Meeting Razmadze

A couple of weeks ago Ramaz Razmadze, a fellow Georgian surrealist, arrived in Lithuania with a small gang of other Georgian painters to participate in a plein-air event together with a group of local artists. They were based in Molėtai, a small town some 60 kms north of Vilnius.

When the event was finished, they moved to Vilnius for a few days of touring before departure. Although Ramaz and I had known each other for years online, we had never met in person, so we couldn't miss this wonderful chance to finally meet each other, thousands of miles away from homeland. Yesterday, it happened at last -- we shook hands at the Cathedral Square, where Ramaz introduced me and Diana to the other three Georgian artists who arrived with him.

After visiting the Cathedral, where we took the opportunity to see the famous St Casimir's chapel, we roamed about the Old Town for a while, before landing at an open-air snack-bar to have a beer.

The rightmost fellow on the photo, easily distinguishable from the resort-tanned companions who had spent a healthy fortnight of working in the open air, is me. Ramaz is sitting right next to me. I hadn't spoken in person to a living Georgian for about 18 months, and here I had the fourfold pleasure of conversing with the fellow countrymen -- and fellow artists, on top of that. Besides, I had wanted to meet Razmadze, whose art I greatly admire, for years. So I had a really great time. Until next!