NOTES FROM THE VITTFARNE EXPEDITION

21 June
Departure from Tbilisi via the airport in order to pick up delayed pieces of luggage for one of the crew members, then on towards the Samtredia area, where the ship has its location for the time being. Found them late at night. Too dark (bad headlights) to go back to Kutasi, so I slept over in the car.

22 June
A day off for the crew. The library at Kutasi, with its curator Giorgi Shavgulidze at the fore, hosted a bus trip to the city for the crew, and Gunilla and I went along in my rental car. After that there was a press conference with a pretty good participation, including members of the press. Several speeches and short lectures from the curator, a writer, two professors in history, plus my relation as well as Håkan's, which was simultaneously translated into Georgian. The professors in history seemed very keen on the combination of Georgian sources, rune stones and Sagas, but had somewhat differing views on who the Varjags were allied with, Bagrat or Liparit. One of them ventured forth, as do I, that bashi for a mooring place indicates that they came to Bagrat, and he also stated that the Saga supports this view. The other professor was very pleasantly surprised when he heard the city of Citopolis being mentioned.

After being billetted at a family lodging of the rather homely sort, (though Datho) we were invited to a local restaurant, with many speeches and much toasting. We gave Giorgi S. a miniature of the Gripsholm stone, which I think was appreciated.

Thereupon, a tour to Gelati monastery followed suit, where David, the builder, is entombed. Then a trip out to the encampment, for even more toasts and revelling. The bus ride home was sheer terror to Gunilla and me; the bus - which had to be started on the fly, by running, as it were, lacked headlights, but the driver kept on driving despite a rather heavy side impact with a trailer truck. At long last, he was apprehended by the police, and we managed to hail a cab for the trip on towards Kutasi. After some 200 meters, the cab had a flat tire. The wheel was duly changed, but the air soon seeped out again, so the driver made the last ten kilometers on no tire at all. After some wandering around in the dark, Gunilla and I managed to find our way back to our billet, and finally went to sleep – well, almost anyway - at 3 o’ clock in the morning.

23 June
Visited Giorgi at the library in order to plan essential logistics for the journey - mainly oxen, the possibility of logging, as well as support from the police, and the local authorities. Then a visit to a Norwegian in town, one Mr Egil Ruud, who was very hospitable and rents a flat in the centre. At his place, we found two injured Swedes, Anna Gullmark and Viktor Modigh, one of them being a photographer for a Swedish National Television Documentary on the Expedition, the other a crew member. Egil's place has become sort of a temporary high quarters for the exhibition. I will try to make it up to him as best as I can, through offering lunch and dinner, as soon as we leave. But I also think that he relishes the company.

The boating throughout the relatively dried out southern run of the Rioni was very slow indeed, due to the constant encounters with thresholds of a few decimeters depth, and strong currents. Helped Viktor to order oars from a local carpentry shop in town, as a replacement for broken ones. He had been given certain measurements by Håkan, then I made a sketch after a fashion. The carpenters were not very well stocked in materials, so we had to use beech; we will see how long they last. Gunilla, who was present making oars for the Vik boat find reconstruction "Tälja" was also there, as we made the final measurements on the raw wood.

24 June
Yet another meeting with Giorgi about oxen and things, all to be settled through the Governor of Karaguli, and maybe with the help of the curator of the library there. Tomas, second in command of the ship, has fallen ill, so I will take his place from this night and tomorrow. Viktor, Akaki, the driver, and I went to fetch the oars, which turned out very well although the blades may possibly  be somewhat too short. They cost 100 crowns a piece (25 Lari). Then a trip to the ship, where I borrowed a tent from Tomas, and assorted gear for the night. A late watch from 01 - 0300 hours, as the villagers came forth, and gave us food and wine. This struck us as symbolic, as the boat now rests at Bashi, the first landing of the Varjags 1000 years ago. I avoided to take part in the celebrations, as I have had quite enough of wine and toasts for a while.

