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This is not just another editorial that contains some random words. This time, it is a JOURNOTORIAL! You all enjoyed being in a committee during this forum, and actually we also spent the last few days with our own little “committee”, the press team. Just like you, we had some teambuilding, got to know each other and started to get more comfortable soon. We ended up being good friends having the feeling that we have known each other for ages. On the last day of committee work, I looked around in the pressroom and it gave me such a warm and proud feeling to see the journos sitting in duos writing articles together and helping each other. Because most of you have met only one journo, we feel like they deserve some more attention. First, all eyes on Kaarle. He hasn’t written many articles so it is possible that you haven’t even seen his name anywhere. The reason for this is in fact that he is our video editor. It is a pity if you haven’t met this tall guy who is full of crazy jokes, smart punchlines and big smiles. He also likes swearing in West-Flemish dialect. Secondly there is Oliver, who is Singaporian-English-French! You should go and ask him about this, so that he can tell his story for the millionth time. If Oliver would be a character in a book about the forum, he would go under the definition of a “round” character: someone who undergoes change during the story. It is amazing to see the evolution in his photography: he went from automatic to manual mode, an incredible achievement. Next is Ia, the youngest journo possible. Being just 16 years old, she managed to write witty and surprising articles. She is always friendly and smiling, and by the way, don’t you agree that she looked just stunning in her G.A. dress? Only one year older is Nini. She joined our team only just before the session, and we are still super happy about that, because she turned out to be
a happy and motivated journalist. Erekle is the journo who is most likely to be found on the beach and likes having fun a lot. He is laughing most of the time and it is nice to have someone who adds some humour to brainstorming. Next up is Tatuli, our personal translator of Georgian and someone who always helps out people. Fortunately it didn’t take long to distinguish her from her twin sister Mariam. The last member of our awesome team is Alex, someone you can really have fun with discussing weird things, going swimming during lunchtime and taking fake-smile photos. There’s no doubt about a future visit to Ukraine to go swimming with dolphins together!
4 - 5: Hot stuff & underwear
6 - 7: wait in line at the c - AFET- aria 8 - 9: The most InTeREsting committee 10 - 11: COOLT 12 - 13: Committee on law and human rights 14 - 15: AFCO - more than just 4 letters 16 - 17: DATA? More like IMCO! 18: This is ENVI
You cannot believe how good it is to have this bunch of people working together to create something remarkable that will hopefully be appreciated and kept as a memory by many participants of the session. Before editing the very last page for this session, there is one more thing you should know: everyone can be a journo. Check out calls for sessions on the EYP website and on Facebook, and don’t hesitate to write an application. You won’t regret it. Jussi & Janne
EDITORIAL
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CONTENTS
19: Gossip column 20: Shuqi Movida 22: Batman’s favourite city 3
Alex Huzenko
Hot stuff & underwear
Despite intense debates on controversial committee topics, the delegates have learned how to listen, respect and compromise in order to find a consensus. The agreement cannot be found in a question that the Batumi International Forum Press team has prepared for the delegates. Having been together with the president, board, chairs and journalists, the delegates might have picked their favourite ones by now. Everyone is suffering from the high temperature outside and inside the venues, but not many people know that the heat is coming not only from the beautiful Georgian sun. The officials are the other reason of why it is so hot at the forum. Prepare, here are the results of the survey “the hottest official at Batumi International Forum”.
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About 40 EYP newcomers joined the Batumi International Forum this year. They are all very excited about the formal and informal events that EYP has prepared for them. However, only 2 days left before the official end of the forum and they still don’t know what will happen to them after the session. The PED is coming, but they are still not aware of what that is exactly... We will finally tell you: it means Post EYP Depression, and you will soon learn what it feels like. These were the most original guesses:
Personal Effective Development Peaceful Energetic Diamonds Professional European Delegate Parliament European Director Partnership Eternal Development Popular Effective Device Professional Effective Detective Perfectly Educated Delegate People Even Do People Encourage Dreams Physical Education in Denmark Party Every Day Proper Education Disorder
Yesterday, the delegates and officials were very excited about getting t-shirts. From now on, they all will start wearing them every day, and start looking the same. However, it is really important nowadays to be special. You need to have a unique perspective on fashion and wear something that no one else has, to look cool. Wearing a white T-shirt, blue-grey shirts and sunglasses is now the trend of Batumi International Forum 2012. But to stay unique, everyone agreed on wearing different underwear colour. Even this private information was not hidden from the journalists. Take a look at the poll and find out if you still have a unique view on fashion.
