Georgian food is arguably one of the world’s most underrated cuisines, featuring flavors from Greece and the Mediterranean, as well as influences from Turkey and Persia. This Georgian food guide is drawn from experiences traveling across the country — visits to local markets, meals in family homes and restaurants, and even an impromptu cooking course. It offers an extensive list of traditional Georgian dishes as well as tips on what to eat and drink when you visit the Republic of Georgia.

Georgian food is quite appropriately an expression of the culture. Warm, gooey comfort food like khachapuri (cheese-stuffed bread) finds balance with matsoni (yogurt). Herbs like tarragon, flat parsley, dill and coriander combine with walnuts and garlic for rich fillings and sauces.

Understanding Georgian Food

Eating, hospitality, toasts and the supra bind family and friends and snare visitors to Georgia into long, table-bound interludes. Georgian food and hospitality surrounds you…and can sometimes suffocate you under its weight.

We developed a deep appreciation for Georgian food during our travels there, particularly due to helpful friends and host families who enjoyed providing us a quick and tasty education in Georgian cuisine and dishes.

The following is just a taste of Georgian food and some of our favorite dishes from almost two months of traveling throughout the country, from the capital city of Tbilisi to Kahketi, Svaneti, Borjomi and other areas in the east. We sampled Georgian food in restaurants, markets, street food stands, and family homes. In other words, we dove deep into Georgian cuisine during our visit to this fascinating, unusual destination.

If you do visit the Republic of Georgia and can't find a particular dish, just ask local people where you can find it and they will be more than happy to help you discover their cuisine. Georgians are proud of their cuisine and culture, and happy to share it with curious visitors. And, you'll likely have a great story to tell about that experience and meal.

Note: This post was originally published on July 20, 2007 and updated on October 19, 2018.

Traditional Georgian Food

Khinkali (Georgian Dumplings)

Beautifully twisted knobs of dough, khinkali are typically stuffed with meat and spices, then served boiled or steamed. The trick with khinkali is to eat them without making a mess or spilling the hot broth inside all over yourself.

How best to eat khinkali: sprinkle with black pepper, grab the dumpling by the handle and turn upside down. Take small bites from the side, slurping some broth as you go.

Lali taught us how to make khinkali from scratch when we stayed in Kakheti. After a few disastrous attempts, we finally got the hang of how to turn and tuck the dough around the meat. Remarkably, our dumplings maintained their form as they boiled and the broth remained inside. We’re told our khinkali-making certificate is in the mail.

Although traditional khinkali typically features meat, vegetarian khinkali featuring fillings of mushroom and cheese/curd are often available if you ask for them.

Badrijani Nigvzit

Roasted eggplant (badrijan) strips, served flat and topped with walnut paste. Sweet and savory, this dish is one of Audrey’s favorites.

Lobio (Bean Soup)

A cross between bean soup and refried beans. The consistency and taste of lobio varies widely. That it often bears a resemblance to Mexican bean dishes is almost always satisfying.

For full effect, the traditional way to eat lobio is with a round of mchadi, Georgian corn bread. We often searched for lobio after we'd been exhausted by meat and bread, and found it quite often, including in some unusual locations.

Qababi (Kebabs)

Grilled minced meat sprinkled with sumac and onion slices, wrapped in a thin lavash-like bread. In some small Georgian towns, this was the only dish available. We were surprisingly never disappointed by it.

Dolmas

Steamed, roasted, or boiled vegetables or leaves stuffed with minced meat, herbs and rice. Though we don’t especially associate dolmas with Georgia, our friend Rusiko's rendition — featuring stuffed fresh grape leaves from her garden — was something special and tasty.

Chakapuli

Traditional herbed lamb stew from Kakheti, chakapuli is typically eaten around the holidays (e.g., Easter). Chakapuli typically features a meat like veal or lamb, and is further flavored by onions, tkemali (sour plums), white wine, garlic and mixed herbs.

Mtsvadi (Shashlik, meat skewers)

Fire-roasted chunks of pork, salted. For the perfect mtsvadi, cut some fresh onions and place in a metal bowl, then stir it over a fire. We were lucky to have mtsvadi in an impromptu barbecue in the mountains. It was among some of the best barbecued meat we’ve ever had.

Be careful, chunks of the prized chalahaji (or back meat) are usually in limited amounts and meant to be shared with the group. Audrey learned this after unknowingly taking the whole skewer for herself to shrieks of objection. She then shared.

Satsivi

Poultry (chicken or turkey) served with a thinned paste of walnut, garlic and herbs. Considered a winter dish (“sivi” implies cold in Georgian), satsivi is usually eaten around the Christmas holiday and the New Year, particularly in the region of Adjari. Though we’ve enjoyed this at Georgian restaurants abroad, we unfortunately didn’t have an authentic opportunity to try it this time around.

Mashed potatoes and lots of cheese

Mashed potatoes are the traditional Svanetian farmer food. We’ll never forget waking up at our host family's in the town of Adishi to a giant plateful (for each of us) of the stuff. We took a few spoonfuls and could barely move.

Georgian Breads

Khachapuri (Georgian Cheese Bread)

No visit to Georgia would be complete (or possible) without a few tastes of khachapuri, the warm, gooey cheese-stuffed bread that oozes and drips with heart-stopping goodness. In addition to the standard round pie stuffed with cheese, other variations include egg-topped (Adjarian khachapuri), the four-fold filo dough pocket, and tarragon, mushroom and rice-stuffed pies.

Arguably the best khachapuri can be found at a home stay when it’s made fresh for breakfast – just as we enjoyed it in Tbilisi and Kisiskhevi. You can also find khachapuri in the Svaneti region, where you may also find it stuffed with leek. If you aren’t staying with a family, don’t despair – you can find khachapuri stands on almost every street corner in Tbilisi.

Puri / Tonis Puri (Georgian Flatbread)

Tonis puri is the Georgian bread staple. Baked in a ceramic circular hearth oven with the dough stuck to the side (like Indian naan), puri comes out moist, with a tinge of sourdough flavor, and perfectly tainted with black bits from inside the oven.

You'll notice that the edges of tonis puri are often browned and taste faintly of matzo. The most memorable version of tonis puri we tasted was in the town of Borjomi, next to the bus station. This might not come as a surprise, as Borjomi is famous for its water, a key ingredient in Georgian bread.

Lobiani (Bean-stuffed bread)

Lobiani is similar to khachapuri-, except that it is stuffed with bean paste rather than cheese. Lobiani is typically quite moist and is just slightly healthier than its original cheese cousin, khachapuri.

Kubdari

Kubdari, a bread specialty originally from the Svaneti region, is a khachapuri-like dough stuffed with small chunks of meat, spices and onions. The best versions of kubdari that we tasted were in restaurant stops along the road between Zugdidi and Mestia, as well as in home stays along the hiking route from Mestia to Ushguli.

Chvishtari

Cheese corn bread (a Svanetian version of mchadi with cheese). This will stick to your bones for days. It makes excellent trekking food.

Georgian Cheese and Yogurt

Matsoni (Georgian yogurt)

A rather sour fresh yogurt that usually shows up topless (well, without a lid) at the table. Trial and error usually works to suit your taste. You can eat it savory served with warm meat, vegetables, or khachapuri. For a sweeter version at breakfast-time or for dessert, you can blend matsoni with fresh honey or fruit.

After matsoni straight from the farm, store-bought yogurt will never taste the same. Matsoni is a culinary and cultural Georgian staple. Since it's made from boiled fresh milk and a bacterial starter, matsoni is certain to have medicinal qualities.

Sulguni (Georgian cheese)

As far as we could tell, sulguni is *the* national cheese of the Republic of Georgia. A salted, water-soaked cheese that features a stringy shell and moist middle, sulguni is typically eaten by itself or with a round of tonis puri bread and a plateful of herbs and tomatoes.

