The valley, in everyday things

Houses that belong to the hillside

The traditional houses of Şavşat are an excellent starting point. Doğanay and Orhan describe their construction, plans and outbuildings, including a house plan from Ube/Oba. Shavsheti adds a particularly memorable detail from Ube: hollowed wooden logs joined together to carry water to a home. It is practical work, certainly—but also knowledge of wood, terrain and how to make a household function. [1, p. 103; 2]

Start in the kitchen

The dialect glossary lets food lead us into the archive. There is ბექმეზი (bekmezi), concentrated fruit juice; ბიში (bishi), bread cakes cooked in fat; and მალახთო (malakhto), a seasoned bean dish. The published malakhto example mentions onion, pepper and basil. These are recorded descriptions, rather than a single recipe every household must follow. Later, local recipes and photographs can sit beside the words. [1, pp. 572–573, 590]

The work behind a landscape

Orchards, fields, timber and water recur throughout the ethnographic material. The 2011 researchers record a rich vocabulary for fruit varieties and agricultural practices. Place-names also remember springs, cultivated plots and neighbourhoods. This gives us another way to look at a beautiful view: as a place shaped by years of work, skill and decisions, rather than a photograph without people in it. [1, pp. 103, 115–120, 314]

When people gather

Songs, dances and proverbs belong to social life. The 2025 music-and-dance study documents accordion accompaniment and named performances recorded in villages including Ube. Shavsheti preserves proverbs and other oral material with the names of narrators and recording dates. Keeping that context lets us meet particular people and performances, instead of presenting “tradition” as one unchanging thing. The songs collection will make room for lyrics, translations and recordings. [1, pp. 507–508; 3, pp. 174–178]

An archive with room to grow

There is more to gather: tools and their names, family photographs, memories of work, food and celebrations, and the stories attached to particular places. Your photographs and fieldwork can bring detail that a book cannot supply on its own. This page starts from published material, with room for those local voices as the project develops.