According to the delegates’ answers, many joined EYP not just to tackle EU problems, but also to find new friends or even more. Batumi International Forum gathered about 100 delegates from 17 different countries, so the press team found out which country’s representatives are most likely to hook up with others. The diagram explains everything, so I can congratulate Ukraine on getting the top spot on the list. 4
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Getting in line at the c-AFET-eria
Tatuli Chubabria
How good are young people when being asked to wait in line? The committee on Foreign Affairs is discussing the prospects of young states to cooperate withing the Black Sea Region. This is the space where few can boast with calm relations within and outside their borders. Diplomacy, patience and structural approach is rarely present when it comes to international relations here, but behind the scene at AFET’s committee work you would discover something totally opposite.
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Delegates in AFET are very cooperative and have a lot in common! The chains they created by finding the places on each others’ laps have uncovered what the committee members share. The game showed that members were not distant and alienated to each other even from the very beginning: for example we learned that the Armenian delegate Vahe knows Georgian dances and can make Georgian Khachapuri, our Azerbaijanian delegate Fahri has previously visited Georgia and been to Anaklia, committee members even shared the idea that the Brazilians have the most beautiful girls (except for Tabagari) and the Italians have the most handsome males. Hanna and Kateryna both have a shinshila – of the opposite sex and ready to breed. While many of the delegates say they know how to play the piano, David thinks he belongs to the chain of people as well even though he only knows how to play Shalakho.
Sticking with each other and finding more in common is especially encouraged in the committee where most of the delegates come from the so called Wider Black Sea Reagion –the region where countries have similar backgrounds but find it hard to acquire one uniting identity. The committee work was not easy: there was a delegate feeling more comfortable talking in native language rather than in English and a committee member missing because of taking a nap on the floor in the organiser’s room. Fortunately, with patience, hard work and coherent approach AFET managed to proceed and reach concensus on many points. Putting the same solution on their flipchart twice happened only once and they have never deviated from the track. Everyone kept staying in the line of the problem-solution-phrasing pattern and getting closer to the creation of the final resolution at a slow pace. Some delegates are sometimes missing, getting in the line very late, but the model of cooperation is still way more pleasing than it is in reality in the case of the states around Black Sea. Let’s hope that the model of the line of c-AFETeria will someday be reflected in the countries’ diplomatic relations! Oh, and if only the countries in Black Sea region could come up with an idea for playing the interstate coin game…
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The most InTeREsting committee
He is in a state of mind that we usually call “The Golden Interval” in Georgia. Speaking of chilled relaxed guys, we cannot forget Simon, who is a very nice and sociable person. Even though Simon is really nice, the title for the nicest guy around would most definitely go to Tudor, despite having incredibly nice and intelligent persons like Elene or Mariam – who’s definitely the martyr of the committee in a sense that she is always tired, yet very active. Furthermore, the true definition of efficacious would be Yevgeni, who is always filled with new and interesting ideas. The coolest duo of our committee is that of Huseyn and Orkhan, who get involved rather rarely, but always sharply. It seems like they never say something useless. There is but one delegate in our committee who is sharper in the remarks, and that would obviously be Lili. Apart from all this, I wonder who of Ketto and Anya is the calmer and more objective of the two, but this much I can say: they are hard-working people, dedicated to ITRE. ITRE, the committee that everybody knows, ITRE that greets and bids farewell in the most amazing way (Hiiiiii, Byeee), ITRE that has the best decoration on their door, ITRE that has the best soundtrack out of all committees, ITRE that is the highest in spirits, ITRE that is so very InTeREsting!!!
