Part 2 (Anias)

By going to Georgia I not only said goodbye to my family and friends for a year, but also to maybe my biggest hobby, football. I do not only play football, I also go to watch football games. Football takes up a big part of my life, almost every weekend i'm traveling through Germany to watch games. Last year i visited every away game and almost every home game of Hertha and 9 matches of Karlsruhe. So of course, I looked forward to watch some football in Georgia. But the differences are big. The reason why I like watching Football is not only the match itself, it's more the atmosphere. The Ultra subculture is slowly coming to Georgia but to reach German standards it's a long way. The first match I visited here was FC Rustavi against FC Lokomotivi Tbilisi in the Erovnuli Liga 2, which is the second league in Georgia. The match ended with a boring 0-1 and the atmosphere was also not really great. 6 guys, one of which wore an arsenal shirt, supported Rustavi with one drum and chants every five minutes. But at least it's something, and with a beginning the first stone for a bright future is laid.

The Ultra subculture started spreading through Georgia after their qualification for the European championships in which Georgia managed to reach the round of 16 which is a great success for the small Country. Since then, every match of the national team is sold out after a few seconds. I tried to get tickets for the Georgia vs Armenia Nations League game but I was unsuccessful but I didn't lose the idea of going. But then the dates of my Midterm training were announced and it ended on the day the match was. So I dropped the idea… …until I sat in the bus from Bakuriani to Tbilisi and saw that we would arrive shortly before 6. The match started at 6… so I started looking for tickets.

On a sketchy website I found really overpriced ones but I didn't care. That was my chance to tick off a point on my Georgian Checklist! I asked some friends of mine if they would come and then brought the tickets. We arrived at Deslisi bus station at 5:45, ordered a taxi and gave my backpack to Renee. Everything had to go fast but it didn't go as planned. The taxi got stuck in traffic, and my friend and I went out and ran to the stadium but we couldn't find the entrance so we ran around the stadium. So much wasted time! While going in, some Georgian kids tried to smuggle themselves in with us but we couldn't really help because of the police. The moment we entered the stadium, Georgia scored the 2-0. We didn't go to our seats because we didn't want to disturb the people sitting, so we stood next to the people, who probably were in the stadium without a ticket. After an early own goal by Haroyan and a finish by Mikautadze, Georgia kept up the pressure. Chakvetadze made it 3–0 in the 23rd minute, followed quickly by Kiteishvili’s strike for 4–0 just four minutes later. Mikautadze added his second of the night in the 35th to make it 5–0 by halftime. Then my other two friends arrived, who came late because they had to bring a Dog to the vet. Armenia managed a consolation goal shortly after the break through Sevikyan (48'), but Georgia responded in style: Kvaratskhelia sealed the deal in the 62nd minute with the final goal of the night, bringing it to 6–1.

Georgia played great counter attack football but I think that they could have won higher if some players wouldn't have focussed that much on themselves in the end. But it was definitely entertaining and cool to have seen a national game of Georgia.

The Georgian fans stood united behind a big Sakartvelo flag and were visible through all wearing white. Every now and then you could hear a chant but mostly heard the Sakartvelo or player chants where the whole stadium took part in.

In the beginning the armenian fans could sometimes be heard through provocal chants until it was 4-0, then they stopped their support. In the end the Georgian fans stormed the field and started a clash with the armenian fans through throwing bottles in the block but the armenians couldn't react through the presence of the police.

Comments

MOVING TO GEORGIA: MY FIRST EXPERIENCES!

Moving to Georgia: my first experiences! At the start of September I moved to Georgia to volunteer at the International Scout Center in Rustavi for 6 months. In this blog I will tell you more about why I decided to volunteer in Georgia, about how I prepared myself to move abroad, about my expectations and about my experiences of the first weeks. Who am I and why did I decide to volunteer abroad? Why did I decide to move to Georgia? I am Renée and I am 25 years old. I am from the Netherlands and there I lived in a small city called Leiden. The few past years I was studying Education and Child studies there. In my bachelors I did an exchange semester and lived for 6 months in the city Tartu in Estonia. This was a really nice experience and after I came back to the Netherlands I decided that at some point I wanted to live abroad again. So when I graduated university last year I knew what I did not want: a stressful job in the Netherlands. I explored different possibilities, for exam...

In the head of a volunteer - Arrival and first week

I can’t believe that it’s been two months since I set foot in Georgia for the first time. And yet it seems like a lifetime of experiences. Here is an assortment of my very first moments, hope you enjoy :) The arrival and discovery of Rustavi landscape When I arrived at Tbilisi Airport I was surprised to see it was not as big as I expected a capital airport to be. I waited alone for a few moments for Aleks to pick me up. During my wait I went to exchange money (by the way, if you come to Georgia, don’t do it at the airport, the exchange rates are far better in the city) and I realised that I really was far from home, I couldn’t understand any of the words people were saying to each other. When Aleks arrived I went in the car. I had a cold at the time, and I travelled at night, so I arrived in Georgia without any sleep. I felt really tired and I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t talk m...

WE ARRIVED!

Gamarjoba! Welcome to a new round of ISCR blogs. I am Vibeke, a new volunteer from the Netherlands. A month ago, I arrived at Tbilisi airport together with the other Dutch volunteer Renée, and since then three more volunteers arrived: Krista from Latvia and Charlotte and Anias from Germany. For the coming months, we will organise activities at the Scout Centre in Rustavi, try to understand something of the Georgian language and discover the beautiful country! 😀 With this blog, we’ll try to keep you updated. But how did I end up here? This summer, I applied for the volunteering program at ISCR with the European Solidarity Corps. I just finished high school and wanted to take a gap year before starting my studies. As I am always eager to explore new countries and cultures, I decided to apply for a long-term ESC program, in order to not only explore a country, but also contribute something to it. I started to search for countries that I knew nothing about. I wanted a country that will gi...

CHAPTER 1

Once upon a time there lived five gnomes. They each lived a different life in a different place for a different amount of time. However, the thing they had in common was an unexplainable urge to add a new plot to their autobiographies, to put their for-centuries-collected skills and knowledge to a good use and go to a land far far away. They packed their biggest tiny backpacks, said farewell to their gnome families and forest fairy friends, each jumped on the back of a seagull and flew into an unfamiliar direction. This is where their stories intertwine. Turns out all the seagulls were going the same way; they dropped all the gnomes at the same place – a magical castle surrounded by forests and hills. The castle was home for many, no matter big or small, young or old, beginner or advanced, from this planet or another. All the residents of the castle warmly welcomed the gnomes with open arms and open hearts. The castle was a place where a helpful hand was given first and questions ask...

In the head of a volunteer : What volunteering means to me

This article is more a train of thoughts about my volunteering experience and what it means to me than a story about reel experiences. I wanted to share it in the hope that other volunteers can relate. Those reflections started when I took over the instagram page. I am now in charge of posting about our workshops, keeping you updated about our activities and making weekly and monthly recaps. To give myself ideas, I went to see the archived posts and I got lost in what the previous teams of volunteers posted. I felt so strange. I realised that this place, where I work, eat and sleep everyday, was used by people in the same situation as me before. They walked in the same streets, shopped in the same grocery stores and discovered the same Rustavi as foreigners. Maybe the children I am meeting during my workshops knew those other volunteers, and it’s more than probable that they will me...

Search This Blog