"The first time I ate a was in 2003, and after one bite of that soupy, oversize dumpling, I became obsessed with the food of the former Soviet republic of Georgia. I started making pilgrimages to Georgian restaurants wherever I could find them, snarfing down cheese-stuffed breads and garlic chicken, pickled walnuts and those delicious khinkali. I often imagined what the food would taste like in its motherland, but for 20 years I was too busy and broke to trek to the small, mountainous nation."
"and its latest move was to advance a law against so-called foreign agents, just as Vladimir Putin had in Russia, that targeted organizations with international support. A year after Putin's invasion of Ukraine, this law seemed designed to appeal to Georgia's former colonizers, not Georgians themselves. In the days before I arrived, protesters rocked Rustaveli Avenue, Tbilisi's main drag, holding up furious and often profane signs."
An early taste of a soupy, oversized dumpling in 2003 sparked an enduring obsession with Georgian cuisine, prompting long searches for khinkali and other dishes. Two decades later, a research grant enabled a March 2023 trip to Tbilisi. The capital faced democratic backsliding as the government advanced a 'foreign agents' law modeled on Russia's, provoking large protests on Rustaveli Avenue and English graffiti demanding liberty and revolution. Signs on a coffee shop warned visitors to denounce Putin and accept sovereignty of peaceful nations. Observers in Tbilisi displayed bravery, dancing in front of police, while the traveler felt misplaced confidence about democracy’s security at home.
Read at The Atlantic
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