Erekle Antadze
The committee of ITRE, who were fortunate enough to have the charming and incredibly lovely Ms. Tinatin “Tiko” Janjghava and the almighty Mr. Dominic “Jesus” Degen as their chairs. Even more fortunate were Dominic and Tiko themselves, as they were so lucky to have what can be regarded as one of the best committees! While working with this committee I met many interesting people, reconnected with others whom I already knew and had a lot of fun in 8
general. But the word “general” probably cannot get my idea across, so I’ll need to go into detail: Nino is probably one of the funniest members of the committee - she is smart, yet she frequently punished for violating the Golden Rules, and when I say frequently, I mean every 2 minutes. Our next Nino, or as we refer to her Niniko is not very different… if I had to use one word to describe her, that word would be hyperactive, though she can be
collected and serious at times. Now I don’t know what’s up with name Nino in ITRE, but we have the third one as well and we call her Nini – a genuinely funny, smart girl who believes that Narnia is real and remember: “for those who live in Narnia, we are Narnia”. Giorgi on the other hand, who knows perfectly well that Narnia isn’t real, is a very outbalanced old friend of mine, who has this incredible rare capacity to know how to act in the appropriate way in any given situation.
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Coolt Ia Tserodzev
Good Evening! It is my greatest honour to welcome you at the 85th annual Academy Awards. I am Ia and I will be your presenter for tonight. As the nomination for the coolest committee was won by CULT (committee on COOLture and Education), the nominees are all the perfect delegates from the above mentioned committee. Suspension is in the air, everybody is hoping for their name to be called. But the COOLtural delegates are definitely first-class and truly deserve to be in the spotlight! The first nomination is the one of the strangest delegate. And the Oscar goes to… Anna! What a spectacular show, now who would have thought that such a sweet girl would be awarded with this title? Well, I would like to remind you that strange means different which means unique. This smart, young lady is definitely unique. She has an immense knowledge and a charming character. Let’s move on to the second nomination: the smartest delegate. The winner is… Akaki. Just what I was expecting. Apart from being incredibly lovely this guy has the brains. He is always involved, constantly helping out and full of spirit at all times. I can’t help mentioning that while other 10
committee members came to CULT, Akaki did a splendid job defending the resolution. Keep up the good work! Lovely Sabina becomes the cutest delegate. Not surprising either, she is so sweet that I bet she was a cupcake in a previous life. She is extremely cute as well as bright. This young lady has it all: looks, personality and intelligence. CULT gained a valuable member who is never too tired to read out the problems or come up with a witty
solution. Next up the list is Tamta, now known as the most creative one. Even her name shouts out to the world: I can make it! I can do everything! I fell in love with this girl during the past 3 days. Her personality is like a rainbow: she can be any colour she wants! Whether it is about the resolution or in a game of “honey tell me that you love me”, Tamta is always up for the challenge in the most creative way possible.
The whole committee is extremely active, but the most active one is Irakli. Just one word about him: awesome. You simply have to love him. His cheesy personality and vast knowledge make him a true CULT member. His past experience in EYP definitely paid off, and he is always in charge and in control of the situation. I am sure he will rock the GA. The shyest delegate turned out to be – Vazha. He was involved in committee work, but preferred to observe the other delegates rather than debate. Apart from being lovely he knows how to work in a team and most importantly he absolutely loves his committee. CULT Loves you too Vazha! Ladies and Gentlemen, the pretty young delegate who will knock your socks off with glamour and style is Nini, she gets the prize for the most fashionable delegate. Her smile is one of the wonders of the world, whenever she enters the room it fills the space with positive energy and everybody is inspired to do their best. That is why CULT’s room is always warm and sunny even with the windows and curtains closed. Now… Beware and turn on the air conditioner, because Maks is coming! After the voting procedure he turned out that he became the hottest delegate. This guy knows how to charm the ladies. Although he prefers being quiet, I guess that one look was enough to earn this award. On the other hand, he fell asleep on the very first day of committee work and carried on sleeping until I took fifty pictures of him.
