GALAKTION TABIDZÉ HOUSE-MUSEUM

A trip to the village of Tchvichi to visit the museum-home of the poet Galaktion Tabidzé is a good opportunity to take a trip to the heart of the Rioni valley, as well as to discover the world of a Georgian artist.

The museum is located outside the village, directly on the banks of this strange river. Windy and dusty, the Rioni valley is a remote place, somewhere between the Camargue, the Hungarian plain, the valley of the Southern Alps and an Asian plain. The riverbanks are as arid as the climate is humid; the shallow river meanders through a clay bed. The poor infrastructure of the region, the horse-drawn carts of the locals and the semi-free-roaming horses often galloping along the banks accentuate an impression of time travel. There are no tourist sites or towns right on the river. A visit to the Tabidzé Museum is therefore a unique opportunity that doesn't come along countless times in a visitor's life. It's also a journey back to the USSR. The house museum has all the quirks of this type of institution. A large, well-kept garden with palm trees and a statue of the poet. A small, very poor wooden house where he was born. A stone's throw away, a huge, dilapidated, poorly-lit Soviet hard-built building containing a large, single hall displaying black-and-white photos of the poet, without any explanation. A dozen or so women run this virtually unvisited yet always open museum, ready to welcome the brave and curious visitor. Here, you'll discover less about Galaktion Tabidzé's work than about the celebration of him during the second period of the USSR. Admission to the museum costs 4 lari, and the guards will be delighted to have a visitor to show them the great poet's birthplace.

Galaktion Tabidzé (1892-1959) is a major figure in ^{twentieth-century} Georgian literature. His longevity was exemplary for his time; a member of the avant-garde, he was acclaimed during the Soviet era and even survived the Stalinist purges, a rare feat for intellectuals of his type. His entire oeuvre is divided between socialist ideology and profound pessimism. "Galaktion", as Georgians familiarly call him, was born in Tchvichi. Son of the local schoolteacher, he studied in Koutaïssi and then in Tbilissi, before becoming a schoolteacher himself.