James M. Redwine

Batumi

It Was A Blast

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Photo by Peg Redwine

Peg and I will leave Batumi, Georgia this Saturday, 25 February 2023. We will fly through Istanbul, Turkey then on to Chicago and Tulsa where our good friends Doug and Marcia Givens will pick us up at the airport; thank you, old friends!

Doug and I have been friends since the first grade at Franklin Elementary School in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. For some reason neither of us could ever recall, Doug and I fought every day after school at the same location on our mutual routes home during first grade. As we both always wore a white T-shirt every day, we went through several shirts apiece until the good sense of our mothers intervened and peace was declared upon us.

Photo by Peg Redwine

Doug and I got along fine and were close friends through the rest of our schooling together and went our separate ways for 50 years after high school. Apparently, each of us cogitated on the basis of our 6-year-old belligerence from time to time as the first thing we said to one another at our Pawhuska High School 50th Reunion in 2011 was, “What were we fighting about?” We still don’t know. However, I am glad whatever it was faded into the recesses of first grader myth as we have been good friends ever since and Peg and I really need a ride home from the Tulsa airport.

Another mystery that has arisen is why we are being “mined” by someone just 3 miles from our apartment on the shore of the Black Sea. You probably are aware, Gentle Reader, that the country of Georgia as well as the countries of Ukraine, Russia and Turkey are arrayed around the Black Sea. I assume you are aware that someone, maybe several someones, are casting explosive sea mines into the Black Sea to discourage shipping.

Photo by Peg Redwine

Now, Peg and I are not angry with anyone in Georgia or Ukraine and our visit to Turkey was both pleasant and educational. Well, we did have to fend off several aggressive rug merchants, but no violence occurred. So, my “usual suspect” is Russia cast the sea mines adrift and one exploded near us. Does this mean we get combat pay?

Peg has included the website address so that you can see the photograph of the exploding sea mine. As mentioned, we were 3 miles away and totally unaware of any danger. Still, just as the non-existent reasons behind the fist fights between Doug and me, I do wonder what Peg and I ever did to provoke Putin. (https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/sea-mine-explodes-off-georgia-111500226.html

Photo by Peg Redwine

I guess what we’ll do when we touch the hollowed soil of Osage County, Oklahoma is send Mr. Putin a letter and ask him why he’s upset with us. If he’ll just let us know what sins and transgressions we have committed against him, we’ll be glad to repent. It’s preferable to explosions encroaching on our reverie and upsetting the neighbors’ cattle and horses.

JPeg Osage Ranch Gate. Photo by Peg Redwine

Letting Go

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Porta Batumi Towers. Photo by Peg Redwine

About 4:30 a.m. on February 06 in the country of Georgia Peg and I were awakened by a strange squeaking/creaking sound as if a giant was rolling around on bare bed springs. The sound appeared to come from above us and all around us. We checked through our small apartment and even ventured out on our 17th floor open air balcony and into the indoor hallway.

Peg advised we should exit our apartment but I said, “max nix, let’s go back to sleep; it is probably just a neighbor moving furniture.” These two reactions pretty much sum up how Peg and I address most situations. It turned out it was a neighbor, but the neighbor was the neighboring country of Turkey that was dealing with another kind of giant, giant 7.8 and 7.6 earthquakes. Our apartment in Batumi, Georgia is only 12 miles from the Turkish border and as it turns out, a little less that 400 miles from the epicenter of the quakes.

When we turned on CNN at 7:00 a.m. we learned about the devastation caused by Mother Nature. As we had just spent a week in Istanbul, Turkey the middle of January we were anxious about how the people of Turkey and its bordering countries, Georgia and Syria, had fared. Georgia came through unscathed, but Turkey and Syria have lost over 16,000 people to death and many more thousands to injuries, loss of homes, water, food, power and shelter from the bitter cold.

Batumi Radisson Hotel. Photo by Peg Redwine

The large Radisson Hotel building across the street from our apartment building had some internal shaking and furniture movement but our only effects, as far as we know, were the sounds caused by the barely swaying internal girders. We did have friends in other parts of our city who felt strong tremors and swaying structures. One of our friends told us she wanted to run out of her 10th floor apartment with her 3 year old daughter, but her husband said, no, he was going back to sleep, besides, it was cold outside. I guess the differing reactions Peg and I had to the quivering earth may be universal for wives versus husbands.

We were gratified that several friends and family members were so concerned about us we received emails and messages. They know our six-month mission to work with Georgian judges will soon come to an end and they want us to be safely home. As for us, we are beginning to feel our tour among our new friends, “getting short”. Of course, some folks reacted just as I did, that is, no reaction.