Maybe his gaze is too much of a luxury because even while sleeping, the girls are voting for him as the most handsome one. You can always see a sophisticated look on her face. “Serious” is Nastya’s second name and that is why she was granted with that title. This is the girl who is a real professional and sees that hard work and concentration are the keys to success. She is definitely the one who broke the stereotype about blondes! Lukasz joined CULT on the last day of committee work but that did not prevent him from being diligent and fully aware of the topic, that’s why he is now the most motivated delegate! Furthermore, he quickly created a friendly atmosphere in the committee and provided the CULT members with valuable examples as
well as contributing enormously to the committee himself. A special nomination for tonight is the one for the best chair ever. And it goes to Oleksandra! She is the one who created the spirit and helped her committee with each and every step. I am proud to know her. Her charm and smile will make you go numb and being in CULT was a bliss for every member. She is the one who always tries her best and succeeds every time! As I said before: The. Best. Ever. Ladies and gentlemen, this was it for tonight. Thank you for being with us, and thank you CULT for accepting me and giving me the opportunity to present the Academy Awards! Let’s give a huge round of applause just one more time for the Committee on Culture and Education! 11
Committee on Law and Human Rights
Oliver Slattery
Once upon a time in a country far far away, Queen Mariam and King Oliver had to fulfil the same important task: to have the committee of DROI make the most out of the Batumi International Forum ’12. They lived together with their 12 peasants who adored them. Mariam received several five out of fives for being a great chair, and me as well for being a “good dictionary” according to Witold (Witek)! All of them lived in the town called ACTA or Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. On July 21 2012, they began endorsing the town’s principles yet revolting against its measures, paralleled by the EU’s recent rejection of the accord. This confrontation with ACTA revealed everyone’s true colours. Witek, Ninia, and Adam emerged as the heads of the rebellion. Witek and Adam accompanied by Tinatin and Kate successfully defended their resolution during the momentary intrusion of AFET delegates. Ninia was so diligent during committee work that one photo
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revealed that she had dyed her hair black and was actually a brunette. The anti-ACTA rebellion was dependent on the skills of each and every one of the DROI members. Adam put to use his cooking skills to provide food for each peasant during the anti-ACTA rebellion. Zura effectively used his afro hairstyle to make the revolt redolent of the Black Civil Rights movement. After all, if blacks fought to gain personal rights during the 60’s, DROI fought to protect human rights in the face of intellectual copyright in the 21st century. Veriko secretly admitted to me that her childhood wish was to move from Georgia to France for university. Indeed, this bringing together of delegates from diverse countries in ACTA is capable to spark interest in foreign cultures. What greater lesson could there be for delegates other than to teach a willingness to discover cultural diversity and intercultural understanding?
The very first night of the session, Ani only slept for one hour. As soon as she said it, I made a mental note to myself that the EYP spirit had already began to sink in. Likewise, it was great to see Hovsep (Sep) undergo an impressive transformation in the village of ACTA. On the way to the Opening Ceremony, Sep clearly told me that he was uneasy and was not in his own place, especially surprised that there are not many other delegates who are older than 20. But at the Committee dinner Friday night, the first person to make a toast to the team was no one else than Sep. All of these qualities make DROI a committee like no other. They may be all different, and they may come from 5 countries, but they are all united by ACTA. If Queen Marima and King Oliver’s task is achieved, they will be incredibly proud of their peasants. Most importantly, if the peasants agree on a coherent and well-thought response to the problem, they will be able to be proud of themselves. You better watch out for them at General Assembly!