Georgian Condiments, Pastes and Sauces

Adjika (Chili Paste)

Adjika, a spice paste condiment, is best compared to spicy Indian pickle-like paste. We were always served adjika with cucumber and tomato salad.

Tkemali Sauce (Sour Plum Sauce)

Taken in small doses alongside cheese, khachapuri, or meat, this sour plum sauce is said to be a cleanser. Whenever we had a meal with a family, out came the canning jar of tkemali sauce.

Pkhali

A paste made from spinach, walnuts, and garlic. Excellent with tonis puri or khachapuri. Typically served as an appetizer, or mezze-style with other small, flavorful dishes, the fresh, local flavor of pkhali made it another of our favorites.

Svaneti salt

So-called Svaneti salt serves as a perfect complement to vegetables, cheese or salad. Made from salt, dried garlic, chili pepper and a blend of various spices and herbs like fenugreek and coriander, Svaneti salt and its aroma will have you thinking you’re inching closer to Persia or India.

Georgian Sweets

Tatara or Pelamushi

Confection made from boiled, pressed grape extract. Can be eaten as a sort of pudding as dessert. The liquid is the sweet coating used to make churchkhela.

Churchkhela

Brown rubbery truncheons made from strings of walnuts dipped in tatara and dried. Sometimes referred to as “Georgian Snickers.” Don’t eat the string!

Mushmala

A juicy, persimmon-colored fruit about the size of a walnut. It’s dark, shiny seeds look like tiger-eye jewels.

Georgian Drinks

In no way does Georgia suffer from a lack of alcohol…or the endless toasts to go with it. Here's a quick rundown of Georgian wines, brandy, and grappa.

Georgian Wine

Georgia is believed to be the birthplace of wine, with the oldest evidence of winemaking dating back 8,000 years. Traditional Georgian winemaking used qvevri, terra-cotta containers that are buried underground to store and ferment the grape juice after it has been pressed and stomped.

Georgia's wine landscape features many different unique and ancient grape varietals. Our recommendation: opt for the Saperavi (red wine). Saparavi is the most famous of all Georgian varietals; when it's of quality, it can be really good. But Saparavi often needs a bit of time to come into its own, so be sure to decant it in advance and let it breathe for a bit of time.

If you're curious about Georgian wine, consider booking a walking tour of Tbilisi that includes wine tasting, a one-day wine tour around Kakheti or drop in on a Georgian wine bar in Tbilisi and fashion your own wine-tasting to learn about the various Georgian wine varietals.

Georgian brandy

Surprisingly smooth and easy to drink, Georgian brandy is worth seeking out. Though Armenian brandy gets a lot of press, Georgian brandy is under-appreciated.

Chacha (Georgian Grappa)

The drink of sadists and masochists throughout the Georgian countryside, the Georgian grappa-like firewater called cha-cha is the choice of toast-makers, particularly as the night or occasion advances. Oddly enough, it's common practice to have a small drink of cha-cha in the morning, apparently to ease the effects of traditionally heavy morning meals in the countryside.

Raki

A lower octane version of hooch/moonshine that makes frequent appearances at the table and in the streets of Svaneti.

Where to Eat in Tbilisi

Many of our eating experiences took place with friends or host families. Below are a few restaurants and cafes worth a visit in Tbilisi.

• Chashnagiri Restaurant (25 Leselidze street): Used to be called Shemoikhede Genatsvale Restaurant, but changed its name recently. It serves artful khinkali. Some of the nicest looking khinkali we've had. And very tasty.
• Salobie: Located near Mtskheta, this large outdoor restaurant is a Georgian institution. Apparently, it’s always been dishing out great lobio, even during the civil war times of the early 1990s. Our friend, Lena, and her family introduced us to many of the greats of the Georgian table here – khinkali, lobio, qababi, mchadi.
• Hole-in-the-wall deli and bakery (Vashlovani street): That's not really its name, but we know it's located near the Chinese restaurant Picasso between M. Kostava and G. Akhvlediani streets. Offers trays of pkhali, badrijan and tomato ratatouille dishes to go. Each dish is 3 lari. Next door is a bakery with lobiani and various forms of khachapuri. Perfect for assembling a picnic or light evening meal.
• Mitropane Laridze on Rustaveli: The site of our first khachapuri experience. Once a Tbilisian institution, this underlit mosaic-lined soda fountain on Rustaveli makes for an inexpensive mid-afternoon break of khachapuri and gaz voda (egg cream-like syrupy soda).

Georgian Cooking Courses and Foodie Tours

To go even deeper into Georgian cuisine, consider a home-cooked meal in a family home, a food tour, or get your hands dirty and take a Georgian cooking course.

Our friend had a great experience with this home-cooked family meal experience in Tbilisi. It's not only delicious, but also lot of fun with a warm and personable host. For a more comprehensive experience you can also book a Georgian cooking class in Tbilisi.

Alternatively, opt for the “best of” Georgian food by sampling nine traditional dishes by booking this food tour around Tbilisi's Sololaki neighborhood, one of our favorite areas of the city.

The post Georgian Food: The 15 Best Foods to Eat in Georgia appeared first on Uncornered Market.

From mosques and mountains to hats and limousines, the often unusual sights and scenery of the Caucasus and Central Asia always kept us guessing. Here are some of the more memorable landscapes, religious buildings, cultural artifacts, animals, and people that we encountered during the five months we traveled across these regions. If you check out the categories and keep reading, you'll see why this is a unique part of the world and travel experience.

Best Scenery: The Pamir Mountains

The Pamir Mountain region – from southern Kyrgyzstan to eastern Tajikistan (area around Murghab and Wakhan Valley) features truly spectacular mountain landscapes.

Most Gregarious Kids: Tbilisi, Georgia

The kids who rock the most: the kids from the Sololaki (Sololaky) neighborhood in Tbilisi, Georgia.

Most Memorable Random Act of Kindness

It’s a toss up between our feast in Zugdidi, Georgia and Khiva, Uzbekistan. In Khiva, an 8-months pregnant woman and her friend abandoned their table and insisted that we and our friend Dave eat their lunch. Touchingly, they fetched some tomatoes, cucumbers and bread to round out our meal.

Honorable Mention: The Kazakh family who gave us a ride to Almaty’s town center after we almost stranded ourselves in the Tian Shan Mountains.

Best Smile: Murghab, Tajikistan

This is a tough one. We'll never forget the smiles, whether they were pearly white or glinted with gold, like the one pictured here.

Small World Award: Karakol, Kyrgyzstan

We were hosted by a woman in Karakol whose first visit to the U.S. happened to be to Dan’s hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania. Here's the full story.
Honorable Mention: Tatev, Armenia (near the Iranian border)
Our home-stay family featured a woman whose daughter now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and works at the same place Dan’s sister worked at over 10 years ago. Our Armenian host flipped through photo album pages that chronicled her recent visit to Northern California, including Monterey, California where Audrey got her MBA.

Best City: Tbilisi, Georgia

The city whose people, neighborhoods and history won our hearts.

Honorable Mention: Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan for a little bit of the laid back in Central Asia.

Best Donkeys: Tajikistan’s Wakhan Valley

“Why Donkeys?” you ask? Melancholy (think Eeyore) and under-appreciated, these animals mark a nostalgic trail to the past from today's rapidly developing world.

Best Cemetery: Mizdakhan near Nukus, Uzbekistan

We really enjoyed cemeteries throughout this region. They were places of unusual beauty, benevolent tranquility and much-needed reflection. Central Asian cemeteries are fascinating, none more so than Mizdakhan outside of Nukus in western Uzbekistan.

Best Museum: Savitsky Museum – Nukus, Uzbekistan

Nukus is an unlikely location for an art museum, which is exactly the reason why Savitsky managed to put together a museum of banished art from the Soviet Union there. Rounding out the museum is an ethnography exhibition on the Karakalpakstan region in western Uzbekistan.

