Agrotourism in Pankisi Valley
by Patrycja Prześlakiewicz
(Warsaw)
Badi's zhenskiy otriad — the “Hadjistek” fraternity
“Makvala” means “blackberry”
In one of the northernmost parts of Georgia, at the foot of the High Caucasus, lies the valley of the Alazani river and the Pankisi Gorge. The media, always hunting for sensation, sometimes call it “the black hole of Caucasus”.
“Kidnappings of foreigners for ransom, humanitarian crisis, general insecurity,” report journalists. When I visited the place for the second time, I discovered how remote from reality the stories of doom spread by these “experts” really were.
Pankisi has been peaceful for at least 4-5 years, although it is true that the dire poverty suffered by the Kist people is obvious at every step.
A single-storey house overgrown with vine, supporting a large terrace. The vine bears fruit, from which heavy, purple-blue Kist wine is made. The wine leaves in the drinker's mouth a peculiar residue of the same colour.
The house is surrounded by a large garden, full of flowers and shrubs brought from every corner of Caucasus and planted here by the garden's owner, Makvala.
She was given her name — Makvala — by her Georgian teacher. The word means “blackberry” in Georgian. The teacher at the Duisi school thought it appropriate for the unruly, dark-eyed Kist girl in the first form, always laughing and daydreaming.
Today, Makvala belongs to one of the most respected Kist families in the whole valley. The 70-year-old “Badi” (as she is fondly called by the Kists) can get anything done in Pankisi.
“Hadjistek” a message to the world
Makvala hugs and kisses me for a welcome — Where were you for so long? Why didn't you come earlier? How are you doing, how is your family? Are the children healthy?!
She can't be bothered to get into the Lada-Niva and prefers to run in front of it. She has no patience to sit in a car. There is so much to do! She must show me everything on the way, must ask everybody to greet me.
Marshua Kavkaz — she must pass it on to me, and I must pass it on to the rest of the world: the message from the Kist women that means “Let there be no more war! Peace to the world!”
Badi assembles her “zhenskiy otriad”, as she calls the hadjistek fraternity in Duisi. Like many other Sufi fraternities, it was established at the turn of the twentieth century, but, unlike the vast majority, it is for women.
Members of the Hadjistek fraternity get together on every important church holiday and perform “dzikr”, an ecstatic prayer. They pray in Arabic, Chechen and Georgian — and often in the Kist dialect, intermediate between Chechen and Georgian, spoken by the majority of Georgian Chechens.
The women also belong to Makvala's Marshua Kavkaz foundation, established in 2003. The Pankisi women persist in their hope that their prayers will bring peace to northern Caucasus. As in the nineteenth century, when a scarf thrown by a woman on the battlefield interrupted fighting.
Alas, no one seems to notice the scarf today or understand its meaning...That's why Badi wants to speak to the whole world.
We visit every member of the “Hadjistek” fraternity in Duisi. Badi bangs on the iron gates of Kist houses. Old women, barely able to stand on their feet, appear in the backyards. Tormented by terrible heat, with damp white towels wrapped around their heads, they complain they are too exhausted for the “dzikr”, too tired to explain to the foreign woman what it is that the Kist women want...
But Badi will not relent. She argues, explains, persuades. The women know they cannot refuse. An hour later, after frantic running about the village, we hasten back to the women's room in the old mosque.
They are all here, waiting for us. The Hadjistek women are sitting in a circle. Alcani, resting majestically on her cushions, is the master of the ceremony.
After two pilgrimages to Mecca she put on a green dress and white scarf. All the villagers consider her a holy person. She makes a sign. The old women stop grumbling and fall silent.
The prayer — dzikr — begins! The women pray in Arabic and in the Kist dialect. They call God by all His names. They repeat them rhythmically, then they start clapping their hands, striking the ground regularly and rocking back and forth.
They pray to God for peace in Pankisi, for eternal life for their deceased, for health for their families and prosperity for the guest, who is listening to their dzikr.