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AFCO-
Nini Danelia
These 4 letters mean much more than simply discussing constitutional affairs…
Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the committee on Constitutional Affairs chaired by the president of the session Mr. Oleg Shimanskyy and one of the most experienced Georgian EYPers Ani Nozadze! As commonly held, also this session’s first day was entirely dedicated to teambuilding. One parIf you are in this Committee: ticular interesting bunch of people was standing a. You are never late ; around the president of the session. I guessed b. You respect others opinions ; c. You speak only English during the CW; that was my committee! Wednesday, the 18th of d. Your mobile phone is always on a July: that’s the day I met all of you under the blue sky of Batumi. Jakob, Anita, Koba, Mate, Gergo, silent mode during the CW. Tamar, Mariam, Victoria, Nino, Narmin, Tinatin Let’s start from the very beginning… and Irakli - here they are! The first challenge they had to handle was to get to know each other’s names without saying a word. After about 10 minutes, the majority of our committee 14
members knew the names and that was the perfect beginning of our teambuilding. A few rounds of name games sufficed fully to be familiar with everyone and it was time to go deeper. Have you seen organisers running errands with long pieces of silk and several blind folds? Forming a square with 12 people with blind folds on surely isn’t the most simple task to fulfill. Indeed it took a while for them to trust the correct form of their quad, when Oleg and Ani exclaimed that it was time to look at the outcome of their work, they found that the square was close to equilateral, showing that they could have been more confident about their achievement from the start. What about water fighting? Yes! I’m proud that AFCO has beaten 6 committees during the water fight and turned out to be on the second place. Afterwards, many other interesting EYP games were played by AFCO and as the delegates mentioned, the teambuilding was quite helpful and
productive with a great help of their chairpersons. As soon as the initial shyness was overcome, the 12 members were chatting during coffee break. Without any doubt, the open atmosphere in the committee could be very useful during the next day of committee work. We all know that EYP is not all about making human knots and blindfolding each other, sometimes you have to throw yourself into a lively discussion, something the delegates of this committee have fearlessly done. Before starting the discussion about the committee topic, Oleg told a sad love story named by delegates as the “Love story of Roxen and Methew” and they spent almost half an hour discussing the story. Do you have a timer in your committee? Maybe you do, but no one can have one like our Hungarian guy – Jakob. He’s a real timer, you can often hear him say something during committee work like “we’ve got only 15 minutes left, can you guys hurry up?” Actually, punctuality is
an invisible part of our committee, as the hotel. our president was so proud that on the second day AFCO was the first committee to be complete in the hotel. Every journey has its starting and ending points. An EYP session is a very special kind of a journey. You have gone through a wide range of feelings, from extreme happiness and joy to frustration and tiredness in committee work, to the sadness of leaving. I’m very happy to be sitting next to you right now, typing these very lines and listening to your hot discussions. Dear delegates and also my dearest Oleg and Ani, I am very happy that I have had the pleasure to be your journo for the past few days. I believe that AFCO has the material necessary to achieve something special and I am looking forward to seeing you in GA. I hope that this short introduction has convinced you that the 4 letters of AFCO mean much more than simply discussing a topic on constitutional affairs…
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DATA? more like IMCO! Alex Huzenko
On Wednesday the 18th of July, the 4th Batumi forum began. Approximately 100 delegates and 20 officials from 16 different countries all over Europe gathered to participate. 14 chairpersons were ready to guide the delegates through a dark deep forest of full of problems to solve. Personally, I was excited about what committee I would get in. Many officials and delegates came from very far-away places, which is the direct evidence of the dedication that each of them has. For instance, Laduka and Nini from IMCO had such a strong dedication that they just left everything to come here and put all their effort into the topic debates. Even though there were 7 committees, I found myself to be in IMCO. Arriving a little bit earlier to Georgia I was extremely excited and looking forward to meeting the delegates. After many tiring hours of travelling through the beautiful country we finally reached our destination and started to get acquainted with each other. Among other committees, IMCO is very international: one half of us represent different European countries. If we would build a human map of Europe, it would extend from having Polina from the Northern Poland to Majd from Palestine in the South, Vasyl from Ukraine in the West and Orkhan from Azerbaijan from the other side. However, representing completely dif-