25 June (Midsummer's Eve)
A boating trip with bouts of rowing (fun) and still more pulling over rivulets. Rioni is much worse than I imagined, but as I wrote in the recon statement, this stretch is particularly hard, since the main current itself runs in a channel beside the river, so that the water level is very low in what remains of the natural riverbed.

After almost 10 km's, we camped at Tsikikhis-Saure (?) close by Vani. This, at closer inspection, showed to be an island, surrounded by arms of the river. It was accessable  by car, as the river is very shallow. This, however, would soon prove fatal for the Kutasi-people we had invited to take part in our Midsummer celebration in the evening. Giorgi had in fact asked the hydrolelectric power plant director to flood the river, so that the boat would float more smoothly, and a significant effect was seen shortly after the guests had arrived. Giorgi, his interpreter and the mother of the interpreter were thus trapped on the island for a few hours, until they had shut off the water again and the flood had receeded. The mother became hysterical, so neither she nor the daughter took part in the festivities, but remained in a cabin and waited for the flood to subside. Giorgi took part, though, but was delayed through the others and thus never became any Swedish herring. As a result, me and Gunilla also were forced to linger on, but luckily we could both sleep in her tent.

26 June

Went ill and was sick in the morning, which I supposed would have happened sooner or later. Giorgi came to picka up Gunilla and me, to drove us home. This took some time and turned out rather uncomfortable due to my stomache and the bumpy roads. I went to bed immediately when we came home and slept for the better part of the day and the following night. The ship was transported on a trailer to where Kvirila branches off from Rioni, due to the shallow riverbed. This should be scientifically acceptable, as the conditions have changed very dramatically after the construction of hydroelectric plants.

27 June
Still somewhat weak and rather queasy, I went down town. Gunilla and I visited the Bagrat cathedral. In the afternoon, we took a taxi to the ship, which we managed to locate after some trouble. Drove a couple of crew members from the mustering out team and had them billeted for the night. Kvirila was shown to be much better than Rioni, and they had completed nearly a third of its length during the day, mostly by tugging along from land in a rather heavy current, but also by rowing.

28 June
Picked up my rental car, which was safe inside the gates of the house next door, and drove by myself out to the ship. I followed it from the car during the day together with Viktor, the photographer Jan Dufva and the newly arrived onlooker Thomas Sahlström, who proved himself to be an excellent support when finding the way with the substandard map we had to resort to (a better map was passed to Håkan, who had lost some of his maps in the scale range of 1:100 000).

The ship has now progressed up another third of the Kvirila by the same method as yesterday. I could see, however, that they were using much too short a line, which made the angle too wide in relation to the direction of their pulling. This lead to a need for more manual force than necessary. The speed of their progress had propably been lowered as a result of this. Back in Tbilisi in the evening with Jan and Thomas.

29 June
A visit to Giorgi for info on a contact in Karagauli and billets there, and so on. Then to the Bagrat cathedral together with Jan as cameraman for the recording of an interview. Giorgi and the interpreter (a neighbor girl of the family we are billeted with) tagged along, and we were treated to an interesting tour by an archeologist from Kutasi. Giorgi is certainly doing a lot for us! In the afternoon, I and Jan visited the museum with Giorgi, but there was little of interest to see there. Then again, I have been there in 1983, and I don't think that the displays have changed much since then. There was a large anchor from Bashi, however, which seemingly proves that larger vessels could go there.