Honorable Mention: State Historical Museum – Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
Once called the Lenin Museum, the State Historical Museum still features a Lenin shrine on the second floor. Make sure you look up to take in the ceiling murals of Lenin leading people to liberation in the Bolshevik Revolution. The third floor features a man riding a nuclear warhead. Strangely Dr. Strangelove. Update: The murals have been taken down from the Historical Museum and we've been told they are searching for a new home. We sincerely hope they will be available for the public again soon.

Best Camels: Turkmenistan

183 of them herding near Gonur Depe and 100s of others skulking about in the Karakum Desert of Turkmenistan.

Best Lenin Statue: Ashgabat, Turkmenistan

We considered sending an official invitation to the governments of the ‘Stans for formal submissions, but alas we ran out of time on our visas. Our favorite in this category is the Lenin statue in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan whose base features traditional Turkmen carpet designs. Vladimir Ilyich's head often serves as a bird lavatory and his arms as bird posts.

Best Place to Catch a Wedding: Shakhrisabz, Uzbekistan

We were engulfed in a sea of revelers and it felt like a carnival. Before we knew it, we were having our photos taken with the bride and groom and a horde of friendly strangers.

Longest Limousines: Almaty, Kazakhstan

The longer the limousine, the longer the marriage? If so, the couple inside of this this Hummer limousine has a record-breaking one ahead of them. “It’s like driving a school bus,” the chauffeur told us.

Best Dressed (Women): Turkmenistan

Dressed in floor-length, brightly colored dresses with colorful neck embroidery, Turkmen women seem to glide as they walk. Their colorful scarves were pretty spiffy, too.

Best Hat: The Kyrgyz Kalpak

Lively competition including Lahic hats, Turkmen head-covers, and Muslim headwear, but the prize goes to all the Kyrgyz men who emphatically extoll the virtues of the Kyrgyz kalpak: keeps cool in summer, stays warm in winter, and sheds water to boot.

Best Soviet Architectural Aesthetic: Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Although it may be criminal in some circles to follow the word “Soviet” with the word “aesthetic,” Tashkent is as admirable as a completely Soviet built city could possibly be. For the historically curious, Tashkent was completely rebuilt after it was leveled by an earthquake in 1966.

Best Religious Buildings:

Best Church: Svititskhoveli, outside of Tbilisi, Georgia

The incense, the ritual, the people. The atmosphere there is transcendent.

Best Monastery: Sapara near Akhaltsikhe, Georgia

Nestled in a beautiful forest and mountain setting, monastic life doesn’t seem to get any more peaceful than Sapara. If you go, ask for George, the friendly English-speaking monk who is more than happy to show you around.

Best Mosque: Karakol, Kyrgyzstan

We’re certain to catch some flack for not choosing one of the Silk Road Mosques, but our most lasting impressions in this sub-category belong to the Chinese-style Mosque in Karakol, Kyrgyzstan and the friendly, talkative imam who minds it.

The post Travel in Central Asia and the Caucasus: Best Sights, People and Scenery appeared first on Uncornered Market.

No place takes the logic out of logistics, from pillar to post, like the former Soviet Union. Inspired by our own experiences, the following entries are in no logical order. Let’s dig in.

Worst Toilet: Svaneti Region of Georgia

Competition in this category was exceptionally fierce, but the nod goes to Svaneti. Although we highly recommend a visit to the region, we suggest you pack your hip waders for visits to the outhouse.

The irony here is that Georgia is endowed with river upon river of spectacularly flowing water, particularly in the mountains. None of that water runs in the direction of the toilets, however. We won’t mention specific villages. After all, we would like you to visit and patronize the people who live there.

One outhouse seemed to be inadvertently booby trapped with some kind of poop catapult by way of a loose board that would flip and flop like a seesaw as one exited and entered the shack. There’s a patent pending on this unique design.

Just down the road (cue the horror film soundtrack), you know you are in trouble when the base of the outhouse throbs, writhes and pulses with life (i.e., maggots), almost to the point of being able to take a walk down the road. And they say there is no such thing as perpetual motion. Bah! This outhouse is on the move – it will never die.

Outhouse with the Best View: Tajikistan

The prize goes to this pleasantly airy mud hut near the Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan border. Temperatures well below zero discourage lingering.

Most Creative Toilet: Bus Stop near Taraz, Kazakhstan

Squat pots are separated only by foot-high privacy barriers and a little boy sweeps around you, mid-business. Truly bizarre.

OK, enough of the toilet talk. No more…at least until we resume writing about China.

Most Absurdly and Ironically-Named Post-Soviet Agency: Dushanbe, Tajikistan

We hadn’t planned an award in this category, but Tajikistan’s “Agency of State Financial Control and Struggle with Corruption” begged us to create one. To fully comprehend the irony, come to Tajikistan and experience the bureaucratic abyss that is this country. We didn’t get a photo of this winner because the hordes of militia on the streets of Dushanbe simply wouldn’t allow it.

Best Travel Tip for Central Asia: “Pack your own Lada window cranks.”

Virtually all Ladas, especially the Soviet-era relics, feature windows whose cranks are missing their handles. Imagine this in a car with no air conditioning in the 40 C (100+ F) degree heat.

Worst Accommodation: Ismaili, Azerbaijan

To describe the Hotel Ismaili in Ismaili, Azerbaijan as “pestilential” is beyond generous. This pit of human despair cries out for the wrecking ball and represents the worst accommodation value in the history of traveling man.

The Lonely Planet says this is the better of the two options in town; we break out in fungus and bed rash just thinking about the other option. Two-seat rows plucked from a defunct local Soviet-era cinema take turns soaking and dry-rotting out front as victims take in the surroundings and down beer served by a mistreated 10-year-old indentured servant. We're not even going to begin to describe the toilets. Shhh, don’t speak. Survival at The Hostel, from the film so named, would be a better bet. All this for $25/night.

Best Postal Experience: Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Although it functioned much like the Pony Express and the counter woman preferred an abacus to her old computer, the Uzbek Post got our Turkmen camel shawl to the United States in 10 days. What put Tashkent in the lead for this award: the postal woman hand-sewed a burlap sack with our contents inside and then sealed the whole thing with numerous hot wax stamps. Now that’s postal nostalgia.

Apologies to our friend Dave who arrived at the post office with a 50-lb. backpack of stuff to send, only to find that he couldn’t send money or coins, regardless of their age; newspapers and print material could be sent, but only from the Tashkent post office branch across town; something else couldn’t be sent until Monday. The remaining items had to be separated into two kilogram parcels. Do your sanity a favor and only send postcards or hangings that fit in small burlap bags from here.

Worst Postal Experience: Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

Though Georgian kindness is missing in the downtown Tbilisi branch of the Georgian Post and Kazakhstan’s postal police are always on guard, postal pall finds a comfortable home in Bishkek. The women who work the parcel post office there have a Catch-22 style routine that would make Vladimir Putin cry (perhaps with pride). Imagine Three-Card Monte being played with your package.

After taking two hours to wrap 2 parcels, the woman informed us that the string she used to tie it would vault us into the next pricing tier – and cost us $35 more. After unwrapping the insides (we had a special wedding box made for $5 and 90 minutes of excruciating labor across the street), we had to tear the whole thing open. The wedding gift arrived in 2 weeks. The other packages, also sent by air mail, didn’t arrive for 3 months. Save yourself the tears and leave the country if you need to send a package.

Best Tourist Infrastructure: Kyrgyzstan

Whether you’d like to arrange a tour or do it all yourself, Community Based Tourism (CBT) Kyrgyzstan efficiently dishes out information and can help anyone assemble an authentic and satisfying experience complete with home stays, horse treks and mountain treks.