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ferent cultures and having unique personality types, each of us felt very comfortable working together for the sake of the European Union. Let’s recall the first day of the forum—the fun time of teambuilding. In about an hour after getting to know each other, IMCO members showed a huge potential and perfect teamwork among other committees in a race with a water bucket. Cheering and keeping each other motivated helped us to win the race. Working in a group and having many things in common turned out to create a bonded committee, but at the same time everyone stayed unique and special. Knowing each other for just 20 minutes, we shared our dreams which varied from Nanuka’s wish to be a fire bender to Inessa, whose dream is to fly at night without wings. Confidently, all of the teambuilding activities helped our committee to become great team that undoubtedly will succeed during the topic debates. Data somehow recognized this extreme potential from the first time seeing his delegates and consequently inspired all of us for the further teamwork. I asked IMCO’s representatives about the best activities and games they experienced during the 2nd day of teambuilding. All together we agreed on Tamar’s proposal that Hi-Ha-Ho game was the most exciting so far... before we
experienced the crazy screams of the “Haiduken” game. If you could only hear how much passion Nini and Revaz put in this activity. If you heard enormously loud screams, you should know—that was us, the IMCO committee. Probably we have to apologize for being so passionate about that game and all the other activities in general. Data, our mentor/chair passed on all his energy and effort with the “sonic boom” to each of the committee members. Even though actively participating all of the nighttime activities, everyone managed to stay very fresh and concentrated during the day-time activities. IMCO gathered highly prepared, intelligent and enthusiastic delegates who were embarrassed by the European Union companies being socially not responsible,
according to Tiko’s words. With all the potential they have, I am confident that each of them will become a director or a representative of companies that will never forget about taking care of the society and the environment. Having a stuffed agenda, filled with the most exciting events almost 20 hours each day, you would never notice a bit of tiredness or the evidence of yesterday’s night activity. Putting in all of our energy and effort, together we went through the extremely tough debates and lots of disagreements during the topic discussion. “In a minimum period of time we created a very bonded team, supported by our chair and we are looking forward to a successful General Assembly” commented Anastasia.
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Committee on Environment, public health and food safety
Gossip Column Alex Huzenko
Ia Tserodze
Kaarle Varkkiv
Despite a few casualties while battling unhealthy fast food and lazy lifestyles, our environmental soldiers of ENVI definitely managed to find a balance between culinary delight and a healthy physique. After having a few minor arguments, reason quickly conquered everyone’s mind and right solutions were soon found after some debating. As a team ENVI performed very well, considering that there were many firsttime delegates. Having gone through the traditional group development cycle, a band of random youngsters became a team thanks to constructive conflict and reflection, and of course the guidance of the experienced chairperson Tornike. Thanks to him the general atmosphere during teambuilding was tremendously enjoyable and everyone started to get along very well. But maybe they were just acting, given the fact that they were almost constantly under video surveillance... 18
But maybe they were just acting, given the fact that they were almost constantly under video surveillance... One of the good traits that ENVI seems to have is learning from making mistakes. The Golden Rules, established after problem-solving games, were very useful. Although at first some people had a problem talking at the same time with someone else, this was eventually overcome and mutual respect was guaranteed. By the way: respect was probably the most mentioned word during the creation of the rules and it was one of the important factors of the teamspirit’s development. ENVI is such a strong team now, that even at the committee dinner everyone ordered the same food – adrajuli khachapuri. Even though only two people managed to eat the whole thing, dinner was great.
The end of the evening was a bit weird, as the personnel wasn’t very co-operative. Nevertheless everyone had a great time and left the venue with satisfied bellies. I expect them to be as satisfied by the end of GA, as I believe they are going to do a good job. Although I couldn’t spend much time with them, I enjoyed being their journo and therefore I decided to use the medium I am most familiar with at this session and made a video especially for our committee. People who are interested can find it on YouTube under the name “Batumi 4th International Forum 2012 ENVI committee video”. I hope the video will show you everything else I haven’t talked about so far and create a realistic picture of the committee. Thank you ENVI for the wonderful time and I hope that you still have a lot of awesome sessions to come!