30 June
I, Jan and Gunilla drove to the camp, to speak to Tomas (Håkan has gone to Tbilisi for a few days to see Karin) about the lengths of rope, etc. After their departure, we went to see some "burial mounds" which Gunilla had noted down beside the Kvirila. They were probably nothing more than mounds of dirt, however,since much depository digging of some sort is often carried out around these parts. Then we studied the river at a few locations below Zestafoni, where there is a dam that should be relatively easy to pass across by a short land pull. We later found out that the ship had reached this dam, or thereabouts. Above the dam, the water was rather calm and deep for some interval, which made it possible to row across. Guniilla and I, meanwhile, continued up to Karagauli along Dzirula and Tscherimela. We were rather well received, but not as overwhelmingly as before, this time by the Governor of the region and by the female curator of the local library. They also promised to help us with the oxen, which then again would be impossibly expensive; 100 USD a day for four of them. Tomorrow, we will negotiate with the farmers, to see what comes of it. After the champagne, the bread with cheese and the cookies, we were shown the local museum and library, which was found to be of the normal Georgian quality. Down below our billet, which stands out as quite comfortable, Tscherimela runs in a wild torrent, which seems to demand quite a lot of work to pass in a boat. As I have noted before, the great land pull must begin much earlier, maybe already where the Dzirula joins Tscherimela.

1 July
We inspected the two oxen, which were offered as pullers, very powerful and fine. Four of them would cost us 400 USD to Kwichkethi, and any haggling seemed out of the question. Håkan does seem to agree to it, after some gruff remarks over the phone. Gunilla and I continued to the dam at Zestafoni, though the ship hadn't arrived yet, although we hoped that it would.  Not until around 1600 hours, the dam was crossed, and it was possible to row for a while. On the way back to Karagauli the car broke down, the generator was finished, and this I had suspected for some time. We were still close to Karagauli, and could be picked up after a cellular call to our contact and interpreter here. A repair man arrived in the evening after a call to Hertz, and  promised to have the car ready by morning. At night, there was a "Supra" with the Governor, the curator and the apparently much famed film maker Davi Abashide, who said a lot we couldn't understand. After much toasting, we did part at around 2300 hours.

2 July
We drove to the ship which was still in Zestafoni, and picked up Jonas, one of the crew members. Then he, me and Gunilla drove to Zuare, which took some time, due to the fact that we - among other things - were misdirected on the last leg and didn't cross the bridge leading to the villageas we were supposed to. It took just as long to find the path/road to Kwichkethi, since I didn't recognize the well I used for a landmark, which I opted to remember since nine years. In the end, we were successful, and had time enough to follow the path before it divided.This was a place I took some pictures of in 1995, which I wanted Jonas to remember and see before it was time to pull the ship over land. Then we walked back, just the same as before, for one hour and managed to reach Karagauli before darkness fell. After dinner on bought foodstuffs, which were cooked in the kitchen in the house, we billeted Jonas to a taxi cab back to the ship.

3 July
Today, the Governor here at Karagauli had arranged a concert with dancing and a Georgian meal to boot, some way away from here. The crew was picked up in a buss at around 1300 hours and  were then driven back in order to continue the expedition after some coaxing on my part. The ship has now passed Shorapani, and the river pull gets progressively harder due to the low water levels this July. It is propably time to take it up on land in order to have it pulled by the oxen. Håkan and Karin arrived in the evening, newly engaged since Tbilisi. He and I had to help out in the planting of a palm tree here in Karagauli, as a memento of the expedition. Then we had a short meeting with the governor in order to discuss the premature detailing of oxen, which according to him would come more expensive than the unreasonably high USD 400 agreed upon earlier. Håkan will have to discuss this with him in the morning.

4 July
I drove down to the ship together with Gunilla. They had reached some distance up the Dzirula, and Håkan plans to take the ship to the merging with the Tscherimela before it will be moved on dry ground. Everyone seems happy and thinks that it's all great fun, especially Ann, who says she’s having the time of her life. Thus, it doesn't seem like I need to feel that I have started something which will be to anyone's sure regret, at least not thus far.

After many thanks to the crew, Gunilla and I drove back to Tbilisi. Sadly, I will miss out on the important overland haul through the pass, since the trip has taken longer than expected so far, and since I for many reasons will have to take the flight back home which has been scheduled for long...

Mats G Larsson