There was no wind and we were in the middle of the Black Sea on a bright summer day, puttering across the deep blue expanse in a chaika, a small wooden Cossack war ship that its Ukrainian sail-ors had equipped with a diesel motor. We were two days out from Yalta, and our captain, Myron, was looking eastward towards our destination of Batumi, his blue eyes glazed in a dreamy state of longing.
“Ah, Georgia. Satsivi,” he sighed. “Satsivi,” he repeated sensually to Roman, the first mate, as if it were the name of a beckoning siren. “I cannot wait.”
I was impressed he didn’t sob for khinkali and khachapuri like everyone else. But still, I had to quickly snuff out his reverie.