Honorable Mention: If anyone wants to see a thorough, slick, information-rich tourist bureau with informed employees, check out the Armenian Tourist Bureau in Yerevan.

Worst Men’s Haircut: Yerevan, Armenia

It’s almost always true what they say: you get what you pay for. And for 500 Armenian Dram ($1.70 at the time), Dan received the worst haircut of his life. Well, maybe his first haircut in Prague was worse (where he had to guide the hairdresser’s scissors hair-by-hair back over the damage she’d done). Anyhow, he doesn’t recommend a visit to the hair butcher at the Yerevan bus station for their Armensky variant (Armenian variation), unless you happen to be bald and are interested in some fascinating conversation with the locals.

Best Men’s Haircut: Almaty, Kazakhstan

When Dan was in desperate need to be relieved of the outgrowth of his Armensky variant he consulted a Kazakh friend in Almaty. Four dollars, a spasm of anxiety and a surprising amount of attention to each hair later, all was done and done well.

Most Terrifying Shave: Lahic, Azerbaijan

If you come across this man in Lahic, wave, chat, smile. Do whatever, but by no means should you get into his barber chair. He’s friendly enough, but a shave by him will leave you plagued with flashbacks. The guillotine is a cleaner cut. To make matters worse, he has an arsenal of powders, gels and other foul-smelling tonic that he’ll apply to the battle scene once he’s finished.

After having his neck gored, Dan forbid the barber to cut his hair. The man obeyed and instead saturated it with some kind of greasy tonic and comb-styled it in the fashion of the latest Azerbaijani butt-cut. No photos please!

Best Flight: Tajik Air from Khorog to Dushanbe in Tajikistan

Though the bureaucracy and ticket purchasing process were laughable, the Tajik Air flight from Khorog to Dushanbe qualifies as the most thrilling and terrifying flight…of our lives. Hair-raising!

Worst Roads: Murghab to Langar, Pamir Mountains, Tajikistan

We wonder if these coarse boulder-strewn paths even qualify as roads. There were times we thought we would tumble over the hill out of Tajikistan and into Afghanistan.

Honorable Mention: Road between Ushguli and Mestia in Georgia.
When we walked this road, we were certain it couldn’t possibly be the same road that carried cars. Appropriate for sure-footed cows maybe, but not automobiles.

Worst Drivers: Georgia

Somewhere between self-destruction and machismo, a road is carved for sadistic Georgian drivers whose driving habits have the ability to transform an atheist into a believer.

Best Internet Connections: Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Although other travelers may argue with us, the best connectivity in former Soviet Central Asia goes to Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Given the government’s penchant for censorship and the formidable internet controls in the western parts of the country, we were shocked by the plentiful, inexpensive, and reliable internet and wifi cafes in Tashkent.

Worst Visa Bureaucracy

Every country in the region shares this award equally, with the exception of Georgia (90-day, no fee visa) and Armenia (easy $30 visa at the border). Turkmenistan, a country in which an extended visit is impossible without going through a travel agent, serves as the living definition of bureaucratic opacity.

Most Egregious Rip-off: National Bank of Uzbekistan, Urgench branch
Never let your guard down, particularly when things are supposed to be “official.”

Best Train: Bukhara to Samarkand, Uzbekistan

The morning express train is inexpensive and delightfully undelapidated. Even though the train ticket buying process (and prices) are foggy, journeys are relatively inexpensive. You get a ride on a smooth express train, air conditioning, television (including a disturbing show that features pre-pubescent belly-dancing girls) and edible food.

Most Creative Train Ticket: Uzbekistan

We just LOVE the way they cut around the corners to tell you how much you just paid.

Hottest Location: Gonur Depe, Turkmenistan

Upwards of 50 degrees Celsius and dry as the bones we kicked up under our feet

Coldest Location: Sary Tash, Kyrgyzstan

-15 Celsius and brutal winds that carve red streaks in innocent cheeks.

The post Golden Camel Awards, Part 2: Logistics appeared first on Uncornered Market.

I thought Americans liked to travel in comfort. I don’t know why you take a marshrutka.

You should take the marshrutka. There you will meet the real people.

— Two competing local views on whether or not we should subject ourselves to long-distance rides on marshrutka minivans, the dominant form of public transport in the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Marshrutka Fun

So there we were. Dan was eating his knees again, sitting on a plastic stool inches off the floor of a packed minivan in the middle of Kyrgyzstan and absorbing looks from a perplexed and curious crowd. Audrey was trying to brush off the drunken advances of yet another admirer.

Moments before, the late afternoon autumn sun was speeding towards the horizon and we had been trying to flag down transport- any transport – for over an hour. When a marshrutka stopped, we were thankful to squeeze into the last two slivers of space remaining inside. We were headed home for the night after all.

Scenes like this played themselves out repeatedly over the course of our journey through the Caucasus and Central Asia. As a result, we cultivated a love-hate relationship with public transportation. On one hand, it’s the most inexpensive option going. On the other hand, it can be cramped to the point of discomfort. More importantly, however, public transport is the way most people get around. If one hopes to meet locals, a public bus or – even better – an intimate (i.e., cramped) minivan is the place to do it, as it literally offers an up-close and personal means of connecting with real people.

Marshrutka and its Meaning

We have often used the word marshrutka in our previous posts from the Caucasus and Central Asia. Loosely defined in English as a minivan taxi, its literal meaning in Russian is something akin to “planned path.” It's a minivan that follows a route, picking up and dropping off passengers at fixed and ad hoc stops along the way.

As long as there is breathing room in the marshrutka, the driver will stop to let someone in, which often means collecting passengers at the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. We were those lost passengers on several occasions and were repeatedly thankful for the existence of an informal and efficient system that allowed us to safely flag down a ride just about anywhere.

While we enjoy the flow and rhythm of marshrutkas, the journeys that they embark on can sometimes prove physically challenging: lack of space, uncomfortable temperatures, and long distances are the norm. The discomfort can often be compensated for by enlightening and humorous interactions with local people. Fascination with the exotic runs both ways and shyness often yields to curiosity, resulting in some unusual conversations. Locals always get a kick out of seeing some big westerners climb into their marshrutka with backpacks half their size.

But since this is a public experience, a shared experience, the story goes beyond “people are what they drive.” Marshrutkas know an etiquette, protocol and narrative all their own. They fit to the culture. In Georgia, for example, the hospitality for which the country is renowned naturally fills the marshrutka; strangers there almost always fed us snacks or gave us their better seats. In Kyrgyzstan, family-centric culture emerges as other female passengers assist boarding mothers with their children, scooping them up and having them sit on their laps until the mother settles in. In Armenia and Azerbaijan, politics and disputed regions often dominate the cramped airwaves.

Highlights and Lowlights

We've already written about some of our favorite marshrutka or shared taxi experiences; Zugdidi to Mestia in Georgia and Lake Issyk-Kul, Kyrgyzstan stand out as cultural highlights. On the other hand, we’ve also had some trying journeys, including one that we thought we wouldn't survive (Mestia to Tbilisi in Georgia) and another that we thought would never end (Bishkek to Osh in Kyrgyzstan).

In our marshrutka experiences, it was not unusual for a woman or group of women to adopt us at the beginning of the journey and play guardian to the disoriented tourists. They’d ask us where we were headed and would ensure that the driver dropped us off at our desired destination. Particularly since we were often unfamiliar with where we were headed, it was nice to be taken care of. Our guardians would often ply us with fruit and other snacks and the questions they asked us would serve to connect us to other curious passengers. Several women gave us their phone numbers just in case we ran into trouble and needed help. We even had an entire marshrutka singing traditional songs for us. We were rarely ever bored.