As we watched the relief and recovery efforts on TV we couldn’t help feeling as though we had been shot at and missed. Unfortunately, thousands of our fellow human beings were not so lucky. The videos are hard to look at and the feelings they raise are visceral. The entire catastrophic tragedy is summed up for me with one image, a father sitting in shocked disbelief, haunted by his inability to remove his young daughter from her tomb beneath huge slabs of concrete. He was just able to grasp part of her arm she managed to slip through a crack. The father held her hand as her life ebbed from her. He undoubtedly will always fault himself for being unable to do the impossible.

Batumi, Georgia Turkish Consulate. Photo by Peg Redwine

Brothers From Other Mothers

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Photo by Peg Redwine

This week I ran into a man whose family has connections to Ukraine. They live in the country of Georgia now as Peg and I have been doing for the last five months where we are working with the Georgian judiciary. His perspective on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is quite personal as is the perspective of the Russian man who sat next to me on a flight from Istanbul, Turkey to Batumi, Georgia last Wednesday.

The two men looked quite similar. Both were rather tall and athletically built and about 40 years of age. One man’s native language is English but the other speaks fluent Russian. His English created several entertaining exchanges for us that we worked through in mutual good humor. My Russian barely qualifies as communication even though Peg and I picked up some phrases when I was in Russia in 2003 working with the Russian judiciary.

I also managed to pick up a few Ukrainian words when I was in Ukraine in 2000 working with Ukrainian judges. I tried my Ukrainian lexicon with the man whose relatives speak Ukrainian, but it was more comic relief than communication.

Both men have children and both would like to see the war between Russia and Ukraine ended immediately if it can be done in a reasonable manner as each sees it. Peg and I are much more aligned with Ukraine than Russia, which the Russian obviously suspected when I told him at our mutual introduction Peg and I were Americans. He was initially rather cautious in his comments but once he decided I did not hold him responsible for Putin’s military decisions, he relaxed quite a bit. Unfortunately, our flight was only about two hours in length so he and I did not have time to bring Ukraine and Russia to the Peace Table.

He did share several deeply personal experiences and emotions with me during our short flight. When I told him our son had boxed at West Point and that I had helped train both amateur and professional boxers, he opened his mouth and showed me a set of perfect lower teeth. He said he had boxed in Russia and once got into the ring against a much larger boxer without wearing a mouthpiece. He had $3,000 worth of false teeth and a hard-earned lesson about uneven and unfair fights as a result.

The English speaker is a swimmer and an avid hiker who believes physical health is essential to mental health and both men do not hesitate to strongly state their views which are closely related to what kind of future their children may look forward to in a post Ukrainian-Russian war environment.

If the two fathers were to be placed together in a lineup, I would have a difficult time picking out which one was which. Both are about 6 feet tall and weigh about 200 pounds. Both have very short cropped, light colored hair and lean facial features. They could be brothers if looks were the only criteria.

They could, also, be brothers if their concerns for their families and their countries could be considered relevant DNA features. It struck me that both of them might be better choices for leaders of Ukraine and Russia than what we have, although this is purely my thought, as neither of them made such a suggestion. Of course, their natural national allegiances probably interfere somewhat with their ability to set aside any magnanimity. However, each of them recognized the children in the other country are not to blame; only the adults may be held accountable. That is, if the adults come to a realization they should be.

I shared with each man my concern that Russia might be of the same mind a friend of mine who was a supporter of Israel had in 1973 when Egypt could have overrun Israel with its superior, but non-nuclear, military power. At that time most experts believed Israel had stolen enough nuclear secrets from America to construct nuclear weapons. Now, we know they have.

Anyway, my friend stated his passionate support for Israel included Israel’s “right” to destroy the whole world if Egypt were about to destroy Israel. Such nihilistic blindness is what I and my new acquaintances most fear in our current war.

 

The U.S.S.R. Revisited

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Photo by Peg Redwine

In Batumi, Georgia there are many Ukrainian flags flying and the blue and yellow colors of Ukraine are displayed in shops, on cars and even whole sides of buildings. Georgians relate to, understand and support Ukraine that has a border along the Black Sea as do Georgia and Russia.

The Black Sea is an important shipping water and leads ultimately to the Mediterranean Sea and therefore the whole world economy. Just as the Black Sea port of Odesa is critical for Ukraine to access the Black Sea, directly across the Black Sea is the equally vital port city of Batumi, Georgia where Peg and I are living. We look out from our apartment’s balcony across the Black Sea and often wonder if Russia will invade Georgia as it has before. In fact, Russia’s military currently occupies 20% of Georgia.