Hot news has arrived! The gossip column is finally here. Rumours might spread out like crazy but we are going to share some of them with you anyway. You should not have used Twitter or Facebook to share everything that you have heard when the gossip box was waiting on both floors of the university. Beware, the gossip box came to life! And it can’t stop talking. People spent hours waiting in lines to be able to share their gossips with the box. And now it told us absolutely everything. When the press team had a first look at all the notes, we were stunned by the delegates’ imagination, but some of them are actually true… or not?
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I’ve seen the CULT delegates kissing each other. 2. Giorgi and Tiko… Hmm… 3. This really happened. Vaja Canchibadze had a crazy and a really freaking night with Rezo Chanishvili’s bed. 4. Oleksandra is in love. 5. Sorry, I’m not Maia Asatiani. 6. I have heard that Tamta from CULT gave a private lap dance to Oleg. 7. Laduka Utmelidze was left-handed before he was 2 years old. 8. My friend George Metskhvarishvili fell in love with my second friend Lile Matcharashvili. What a lovely couple. 9. Someone brought 50 condoms to Batumi but none of them have been used yet. 10. Zura Giorgobiani is bald and he is wearing a wig. 11. After tasting a huge amount of food and alcoholic drinks, our lovely Giorgi Kolbaia had an unforgettable wild night with his toilet. 12. The journos are suffering from insomnia. 13. The results of the hottest official were falsified!
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Lasha Vashakidze sleeps naked, as Laduka Utmelidze discovered yesterday. 15. Besso Kefashvili is a mutant. 16. Nini Gigani was almost arrested at the Istanbul International Session and she used to cry all night because of Narnia. 17. Erekle Antadze loves dancing ballet when he is alone. 18. Tabagari does not have enough money to buy a pair of socks of the same colour. 19. Nanuka Gurgenidze and Nino Melikidze were sleeping on the beach yesterday because their room was occupied. 20. Nini Gabunia swam in the sea naked. Busted! 21. I am looking for a girlfriend, please call me. I am a tall dark-haired Georgian boy with huge potential. 22. Shuki movida! (seriously) 23. Only foreigners have MacBooks, Georgians still think that an Apple is a fruit. 24. I should have won the picture with Dominic! Please, I am your biggest fan, take a picture with me! I am ready to do buttspelling! 19
SHUQI MOVIDA! Tatuli Chubabria
Erekle Antadze
My very first conversation with Janne went like this: -Hello, what’s your name? I’m Janne, the editress. -Hey I’m Erekle, what’s up? -Well, I’ve learned some Georgian! -Cool, what did you learn? She looks at the writings on her hand and says: -Shuqi Movida! (“the lights came back” – lack of a better translation) In the meantime, this phrase has been used a lot of times throughout the session, surprisingly not just as a joke, but rather when it was actually due. Lights went out three times in the Academy, twice at the hotel, once at the restaurant - making it 6 times OUT of 7 incidents in the past 5 days. And thus our lovely editress and foreign delegates learned the new phrase “Shuqi Tsavida” (the lights went out). When having a conversation of an hour with a Georgian person you always get a coverage of the “sweet” 90s when the country was going through a terrible economic crisis and turbulences. The narrative is always followed by stories about the Rose Revolution and all the benefits it brought with it – “Shuqi” 24/7, good roads, pretty fountains and new buildings. And that is what the tour in the House of Justice made clear as well. Students who missed the fieldtrip have also not seen a video which was documenting 90s in it (with imaes from the years of “Shuqi Tsavida”). The video was also portraying how good things are in present and will be even better in the future. It’s probably hard to convince people that lights are not a problem in Georgia considering the fact that they witnessed “Shuqi Tsavida” countless times, the thing is: we are starting to doubt the above mentioned fact as well. A fun fact on the other hand: in any given country in the world, Shuqi Tsavida and Shuqi Movida naturally happen every 12 or so hours, the sun goes down, the sun rises up… Though even in the depth of darkness, one type of light never fades away, and that is the light in our hearts – though that’s a petty excuse for having light problems in Batumi.