One word of advice about traveling on a marshrutka: if you happen to end up next to a drunk man whose eyes are glazed over with three layers of cheap vodka in the middle of the afternoon and he decides to become overly friendly, look for the nearest grandmother and ask for help. She'll give the man a good verbal lashing and he'll normally sink back into his seat or skulk off the bus at the next opportunity. Not only can Audrey confirm that this method is tried and true, but we later learned that it's also outlined in Kyrgyzstan Peace Corps Training for new arrivals. Based on our experience, finding a grandmother or older woman wherever and whenever you are in trouble is a good rule of thumb.

Overland Ideology and Reflection

There are myriad reasons for the presence of an “overland ideology” in long-term and adventure travel. Eschewing airplanes, overlanders not only seek to claim a victory over the challenges of the landscape by traveling continuously over it, but many of them seek to witness “the clicks” or changes – sometimes abrupt, often gradual – that cultures, people and land undergo as one travels on the ground.

There are endless levels at which to engage with a culture. The choice you make regarding your style of travel will obviously influence the type of experiences you'll have and the types of people you'll meet. We are not masochists, but the interactive benefits of marshrutkas make the hours of knee-eating or seat-sharing with a stinking sack of pickled vegetables nearby worthwhile. If you fly over or drive through a place by your own private transport, what you may gain in comfort, you may sacrifice in richness and granularity of cultural experience.

Unfortunately, “marshrutka advisor” is not a highly sought-after experience these days, but maybe we can position our newfound ability of securing the best seat and fitting in with a group of singing Kyrgyz families as some sort of cross-cultural expertise. It's all how you spin it, right?

The post Marshrutka Monologues (or, Why We Travel the Way We Do) appeared first on Uncornered Market.

While most people don’t travel to the Caucasus and Central Asia solely to explore its foods, we did have our share of pleasant to exceptional eating experiences there. These included discovering some new-to-us cuisines and dishes that are unique to this region.

In full disclosure, we also occasionally felt the wrath of a post-Soviet culinary hangover. So if you are interested to know what constitutes a good eating experience (heavenly bread, smooth vodka, and elusive vegetables) or what continues to haunt our food dreams, read on. Here are our picks for the best markets, food, drinks and more of the edible variety across the Caucasus (Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan) and Central Asia (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan).

Best Plov: Flamingo Café in Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Just across the street from Hotel Orzu. Approximately $1 gets you a tomato salad and a beautiful plate of freshly cooked wedding plov (the variety which includes not only carrots and meat, but also chick peas and a few raisins for good measure). The rice is not too oily and the meat is sparse and delightfully lean.

Honorable Mention: Osh and Uzgen, Kyrgyzstan

Best Soup: Ashlan-Fu in Karakol, Kyrgyzstan

Best Central Asian Meal: Malikjon Guest House in Bukhara, Uzbekistan

Whether you call it hunon or oromo (as the Uzbeks and Kyrgyz do, respectively), this ring-shaped stuffed pastry made from mats of dough rolled into a roulette is the essence of refined Central Asian cuisine and is delicious when served with a side of chaka (thick plain yogurt). Place it in the context of a delicious meal including eggplant salad, sweet seedless grapes, fresh soft figs and homemade kefir (mildly sour yogurt drink) and you have the spectacular $4/person spread which appeared at our table courtesy of the mother and daughter sweeties at the Malikjon Guest House in Bukhara, Uzbekistan.

Best Family Meal: Dungan Family Dinner in Karakol, Kyrgyzstan

Best Dumplings: Khinkali from Georgia

Honorable Mention: Maida Manti in Osh, Kyrgyzstan

Maida manti are small handmade dumplings filled with mashed potato and steamed to perfection. Although you can find the larger meat-filled manti cousins throughout the region, maida manti are found only in Osh. Eat with spiced red onions and sour cream.

Best Fruit: Uzbekistan

Honorable Mention: Turkmenistan

The melon capital of the universe. Turkmenistan features a national holiday to celebrate and honor the fruit so near and dear to the hearts of its countrymen.

Best Milk Product:matsoni (yogurt) from Svaneti, Georgia

The fresh, overnight yogurt sensation is fantastic throughout Georgia, but Svaneti is the place where it approaches the sublime.

On a serious note, it’s difficult to express how stiff the competition is in this category. Milk products throughout the Caucasus and Central Asia were so fresh that they literally redefined our taste program. Yogurt will never be the same for us again. Are you wondering why we are so excited by yogurt? It was often the only non-meat item on offer.

Best Vodka: Turkmenistan

Best Meat: Lali’s shashlik in Kakheti, Georgia

She said it would be the best shashlik (grilled meat) we’d ever had, and she was right. No sauce – just pork, salt, and pepper. Oh, and copious fresh vegetables, a five-liter gas can of brown wine, two drunk Kakhetians and a guitar.

Honorable Mention: Deniz Patisserie café, Turkmenbashi, Turkmenistan

Iskender Kebab – think kebab (chunks of spiced meat, not the ground stuff) topped with yogurt and thin strips of bread.

Most Pleasant Western Eating Oasis: California Café in Osh, Kyrgyzstan

Best Ice Cream: Tbilisi, Georgia

Just beyond the covered area at Rustaveli metro station (in the opposite direction of McDonald’s) lay a hole in the wall that serves up creamy relief from the summer heat.

Honorable Mention: Nukus, Uzbekistan

The ice cream man at the back of the market pleads no contest when it comes to “who’s the creamiest”, but his soft serve is pretty good and a steal at $0.10 a cone.

Best Bread: Georgian tonis puri from Borjomi, Georgia

For the best of the best, try the bakery next to the Borjomi bus station. Perhaps the bread is so good because they use the local – and still revered – Borjomi water. An immaculate bread-eating experience on its own gets taken to a new level when Nutella is lathered on top.

Best Sweet: Baku, Azerbaijan

Having tasted some of Güllüoğlu baklava when it was delivered to us in Prague by a friend in Baku, we were determined visit the source. We know this is really a Turkish treat (the parent company’s home location is Istanbul, Turkey), however. At any rate, the product at their Baku outpost is lovely – not too sweet and chock-full of various ground nuts.

Best Cuisine All Around: Georgian Food

This is an easy call, one we make with apologies to our other friends in the Caucasus and Central Asia. The variety of dishes (especially those including vegetables) and symphony of flavors that comprise the Georgian table cannot be matched anywhere in the region. Oh, and did we mention how wonderful the bread was?

Best Market: Osh, Kyrgyzstan

This was a difficult choice with competitors like Ashgabat’s colorful Tolkuchka Bazaar in the running. However, Osh's sprawling Jayma Bazaar wins with an overwhelming diversity and abundance of just about everything, including fruits, vegetables, nuts, and ethnicities. In addition, it's one of the oldest in the region dating back 2,000 years to when Osh was a big trading center along the Silk Road. (Update: Some of the Osh market was destroyed in 2010 during ethnic conflicts, but it has been rebuilt. During our 2017 visit we were pleasantly surprised to still find the similar labyrinthian market alleys.)

Honorable Mention: Telavi, Georgia

The quirky main market in Georgia’s Khakheti region features the best in diversity that the Caucasus has to offer and will leave you mildly nostalgic for the days of yore. Good-looking produce and gregarious people (Georgians, Azeris, and Armenians among others), too.

Still want to know more about Central Asian and Caucasian food?

Check out our Central Asian market video, Central Asian Markets photo set and our article on Central Asian Food.

Dig even deeper with individual country food and markets articles and photo sets:

• Georgian Food and Markets
• Armenia: Food and Markets
• Azerbaijan: Food and Markets
• A Taste of Turkmenistan
• Uzbek Food and Markets
• Kyrgyzstan: Food and Markets

The post Food in Central Asia and the Caucasus: Best Dishes and Markets appeared first on Uncornered Market.

Your trip across the Caspian may provide some of the scariest and most fulfilling moments of your entire journey.

— A veteran journalist we met in Tbilisi, Georgia who had seen it all in the former Soviet Union.

