My journey took me to this strange place sometime in mid-autumn. I walked along the shore of the neighboring villages of Uphill and Harvestful. It was a miraculous autumn, the colors of the forest were mesmerizing, the water sparkling, the roads steep and muddy - not made for just any car, this was a place for SUVs.
Let me reveal a secret - this Harvesful is a historic village. Do you remember Ashot Yerkat, the Bagratuni King? He planted a tree here in 920 A.D. and that tree still stands. The village also has a golden tree. Granted, it’s a persimmon tree, but when the leaves fall and the ripe fruit continues to hang off the branches, they look like chunks of gold.
The folks from Harvestful told me another story. Here, the women of the village hang heavy dark curtains on their windows. They don’t want the light from the house to spill out. One morning, in one of the homes, the elders of the house pulled the dark curtains back, but the light from outside did not stream in. It turns out there was a wall exactly where the window used to be. The guilty party? Most probably the daughter-in-law and the son.
Never mind if it is safe or dangerous. In the neighborhood they built a cafe and called it “Extreme.” There is nothing like it anywhere. If you find a car, you’ll have to drive for half an hour to the nearest town to find another cafe, but it won’t be “extreme.”
They built the cafe on the very last hill of the village and at the entrance a sign reads, “Entrance is free but you pay when you exit.” And the coffee here tastes so much better, it is the characteristic oddity of coffee, it pairs well with risk. And if you want something sweet with your coffee, they will offer fresh persimmons, or dried persimmons. And do you know where they come from? No, it is not from the Garden of Eden, it is from the Garden of Peace not far away from the cafe, at the very edge of the village next to that lake.
Why is the garden of peace? … Why is the cafe extreme? And those fish? Why are the windows walls?… Remember these questions and let me show you something else that we saw when we, the tourists from the city and the storytellers, visited.
We went down the curved staircase of the school and entered a room with white-white walls. There were pictures of doves, homes, the village. They were painted by the children. And the cellar, well, it was built by the adults, with the condition of never having to use it. And if it was suddenly needed, they said you could stay there for four hours.
Entrance is permitted only with a secret code. That day the bell had tolled for very long and there were many people, young and old, sitting on the long wooden benches. Seryoja was singing, everyone else too...“We will never leave our village, we will never abandon it …” and suddenly the lights went off, no one panicked...
Oh, one more thing; it has hardly been a month that the village has a new mayor. It is like they have their own Nikol. There was no other candidate during the election but the whole village showed up, stood in line, picked up the ballot and said, “Yes, we want this one. This one is good, the previous one was bad.”
The last time the village had real fireworks was the day of that election and also during a few weddings. The last one must have been Smbo’s wedding. It was not a big one, maybe some 20 guests. The bride had put on a bridal dress but it was only for the photographs.