Then they sing about Chechens fighting for independence in the nineteenth century, about those who were banished to Siberia and about those who are dying in the present war...
When the tension reaches its zenith, they rise and push away the pillows. They begin to move in a circle, at first slowly, majestically, then faster, falling into the rhythm. And again they call God by His innumerable names, clapping their hands and striking the ground with their feet.
At last, the women — each of them over 70 years old, barely able to shuffle their feet just a moment ago — are now running in a circle, ecstatic, as if floating above the ground.
When Alcani makes a sign, they change the direction of their movement and lapse into a trance in absolute obedience to the rhythm of the prayer, repeated over and over again.
Finally, Alcani gradually slows down the pace. Exhausted, sweating, feeling light as a feather, they pass from a run to a majestic walk.
Finally, they come to a stop, as if calmed down. Alcani gives her blessings to all. From every corner one hears “amin, amin, amin”. Everybody thanks one another for coming and for the common prayer. And so do we.
A devil in the blowhole
Badi did not participate in the dzikr this time. Full of excitement, she tells us about the songs sung by her “dievochki”.
She explains how the singing, the exertion and the sweat liberate one from impurity caused by sin and how it all releases the energy to live and achieve great goals.
Badi's “otriad” must still achieve many goals. Badi wants her group to go on a concert tour around Europe, promoting Kist culture. She wants people to see how the Kists can sing and pray.
We are not savages or terrorists, contrary to what some people write in Russia and Europe, she says. They will make an appeal to international public opinion to bring peace to the Caucasus and never to forget this land and its misfortunes.
They want to invite people to the Pankisi Gorge. – Let them see for themselves that we are telling the truth.
They want people from around the world to come and admire the natural beauty of the Kist land. – With the money from concerts in Europe and other parts of the world, we will build facilities for tourists in the most beautiful spot in the Georgian Caucasus- over the Hadori ravine.
The young Kists who are now unemployed will get work. Then we will build houses for orphans and the homeless from Chechnya. This is in outline what Badi and her “zhenskiy otriad” are planning to do.
Even though the group includes some of the most respected Kist women in Pankisi, most Kists only smile mockingly.
The young, who reject the tradition of Sufi fraternities cherished by their fathers and grandfathers, make fun of the old women. After all, they are young, so they should know best what Islam really is and how to attain salvation.
One should believe only what the Islam reformers are teaching — the missionaries who come to Pankisi from the Prophet's homeland, Saudi Arabia, and from Chechnya.
All those who believe that Islam should be purged of Sufi and pagan “accretions”, including dzikr, gather in the new mosques in Duisi, Omalo and Birkiani, built after the second Russian-Chechen war.
They look with scorn on Kist culture. It makes little difference that Badi's family, herself and her deceased husband, are among the most respected residents of the Pankisi Gorge, related to the leaders of the Chechen elite.
Badi and her plan are “mad”. She was just as mad when she bathed in the Alazani in winter to recover her heath after a heart attack. Each day at dawn she would go down to the river with her closest friend.
They would put on long white aprons and undo their black hair, covering their faces. After a short warm-up, they would jump into a blowhole.
Bathing in a swimsuit, even in summer, is forbidden to Kist women — let alone exercising and swimming, particularly in winter... Yet, Badi felt better with each day.
One morning, however, she was discovered by a bus driver. He lost his way and climbed a nearby hill, where he saw two chiorti (devils) in the valley below. He raised the alarm in the entire gorge. It was soon discovered who the chiorti were!
Everybody in Pankisi shook with laughter even years after the event. And yet, the Kist people cannot refuse Badi anything — they yield to the authority of the family and the charisma of the diminutive woman.
Pankisi sparkles with a thousand different colours, shimmers with a thousand different shapes. My head starts to spin. The richness of cultures crowded into one small valley bewilders not only me, but the Kists themselves. Like some kind of “cognitive dzikr”.
Patrycja Prześlakiewicz
Further information: www.pankisi.org