Although we are posting this from Pingyao, China, we dial back a few clicks to the beginning of our journey in Central Asia in an attempt to adequately address the images in our mind and the notes in our journals.

Oddly shaped like a damaged index finger or a distressed plume of smoke, the Caspian Sea pumps out oil and caviar in the midst of the surrounding desert and extreme landscape. For most of us, its name conjures images of a faraway, mysterious or mythical land. Our encounter with it was rather practical, however. In order to get from Baku, Azerbaijan to Turkmenbashi, Turkmenistan, we needed to cross it.

Since there were no schedules, only the Caspian ferry gods knew when and if it might run. Due to a long run of rough weather that had recently plagued the region, the ferry hadn’t left for several days. Although these delays seemed to place our departure date in jeopardy, our frustration was offset by relief to hear that some semblance of safety standards were at work.

A Cast of Characters

The ticket woman holding court at the port didn’t know when or what time the boat would leave, but she sold us a ticket anyway and told us to return the next morning.

When we returned, we spent several hours watching train cars loaded with goods roll into the ferry’s cargo belly. After taking a lesson from the Azerbaijani border guard on Azerbaijani- Armenian relations, we walked the rickety metal gangplank and were securely inside.

We were met at the entrance to the ferry by a woman we came to call “comandante.” To imagine what she looked like, consider a genetic mash-up of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow and Michelin men. Add a wicked skin-piercing Russian accent and a dose of lingering Soviet sadness and you’d have the picture we were too afraid to take.

She quickly seized our passports and showed us to our cabin. In a predictably sad move to earn some extra money, she tried talking us into upgrading our cabin for a few extra dollars, repeating “Room number eight bad. Very bad.” over and over again. We feigned happiness with the windowless, stale inner cabin we had been assigned and declined her offer.

The Evening Show

As the sun began to descend, the sky slowly transformed into a color gradient, featuring rich shades of red, orange and violet. Our craft moved almost imperceptibly to us, leaving only the subtlest ripples in its wake as evidence. The waters of the Caspian were so placid, it was almost frightening. We were surrounded by the kind of silence that provides space – a thought space – into which it's possible to unnecessarily insert images of sinking ships.

Silhouettes of oil rigs punctuated the horizon which formed our circular visual boundary. Although oil rigs don't epitomize fantasy, just about anything takes on a chimerical appearance in this spectacular light. Dwarfed by nature, we continued scanning, rotating our view so as not to miss a single moment. A 360 degree turn rendered the sensation that we were floating on the surface of a giant water glass. These are the moments for which peripheral vision was made.

This was Mother Nature’s show. All we could do was watch in awe. Each time we thought the sunset was at its climax, she would outdo herself once again with darker shades on the horizon and more brilliant iridescence on the water's surface, thereby treating us to possibly the longest sunset we had ever witnessed.

When the sky was finally filled with darkness, we descended, chilled by the evening air and amazed by what we had just witnessed.

Final thoughts

If you can handle the uncertainty of ferry travel and have some time flexibility, we highly recommend taking the slow boat across the Caspian (to Turkmenistan as we did, or to Aktau, Kazakhstan). The sunset alone is worth the trip and offers a dazzling display that you are unlikely to encounter anywhere else. Moreover, the ferry offers an ideal slow-paced transition into unusual Turkmenistan.

Photo Essay – From Turkmenbashi to Ashgabat

Practical Details: Boat from Baku to Turkmenbashi, Turkmenistan

• Getting into Turkmenistan, the boat: To get to the Baku ferry building, ask for Parom, the Russian word for ferry. The overnight ferry leaves Baku on most days (i.e., there is no schedule) in the early afternoon. On the day of your desired departure, arrive around 8:30-9:00 AM to purchase a seat ticket for an arbitrary amount of money between $45-$60. Once you are on board, you can negotiate a cabin (preferably with a window) for another $5-$10. If there is no boat that day, keep trying until a boat eventually leaves. It’s best to bring some food with you on board since you never know if the “chef” will have extra food for passengers. Arrival in Turkmenbashi should be around 9 AM the next day. We’ve met people who were docked outside of Turkmenbashi for an additional 12-24 hours, however. So, you just never know.
• Getting into Turkmenistan, the bureaucracy: Turkmenistan is one of the most difficult countries in the world for which to get a visa. The process is long and convoluted. If you want to stay in the country for more than five days (which is the typical maximum for a transit visa), then you’ll need to book an authorized tour. Your guide is technically supposed to be with you at all times, except in Ashgabat.
• Visa support for Turkmenistan: We used and can recommend Stantours for our visa support (Letter of Invitation – LOI) and tour. The LOI took about three weeks while the actual visa only took a few days to issue from the Turkmen Embassy. Once we had possession of the LOI, we applied for our Turkmen visa at the Turkmen Embassy in Yerevan, Armenia. We highly recommend this location. The process was painless and delivery quick.

In order to control the cost of your tour, let your tour operator know that you are interested in joining an existing tour or adding travelers to your group. This not only helps financially, but you will likely meet some interesting people.

Turkmenistan-interested travelers can be an interesting breed. The characters in our tour group definitely added a positive and humorous dimension to our Turkmen experience. We also gained some new friends.

The post Reflections: Crossing the Caspian Sea appeared first on Uncornered Market.

Before this journey, our experience with the disputed regions in the Caucasus – Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Nagorno-Karabakh – amounted to a few news articles and flashpoint body-count news tickers drifting across the bottom of our television screens.

Something bad had happened, people had died, but we never truly appreciated or understood the details.

Laundry lists of personal concerns and modern media’s facile compartmentalization of just about everything made it easy for us to become desensitized and stow it all away. These were simply areas of conflict someplace far away.

Although we didn't venture into Abkhazia, South Ossetia, or Nagorno-Karabakh, we did meet some people displaced and affected by the disputes. For us, their personal tales conveyed a human face to areas that previously only amounted to just another set of flashpoints halfway around the globe.

Abkhazia

The only thing everyone seems to agree about Abkhazia is that it is a beautiful place – the Caucasus Mountains on its one side and the Black Sea on the other. After that, agreement yields to chaos; nothing is black and white about the war, who started it and how it might someday be resolved. The reality is that an estimated 200,000-300,000 refugees from Abkhazia are now spread throughout Georgia. We met just a few.

Abkhazian Refugees at Hotel Telavi

Our first encounter with Abkhazia occurred in the opposite corner of Georgia, in the Eastern region of Kakheti. In search of great views of Telavi and the surrounding countryside, we found ourselves climbing the crumbling steps of the Hotel Telavi, a once-desired address now inhabited by Abkhazian refugees driven from their homes more than ten years ago.

Common rooms on the ground floor are gutted and scattered with trash and rusted Brezhnev-era remains. Extended families are squeezed into old, decaying Soviet hotel rooms. Children have turned the grand ballroom into a velodrome and cycle the long hours of uncertain days away while their parents hang out of the windows, drawing smoke from cheap cigarettes as they watch time drift by. Uncertainty seems certain here; no one knows when or if he’ll ever be able to return home.

So Close, Yet So Far

We met Lena after enjoying an impromptu feast at the Zugdidi market. She was forced to flee her home in Sukhumi (regional capital of Abkhazia) 15 years ago and subsequently settled in nearby Zugdidi. Tears welled up in Lena's eyes as she drifted into the past and described her beautiful home and her former life. She eventually grew silent and her eyes dropped as she returned to the reality of the present. Her hope to one day return home was also waning. All we could do was nod empathetically.

Unexpected Caretaker

A friend in Tbilisi told us about how she used to spend summers as a child at her grandfather’s house in Sukhumi. After the war, borders were closed and her family could obviously no longer take advantage of the summer home.

