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In First Person or Gothenburg Is a Small Town

March 21, 2007

Special Reportage

goteborgb.gif

Scandinavia, Sweden, Gotebიrg. February 2007.
2 degrees below zero.
Aim of the visit – business trip.
Personal interests - one more new country to visit; Astrid Lindgrene’s native country.
Information about the country - looks like a tiger on the map bordering with Norway, Finland and Denmark.
Extract from my friend’s letter I received before leaving: “They are great and jolly people, I know you would like them.”
Almost everybody asked me to fetch “Carlson toy” for them.

Our visit in Sweden did not have any literature goal. Just the opposite, it was next business visit of Human Right Center’s representatives to the country - seminar was to be held on human rights and international cooperation. We were also to plan joint projects with Swedish organization.

I made a deal with Nino Ghvedashvili, the development manager of our organization and she was to prepare a report about our organization and international cooperation. As for me I was to discuss the media and conflict issues in our country. We were invited to Sweden by a very famous Swedish company “Natverkstan” that consists of many various organizations. The company works on youth and cultural projects. Students of the ‘Globalverkstan’ were interested in processes going on in our country, human rights and conflict situations in Georgia as well as the freedom of media. The students were gathered to meet us…

***

What a cold country it is…I thought at the very beginning and as soon as I realized that if I had not found a shelter in a café, I would not have been able to take my head back to Georgia.
Ms. Astrid how could you write those warm things in such a cold? Pippi? Carlson? Emily? Children from Buerbue or a tramp Rasmus?

I was looking around - I wondered what thing would attract my attention first and here it is. Red houses with pointed roofs, chimneys I have read about in the books, they look so warm…do you think they will draw curtains at dusk? No! They are putting a lamp on the window sill and look at Swedish people with narrow faces and small noses through the window if you like…they do not like to stare in one another’s houses…they would never think of it.

Streets are clean and calm. They are traveling by trams. There are few cars in the street and you will never see traffic jams in the streets. People in Sweden smoke too little and only outside - in public places smoking is prohibited in Sweden.

There is mostly pavement in the town and your shoes are ringing when you are walking. ‘Rea’ is Swedish for ‘sale’ and this word was written on many windows. 

People like to smile and joke.

If you ask them they would say that they are too formal and if a person wants to visit his friend s/he should send an invitation card…Just imagine, I should send my friend Ameli a card: “Can I visit you today?” and like Pippi, I will omit signs in the letter…on more thing, Swedish people do not like to receive guests in winter. In summer they are quite different and invite everybody to their homes.

There are khutors where days are so short that people do not have time to get up. “We live like bears,” the people complained.

I discovered a strange thing in Sweden. It is not necessary to register a child on father’s surname (Carlson’s friend, Svante Svanteson was registered on his father’s surname). One of our hosts, Andres Carlson told us that as his wife had better surname they gave her name to their children…

The air was so fresh that my lungs nearly burst out…

Houses and cafes and restaurants and museums and buildings are warm…
Water was very tasty, by the way, I mean the tap water …
Thousands sorts of jams…
And what is the most important - Deer and moose meat - Swedish delicacy!

* * *

We do not have as dimensioned organization as Natverkstan. That organization issues dozens of various journals. They also implement various educational programs. In future, maybe one project will be implemented with the Human Rights Centre. We discussed future plans with Peter O’Holm, manager of the Helsinki Committee Programs. He had arrived in Gothenburg from Stockholm.

The most interesting was our meeting with thirty students who came from various counties. Not all of them knew where Georgia was situated. Some of them had ore information. For example, one Bulgarian student asked us very seriously about the origin of our alphabet, which was so different from other alphabets throughout the world. We retold the whole history… The main topic of the conversation was human rights. One listener from Congo wondered whether there was any difference between his and our country. Oscar Konia from Serbia had a lot of questions about youth programs. Jeni Nilbo from Norway was interested in the situation about religious minorities in Georgia. Finally, we managed to draw a Georgian map on the board and indicated all boarding countries including our northern neighbor. Let leave the geography alone, but I think the map was bigger than our country itself…

We met Jorgen Johansen on the third day. He is Norwegian professor and is going to write a book about Georgian Rose Revolution. Jorgen showed us three books about the Ukrainian revolution and one about Georgian revolution. He also added that questions about the Orange Revolution are partially answered in those books; as for the book about Rose Revolution, it is obviously tendentious (the author is from the USA). In general he said the western countries do not watch the processes developing in Georgia with as much hope as it used to happen a year after the revolution.

By the way, we found a Ukrainian girl in the hotel we were staying at. She had left her homeland soon after the revolution and has lived in Goteborg for two years already. She said the changes are witnessed only in Kiev. People in other regions of the Ukraine cope with the same difficulties. “Governmental branches are still sharing state properties in our country…and what about your country?” she asked…however she could not speak too long with us. She has to clean the whole hotel.

* * *

We discovered Georgians in this distant country on the previous day of our departure…

Salome Nodarishvili is a journalist but in Goteborg she is a house-wife for a short time and jokes about her present occupation. She had arrived in Goteborg from Germany with her future husband Oto Gavasheli who is a specialist for power energy and there he continues with his studies. Sopho will return to Georgia soon and pays attention to her education. Before thatб she resides in the Chalmers University Dormitory. There is a sign on a door to each room that states the surnames of its inhabitant…so we went to the Giorgadzes’ room on one floor above us.

Mari Chikvaidze and Gio Giorgadze are students at the Chalmers University. Mari learns Bio-informatics. She and her husband traveled in Finland and then they arrived in Stockholm. In this small town they arrived by bus. The Giorgadzes said that they have already got used to cold, people and life style. Their scholarship is enough to make ends meet.
Mari recalls that initially it was very difficult for her to learn bio-informatics in English. I could not understand the idea of that science.

“Here you cannot learn anything with our Georgian methods. In Georgia I studied exam materials during previous two days. Here everything is different. Even the least interesting thing can be inserted in the exam test. The questions are too detailed. Nobody will forgive you anything and you cannot hope on other’s help. Just imagine, you need half an hour to fill in the examination forms which confirm your identity. The tests check how attentive and active you are during the whole year…you can postpone exam several times if you need, but nobody will raise your grade unless you know the material excellently. They check what you do at home in internet besides your lectures. Having arrived here I understood that I had known anything. There are so many discoveries in my profession, so many new methods that a lecturer cannot teach you everything. You should surf the internet and read scientific journals…”

Salome Nodarishvili makes a conclusion about local people. “They are very peaceful people. If somebody hits a boy in the street he might not reply the offender at all. You can imagine what will happen in Georgia in similar situation. You can go for a walk at 3:00 AM and nobody will do you any harm. They are not nationalists either and because of that a lot migrants live here.”

There in one room of the Chalmers University Dormitory we found a small Georgia and the feeling resembled the one you can experience in Tbilisi when friends are gathered to chat…

That was it…

Five days are little time to see and feel everything. However that time was enough to get fond of that small town where you have arrived…
I was looking for my ‘boy’ in every Swedish boy whose name was Svantes and I was eager to notice ‘Carlson’ on the roofs. I was standing at the window in the hotel and waiting for ‘Carlson’ to fly to me…We lived in the same house as it is described in the book, with red roof but ‘Carlson’ seems to visit only little boys…

Eka Kevanishvili, Goteborg

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