Peg and I drove within a few kilometers of part of the Georgian territory claimed by Russia when we traveled from the capital of Georgia, Tbilisi, to our judicial duty station in Batumi. We were warned to not try to get near the Russian military installation as Russia considers that a part of Russia, much as it does Ukraine’s Crimean area. And with our American passports, we might become fair game for a Gulag. Just ask Brittney Griner.

Photo by Peg Redwine

As I am writing this column on Sunday morning, December 04 (our son’s birthday, by the way) I am looking out our 17th floor window at merchant ships on the Black Sea. One of the ships has two large metal tanks that occupy almost the entire length of the ship and appear to be equipped to haul natural gas. Many of the ships that go by us are loaded with semi-trailers. Batumi has little in the way of exports except wine; Georgia claims to be the 8,000 year old birthplace of wine. However, as this is both a port city and a warm water tourist destination, a great deal of grain and manufactured materials are imported to Batumi. The concern, of course, is that Georgia with its 37,000 man military would be a mere nuisance if Russia and its million man army decided this port is an attractive excuse to re-claim all of Georgia as part of the historical Russia. After all, Stalin was born in Gori, Georgia and even attended the Tbilisi Spiritual Seminary. Since Stalin was history’s greatest butcher of human beings and presided over the Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.) for over 25 years, the concerns of Georgians do not seem unreasonable.

Speaking of the U.S.S.R., the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, I am currently reading a book that cites stories from Georgian persons who lived under the Soviet Union. The book contains 70 stories, one for each of the 70 years the U.S.S.R. existed, and was compiled by editor Buba Kudava. In his forward to the book, Kudava addresses the U.S.S.R. name:

“Until only recently, Georgia was part of a country whose falsity began with its very name. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, as it was called in full. Four assertions, and all four of them lies!

How, after all, could the term “union” be applied to a group of territories brought together without their consent, through fear and violence, and held together through force of arms? How could the descriptor “soviet” be used when no true “councils” were consulted and no true counsel sought? How could rampant totalitarianism be described as “socialist”? And how could any of the “union’s” 15 sham “republics” be deemed worthy of that name, with all of its associated high ideals?

Four assertions, and the same number of falsehoods.”

Life in Soviet Georgia, ISBN 978-9941-487-64-4 (2021), p. 7

Literature often tells us more than news reports about what actually happened to people and how it felt to those affected by the events. The stories from this book strike me as valid observations of where Russia truly stands when it comes to Ukraine and Georgia and maybe the other thirteen “Republics” of the old U.S.S.R. I understand why Georgians stand with Ukrainians.

Who’s In Control?

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Photo by Peg Redwine

Peg and I were in our apartment on the seventeenth floor of our 90s-Era looking building at 6:30 pm (9:30 am Central Time) in Batumi, Georgia yesterday when the whole gigantic complex quaked and my chair, with me in it, moved. Peg had been out on the tiny open-air balcony watching hearty Georgians swimming in the Black Sea. She came right inside shaking about as much as the apartment. We had experienced earthquakes before in Indiana and Oklahoma so we realized why we suddenly had a complete loss of control over our lives.

Peg heard a loud crack while I, as oblivious as usual, just existed through the moment. It takes a lot of power to cause a 42 story high-rise apartment building to move even if it is built on the small mobile rocks that make up the Black Sea beach. After we decided The End was not yet here, we checked for damage; none was obvious but we now have less faith in our accommodations. Speaking of faith, we understood why there was a gold-colored statue of the Greek god Poseidon in the public square across from our home. Poseidon was the god of earthquakes and other natural disasters, such as floods and storms, you know, like the hurricanes currently attacking the Philippines, Cuba and Florida, among other victims. The residents of Batumi must have had to endure a lot of mini-quakes over the years and decided a statue to Poseidon might help protect them.

Apparently when we realize we cannot control our natural environment we humans create gods who can. It makes us more comfortable if we have something that can control Mother Nature even if it also has the power to destroy us. As for Peg and me, it did not help assuage our angst that earlier in the day we saw workers around our complex employing a couple of trucks and a crane that looked like they were leftovers from the Dust Bowl Era. It was apparent that the job was bigger than the tools even if the workers did not appreciate the problem.

It has now been about twelve hours since the earthquake and Peg and I have had the time to assess the situation. We know it was not the New Madrid earthquake of 1811 and it was not a harbinger of the San Andreas Fault we have all been warned about for one hundred years. Oh, that will come as, unlike never happening pots of gold at a rainbow’s end, disasters do eventually appear. All we can do is create more gods, or at least, beliefs, that something somewhere can get things back under control for us.

 

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