When phone lines were reconnected a few years ago, our friend dialed the phone number of her old summer home out of curiosity. A man answered the phone and explained that he was a Chechen and now living in the house. He wanted to know whether there was a car that went with the house. He’d found some car parts in the garage and wanted to take full advantage of all the house had to offer.

To reassure our friend, he said: “Don't worry. I'm taking good care of the house. If politics change, it will be in good condition for when you return. It's a nice house.”

Nagorno-Karabakh

In Azerbaijan, it would be an understatement to say that feelings run strong regarding Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. The continual pain and anger from this conflict finds expression in so many – often bizarre – ways, from the moment you enter the country until the moment you leave.

Offending Guidebooks – Rip Out the Maps!

One of the teams from the Mongol Rally that we met in Uzbekistan shared an apt tale of the Azerbaijani attitude towards this disputed territory. The drivers carried a Lonely Planet Caucasus guidebook with them. The Lonely Planet's characterization of Nagorno-Karabakh as distinctly separate from Azerbaijan apparently did not fit with the Azerbaijani government’s view. As they entered Azerbaijan from the border with Georgia, the Azerbaijani guards confiscated the book, citing the offending map and characterization of Nagorno-Karabakh as an entity separate from Azerbaijan. After considerable discussion, the guards showed their generosity by allowing the Mongol Rally team to continue their journey into Azerbaijan.

We also had our guidebook and map examined by several Azerbaijanis in Baku, Shaki and Lahic. Each paid special attention to how Nagorno-Karabakh was depicted. Fortunately for us, our Trailblazer guidebook and its especially pro-Azerbaijani view (it was, after all, primarily a guidebook for Azerbaijan) and the Avis map (given to us by the Azerbaijani embassy in Tbilisi) both passed the test. We were kindly allowed to keep our materials and were not forced to travel blindly.

Offending Photos – Hide Them!

Just when we thought we were in the clear as we departed Azerbaijan, one of the border guards pulled us aside. The Armenian visas in our passports drew his ire. Our exit from Azerbaijan included 45 minutes of questioning regarding our activities in Armenia. We assured him that we hadn't visited Nagorno-Karabakh. He insisted that we show our photos on our laptops to prove we were never there. Impeccable logic, eh? Given his tone, we worried that he would force us to delete all photos from Armenia as punishment for visiting the offending country. Luckily, we received a brief lecture instead about Armenian-Azerbaijani relations and were allowed to board the ferry to Turkmenistan.

Although our engagement with these disputed regions was relatively superficial, our encounters with refugees and others affected lend gravity to the conflict and humanity to those involved. This also demonstrates another reason why we choose to travel the way we do. When a place has a face, desensitization begins to wear off. Human connections make these places more difficult to dismiss as “some war, some place, and some people halfway around the world.”

The post This Land Is Not Your Land appeared first on Uncornered Market.

Given that Azerbaijani culture and language is Turkic in origin, it's not surprising that its cuisine also carries a strong Turkish influence. Doner kebabs are so prevalent on Baku's streets that you'd swear they were Azerbaijani by origin.

One thing is certain though. Azerbaijanis like their meat, with shashlik (barbecue) as the style of choice. One meal took us on the tour of the animal kingdom with seven different types of shashlik – ground meat, sturgeon (served with narsharab, a pomegranate sauce), beef, veal, lamb, pork, and even vegetables. As our friend joked, “See, we Azerbaijanis can make shashlik out of anything!” Although the meat was perfectly grilled, we were thankful for the plates of vegetables and fresh herbs to help balance our intake of flesh.

Luckily for our bodies, there's more to the Azerbaijani table than shashlik.

Favorite Azerbaijani Foods

Dovga

A warm soup made from plain yogurt, cucumbers, spring onions and occasional bits of ground meat. Although it's meant to be a starter, we found refuge in it as a light dinner.

Manti

Think large, Turkish-style ravioli stuffed with ground lamb. Served with plain yogurt – and if you are fortunate, a light chili pepper sauce – they are delicious.

Dolma

Grape leaves or vegetables stuffed with ground lamb, rice and spices, eaten with plain yogurt and ground pepper. Our best dolmas experience: the small, grape leaf variety served by our home stay family in the hills of Lahic.

Caviar

Beluga caviar is still king. Although its quantities are dwindling in Azerbaijan, caviar is still a big industry. The government controls the caviar business, but somehow a little bit always escapes and finds its way onto the black market. The best place to find it is at Taza Bazaar in Baku. From the moment you enter the market, you'll hear hushed whispers of “caviar, caviar” from the shadows as middlemen sidle up to you. Follow them to small makeshift tasting rooms whose coolers are filled to the brim with caviar tins. Sample 5-6 varieties at different prices. The 113 gram pots run from $25-$55, depending upon the type of fish and grade. Our favorite was Beluga caviar – smooth and the least fishy of the lot. No small wonder it's the most expensive.

Ayran

Refreshing, thinned-out yogurt drink, often flavored with dill and other herbs. It's pronunciation is similar to the favorite neighborhood theocracy, Iran. So much so that when a young boy in the market asked Audrey “Do you like ayran?” she responded, “I don't know. I haven't been there yet.”

Kutab

A thin pancake whose varieties come stuffed with meat or with spinach and greens. Delicious alone, but if you find yourself at Chudo Pechka, get creative and team the green-stuffed with the baklijan (eggplant and garlic in sour cream) for your very own Azerbaijani veggie wrap.

Sheki Halva

Not the traditional dry halva you are used to, this regional variety resembles a pie with crunchy layers drowned in a sweet syrup.

Bakhlava

Although Turkish in origin, bakhlava has made its way to Baku, with some of the best served up by the local outpost of the Turkish bakery Gulluoglu. The rolled cylindrical variety are full of pistachio nuts, inside and out. Not too sweet, incredibly fresh, and terribly addictive.

The following traditional Azerbaijani dishes evaded our taste buds, either because of short supply or the wrong season.

Dushbara

Azerbaijani-style miniature manti. Teaspoon-sized mutton, onion and coriander filled ravioli served in a stock. This dish is common in the spring, so we just missed it during our summer visit. Travelers headed further to Central Asia, don’t despair. You'll get your fill of dushbara in Kyrgyzstan, where they are called chochvara and served in a spicy, tomato-based broth.

Piti

Potatoes, chick-peas, vegetable and fatty-mutton stewed with fresh tomatoes or saffron. We're told that you are supposed to soak the juice up with the bread first and then mash the solids into a paste before eating. For some reason, every cafe we tried seemed to be out and offered us shashlik instead.

Word of caution: Some restaurants, especially in the regions, will present an extensive menu, leaving the customer excited by the possibilities of choice. Tame your excitement. More often than not, the only things actually available are shashlik or dovga. For some reason, waiters don't find it necessary to explain “we only have 3 of the 600 things on the menu” up front. Only when they take your order, do they deliver the bad news, leaving you grasping for alternatives.

Photo Essay – Azerbaijani Food and Markets

Recommended Baku Restaurants

• Chudo Pechka: Next to Sahil Metro station on Bul Bul street. An international chain that is Turkish in origin, Chudo Pecka churns out savory and sweet pastries, kutab, pizzas and doner kebabs all day. Pay at the cashier first and then take your receipt to one of the half dozen or so food counters to collect your grub. Extraordinarily inexpensive compared to every other food option in Baku…a blessing for budget travelers.
• Anadolu: On Rasul Rza Street #5 at the corner with Azerbaijan Street. Probably the best street doner kebabs in the city. Inside, Turkish and European dishes are on offer for reasonable prices.
• Anur Restaurant: E. Elizada Street #3, close to the old town on the same street as Mozart Cafe. Good manti.
• Gulluoglu Bakery: Istiqlaliyyet Kuc #35. Heavenly and addictive bakhlava!
• Restaurant “PLANET”: Mehseti Sreet #3, tel.: (+99412) 4234378. A ways outside the city center. It has a nice garden setting with delicious shashlik and live music.

