kars

My image of Kars had been formed by Orhan Pamuk’s “Snow”, a dismal novel, in my view, that portrayed it as a bleak and dismal town with almost nothing to tempt one to visit. My reason for visiting was that Kars is the base for trips to nearby Ani. But while I was in Kars, I took the opportunity to wander its streets.

Kümbet Mosque, formerly the Church of the Holy Apostles

Like many places in this region, Kars has multiple influences, handed down from its complicated history. In medieval times, it was for a while the Armenian capital, before it moved to Ani. The tenth-century Church of the Holy Apostles is a lasting monument to the Armenian presence. It has been a church when Kars has been in Christian hands, and a mosque when controlled by Muslims. The building was locked when I was there, but peaking inside, it looked a fine mosque, serene and peaceful.

Although for centuries an Ottoman city, the period in the late-19th and early 20th century when Kars was part of imperial Russia is especially evident in the grid street pattern and the presence of many fine buildings from that era. Or rather, once fine buildings. For while a few of them have been renovated, most are in a dilapidated or completely derelict condition. And that is the picture for most of Kars, the air of decay and abandonment over several decades, the streets crumbling and pitted with potholes, dirt and poverty all around. I was struck by the many little cafes, where, like everywhere in Turkey, men sit and drank tea and play backgammon or card games. Except here many of these cafes have a griminess, a depressing dinginess, I had not seen anywhere else. In some ways they were reminiscent of the state-owned cafes I remember from communist times in Yugoslavia, plain and drab, tables covered with shabby table clothes, and no effort made with the decor. The pictures of Atatürk on the walls remind of the once ubiquitous portraits of Tito. But I never saw anything like the squalor of these places in Yugoslavia. Had these walls ever been repainted? Had the floors ever been cleaned? Had the table clothes ever been washed? These table clothes looked almost fragile, they seemed so old, as if they might fall apart if touched. This is the way some people live in Kars.

The problems of Kars partly stem from the general neglect that most of eastern Turkey has suffered for decades. But there was an extra reason. During the Cold War, Kars was at the end of the road, next to the closed border with the Soviet Union. Cut off from neighbouring Soviet Armenia (its own Armenian population had fled following the Turkish capture of the town in 1920), economic life was stifled. Kars was of no interest, except as a military base facing the Soviet border. And that isolation has not ended, as the border has been closed owing to Turkey’s objection to Armenia’s seizure of Nagorno-Karabakh from Azerbaijan.

There is some evidence of the present Turkish government’s greater interest in investing in the east, its realisation that the country’s Kurdish problem is partly due to the poverty and hopelessness of those regions (Kars also has a Kurdish population). Infrastructure is being improved, new roads built, and even in Kars streets are being dug up and repaired, and some effort is being made to make it look a little bit prettier. And to be fair, Kars does have some better points. There are some nicer cafes and some decent places to eat. It is not altogether bleak. But overall, it is a depressing town, and not a place to linger. Pamuk wrote about Kars during winter, cut off by snow. I was there in summer. But I could recognise the dreariness and decrepitude he described.