Where In The World Is Georgia?

Georgia: not located near Kazakhstan.

Funny thing about the country of Georgia: if you ask most Americans, it doesn't exist.

Or if it does exist, it's in some nebulous region around Mongolia or perhaps Kazakhstan (in reality, Georgia is south of Russia, just to the east of the Black Sea, and sitting right on top of Armenia and Azerbaijan).

In an effort to ascertain what the average American knows about Georgia, I engaged in an Easter weekend poll, pestering every friend and relative I came across to find out how much they knew about my country of focus. My biggest finding of all, as I've said, is that most people don't know anything about the country.

My first interviewee, the 85-year-old grandmother of my roommate, glibly replied "Not a darn thing!" when I asked her what she knew about Georgia. This is not much of a surprise, seeing as she hasn't had much of a memory for the last four years, so I questioned her a bit about Soviet Russia, to see if that would bring back some memories, but she was incredibly vague on the subject. All she could really tell me for sure is that she had never been overseas.

What is of more concern is when I asked younger adults with fully-functioning brains, like my friend's Uncle Greg. Our interview went something like this:

Me: What can you tell me about Georgia the country?
Uncle Greg: Georgia? The country? Lots o' good peaches.
Aunt Laura: No, that's the state.
Uncle Greg: There's a country?

Once Aunt Laura, Uncle Greg's wife, had convinced him that yes, indeed, Georgia was a country, he was able to tell me that U2 would not be performing there in the near future, though this bit of information is derived not from Uncle Greg's knowledge of Georgia, but his immense passion for U2 (he will be seeing them play 8 times when they are in North America this summer). Neither Greg nor Laura knew where Georgia was located, or anything about its history.

My roommate's mother, Diane, who had prepared our sumptuous Easter dinner, wondered if maybe Georgia was in the southeast corner of Russia, but thought it was just a region in good old Mother Russia's domain.

This is where my roommate chimed in, surprising everyone. After beginning with her usual disclaimer that she doesn't really know much about anything, she said, "I know that the Olympic luge person died."

Paramedics rushed to save Georgian athlete Nodar Kumaritashvili, without success.

A cry went up from most of the dinner table, as everyone remembered that a luger had died during a practice run down the luge course at the 2010 Winter Olympics. Uncle Greg remembered that "the guy's parents were on their way out to see him when he perished."

My roommate's father, Steve, was the most helpful. He knew that Georgia had once been a part of Soviet Russia.

"It was one of the countries that broke away from Russia, rebelled," Steve said.

Unlike his wife, Steve told me he believed Russia was near Armenia, which is spot on. When asked about recent events, he told me that he remembered a conflict in the region a few years back.

"It was a civil war type of thing," Steve said. There was some debate in the media at the time as to whether the battles constituted a civil war or a war between two sovereign nations.

At work, I interviewed my bosses, a young married entrepreneur-y couple.

When I asked man-boss if he knew anything about Georgia, his response was a simple, "No, I don't." Anything about it's location? "No, I don't." Anything about it in the news. "No, I don't." I wasn't sure if he was being unresponsive to tease me, because he rarely speaks except to take advantage of my gullibility, or if he was being honest.

Lady-boss, on the other hand, immediately placed Georgia beneath Russia geographically, and telling me she remembered watching news stories about the conflict with Russia.

"I can think of there being some sort of political upheaval and tanks in the streets," lady-boss told me, making her one of two people to remember the biggest American news story on Georgia in at least the last decade.

Tanks in the streets in South Ossetia, a northern region of Georgia that abuts Russia.

Displaced Georgians: Families Divided

A typical Georgian family united around the dinner table.

For most college students, it’s hard to imagine a world where you can’t get in the car and drive to Mom and Dad’s house for Spring Break or the occasional weekend at home. Traveling to see family plays a huge part in most Americans’ lives, whether it’s heading home for the holidays or flying to the grandparents’ house for Thanksgiving with the drunk uncles and batty old aunts.

In the United States, having a far-flung extended family is not only common, but expected.

For Georgians, however, families are not divided by choice but by political conditions, and these same political conditions keep them apart.

Georgia, a former Soviet state, is divided up into several different political regions, two of which, Abkhazia and Tskhinvali (or South Ossetia), are officially autonomous, according to the government of Georgia's official website. Conflicts left over from the Cold War resulted in the displacement of Georgians from both these regions. In Abkhazia in particular, anywhere from 160,000 to 247,000 Georgians had been displaced from their home, the ethnic Georgian region of Gali, according to Caucaz’ “Portrait of Displaced Georgians: Current Situation and Prospects.”

Georgians who do return to Abkhaz face several challenges there. These ethnic Georgians in the Abkhaz region are seen as outsiders by Abkhazians, and traitors to Georgia by their fellow Georgians. They also have difficulty obtaining Abkhaz ID documents because they are not ethnic Abkhaz.

More pertinent to the family issue, however, is the division of families over the Abkhaz border, or ABL, according to the article “Georgians in Gali,” by the Georgian Daily. Abkhaz, in the northernmost region of Georgia, is close to Russia, and many of the Abkhaz schools teach in Russian. Georgian families who want their children to learn in their native tongue often take their children across the ABL to schools in Zugdidi, a neighboring Georgian region. Most Georgians who go on to higher education after high school also leave their families and the Abkhaz region to attend universities in southern Georgia.

Crossing the border is not always an easy task, however. Prior to the Georgia-Russia war in 2008, there were four official crossing points for Georgians wishing to leave Abkhaz. Today, however, there is only one, and it is necessary to obtain a permit in order to leave or enter the region.

Unlike the United States, where traveling to visit relatives or going home can be a treat, for displaced Georgians, just being close to family or familiar culture is often a struggle. The prospect of going home to see the parents is not an occasional delight for Georgian college students but an ordeal and a political struggle with the local authorities.

A map from UNESCO's website shows Abkhaz is the north-western region of Georgia, abutting the Russian Federation.