The post Kutabs and Kebabs: Azerbaijani Food appeared first on Uncornered Market.

Lahic was the last of the Caucasus hill villages we visited and it reaffirmed that hill villages often have the most to offer in terms of scenery and real life experiences. They are generally hard to get to and usually involve boarding a Soviet-era school bus that should have been retired 20 years ago.

Winters in these remote villages are difficult – roads get snowed out and access to the rest of the world and its goods is limited. Locals reflect their accumulated years of difficulty with an outwardly rough exterior, but they usually soften quickly upon engagement. Even a “hello” in the local language will bring smiles, invitations for tea (or vodka), and possible induction into the extended family.

Although perched in beautiful mountain settings, these villages are left behind as their countries race towards modernity. Nostalgia for the past is often high as the shift from controlled economy to bastardized market economy brings plenty of unemployment and other shortages. Industries collapse and an exodus of the young set off for the big cities.

We experienced this in Svaneti in Georgia and Tatev in Armenia. Lahic, Azerbaijan seemed to follow in the same vein.

The bus to Lahic from Ismaili is an old Soviet machine that looked like it should be headed for the junkyard. At one point, a loud crash from the back of the bus sounded as if the axle had dropped off. In response, the driver exposed a large opening under the drive shaft, adjusted a makeshift something in the form of a carved out 2-liter bottle of Sprite and we rolled along. Hairpin turns, rock falls and recent wash-outs left us within a hairs' breath of the edge of the road and no one seemed to mind, except maybe the chickens cowed up in the back of the bus next to a pile of flour sacks.

Once you arrive intact, the village of Lahic greets you with only one main street. Even for the navigationally challenged, it’s virtually impossible to get lost.

We wandered on and off this main street, poked our heads into courtyards and followed women with their jujums (metal water-carrying vessels) as they collected water from mountain springs. Men on horses topped with big fur hats haul goods up and down the main street. Kids without much to do in the summer months either run circles around you or peer at you shyly from doorways and windows. Coppersmiths and blacksmiths clink away in small workshops. They display jujums and metal platters on the doors of their shops to lure the occasional visitor.

So, get out of town and head to mountain villages. Visits to them will likely provide some of the most culturally unusual and visually spectacular experiences of your travels. Mountain life also offers a glimpse into the reality of life where time has stood still…at least for a few moments.

Photo Essay: Lahic and Skahi, Azerbaijan

Lahic Travel Information: Transport, Accommodation, Food

• How to get there: A marshrutka leaves for Lahic every morning at 7 AM from Baku's main bus station near 20th January metro stop (6-8 manat). The return to Baku leaves from Lahic's main square at 8 AM (5 hours). From Ismaili, a rickety bus leaves at 7, 11 and 2, taking around 1.5 hours (2 manat). Or, you can get a taxi for around 17 manat from Ismaili. We don't advise an overnight in Ismaili – accommodation is atrocious and food choices are limited.
• Where to stay: Several families offer home stays for 10 to 15 manat per person, including breakfast. We stayed with Suleyman's family near the bridge. The Haciyev family also offers a home stay up the hill from the Mother and Child Memorial. Everyone knows everyone, so just ask around to find the right house. There is a foreign aid-funded tourist information office that likely has accommodation information. It was closed for no apparent reason when we were there, so we'll never know.
• Where to eat: Eating with your home stay family is probably your best option. There are two restaurants in town – one is near the square with the Mother and Child Memorial while the second is an outdoor affair about half a kilometer away near the school. Both menus are limited to – you guessed it – shashlik (barbecue), salad and bread.
• What to do: Stroll down the main street, visit the museum, shop for copper water pots and jewelry, and enjoy friendly banter with the local kids. Take in the mountain scenery and fresh air (relief after Baku's pollution).

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While visiting the village of Kish just outside of Shaki, the Azerbaijani long weekend getaway of choice, we struck up a conversation with a newlywed couple – a young dentist and his wife – as they gave us a ride back into town.

“The situation with doctors and dentists is really bad in Azerbaijan. My salary as a dentist is only $30 per month.“

“How could you afford a car like this on $30 per month?” Audrey asked, as she sank back into the deep plush seat of his Mercedes sedan.

“Private patients,” he offered with a smile.

Another example of what we came to call “Caucasus Math,” where appearances, stories, quoted salaries and the cost of living simply didn't add up. In this case, private clients heavily subsidize an “official” job so that a dentist with a salary of $30 can afford a big (albeit used) Mercedes and take a one-month honeymoon with his new wife.

From what we can tell, this is normal and it's the way things work in the Caucasus. This is their new economy.

Easier to Drive a Taxi

Our taxi driver, Samir, told us his story on the way from Sheki to Ismaili. He was a calm, friendly English-speaking driver – a profile you would be hard-pressed to find in taxi drivers in this part of the world.

As Samir tells it, when the Soviet Union collapsed, he used the opportunity of free movement to work in Yemen as a doctor. A few years later he transferred to St. Petersburg. He tried working there for a while, living with his wife and newborn son and sending money home to his parents. Later, his wife and son returned home to Azerbaijan. He continued to work in St. Petersburg, but eventually missed his son too much and decided to return for good.

We asked the obvious question: “If you are a trained doctor, then why are you working as a taxi driver?” Samir smiled. This question exposed our western sensibilities. For us, it didn't quite make sense that a doctor would choose to be a taxi driver.

Samir explained that in Azerbaijan it was more lucrative and less stressful to work as a taxi driver than to juggle working for the state as a doctor while finding enough private patients to make ends meet. Another crack in another public health system and proof that not having enough money to pay doctors on the side in Azerbaijan can be dangerous for your health.

Most people go to Shaki, one of Azerbaijan's top tourist sites, to visit the 18th century Khan's palace and stay at the Caravanserai Hotel. We did all that, and enjoyed a side trip to Kish and teatime with some grandmas in their rose garden in Shaki. But conversations like this give us insight into how real people live in post-Communist Azerbaijan today as the country’s economy continues to evolve.

Photo Essay: Shaki, Azerbaijan

Shaki Accommodation and Transport

• How to get there: Overnight train (or bus) from Baku to Sheki. Only third-class sleepers were available when we bought our train tickets. Very cheap ($1.50/person), but it's open sleeping (no cabins) so beware of flapping random body parts as grandmas change into their nightgowns en plein air. When you arrive, the Sheki train station is around 20 km outside of the town. A taxi should cost 7-8 manats ($9-$10). Warning: taxi drivers may indicate that the distance is 35 km and increase the price accordingly. Embarassing the taxi driver about his lies in front of the police seemed to instill some new-found honesty.
  Where to stay in Shaki: Caravanserai Hotel is the place to stay and one of the draws of Sheki. It's a renovated caravanserai that housed traders, their goods and camels during the 18th and 19th centuries. 20 manats ($25) gets you a basic, but comfortable double room. Call ahead for reservations – this place is often booked with weekenders from Baku. 0177-4-31-724-4814. Compare prices at other hotels in Shaki here.
• Where to eat: There are a couple of cafes full of men drinking tea and eating shashlik and dovga near the market (Taza Bazaar). Audrey was the only female in sight. The restaurant in the park near the center has an extensive menu, but only a handful of items available to order. Ask in advance what’s actually available before overextending your hopes.

What to do in Shaki:

• Visit the Khan's palace – beautiful Persian-influenced paintings and shebeke (colored glass) windows cover the interior. It's worth spending the extra 2 manat for the permit to take photos.
• Eat Sheki halva at the Taza bazaar.
• Take a rickety bus to Kish and visit the Caucasian Albanian Church. Note: Caucasian Albanians are not related to modern-day European Albanians.
• Wander Shaki's back streets and have tea with the locals.

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