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Even Batman’s favourite city is Bat-umi! Nini Danelia
Oliver Slattery
Plenty of shady or sunny benches to rest on or a Boulevard to walk along, plus the choice of several bars and restaurants to stop at - Yes, this is it! The host city of Batumi 4th International Forum. And now you have a great chance to have a city tour in Batumi with us, so let’s get started! 1. Palmy Beaches Batumi lies beautifully by the Black Sea on one side and the green hills on the other side. The sunset at the beach is very special and if you enjoy long walks, it offers the perfect setting with also a well-kept park closeby. The park has a seafacing promenade, where life buzzes between the trees at its many cafes. 5.”Old Town” - The term “old town” might conjure up images of a tight web of narrow streets, medieval houses, hidden churches and bustling bazaars. Batumi’s old town is more, shall we say, subtle. Although Batumi’s history goes back many centuries, most of the buildings you will see in the city centre are only around a hundred years old. That being said, it is a very pretty town.
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2. ”Boulevard”- Walk along the ‘Boulevard’ and watch the beach. During daytime families and youngsters play here, during the night it is the favourite place for couples and partygoers. There are restaurants and bars on the beach on more inland. The area is generally safe. In the evening, holidaymakers, amorous couples and groups of youths with attitude are in the park eating popcorn, kicking balls, playing volleyball et cetera. Once the sun has set, it might not be 100% safe to walk round here on your own... so stick to the square and the roads!
3. The Alphabet Tower - A seaside park tower showing the letters of the Georgian alphabet. By May 2012 it was not quite finished but upon completion it will have a restaurant and cafe along with a viewing area at the top.
4. Ferris Wheel - Close to the Alphabet Tower at one end of Seaside Park you can find this large Ferris Wheel. Just 0.5 Lari for a slow ride around which takes around 15 minutes. Predictably good views of the surrounding area.
6. Batumi’s Port- While you can’t take a stroll around the docks, Batumi’s port can easily be seen from a number of quayside cafes near to Batumi’s single mosque. In the summer months, the cafes multiply and these are great places to spend an evening watching cargo ships come in and out while draining a few glasses of “Kazbegi” beer.
7- Batumi Botanical Gardens - Batumi Botanical Gardens is a surprisingly large area with a huge amount of plants and flowers from very diverse areas from Himalayas to the Mediterranean. It makes a nice half day scroll even if you’re not a botanical expert. You’ll see an amzing garden where unique landscape and vast territory allowed creating a variety of lush vegetation…
8- Piazza Square – One of the most fascinating places to visit in Batumi, especially during the evening. Piazza Square is a small model of the Italian piazza with typical Italian architecture. Constructed less than 3 years ago, live music and concerts are regularly staged there at night.
9- Try “Adjarian Khachapuri”This is an eye-shaped loaf of bread filled with cheese, fried eggs and butter, not really the healthiest option or the easiest thing to eat.
10-Medea Statue – Located in the city center, the statue is rooted in Greek mythology. Medea helped Jason, leader of the Argonauts, to obtain the Golden Fleece from her father, King Aeetes of Colchis. After they married, Jason left her for the daughter of Creon, King of Colchis – to which Medea responded by killing Creon, his daughter and her own two sons.
Afraid of getting lost? - Getting lost isn’t a problem, as the streets form a grid pattern, the sea to the west, the port to the north, a busy road along the east, and a park in the south. PYou’ve spent 5 memorable days is this warm city so far, hopefully you have watched the dancing fountains at night and tasted “Adjarian Khachapuri” at a restaurant at the seaside. The heat, seaside location and amazing architecture make Batumi a stunning place to be. Even Batman’s favourite city is Bat-umi. We hope that when the time passes, you’ll read through this article and will remember “Batumi memories” with a big smile on your face. We hope that you had a great time here. Batumi will be waiting for you to come back…
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