(eurasianet.org) It might not be Tbilisi’s oldest legitimate profession, but,
arguably, it is its most idiosyncratic. And there are signs it may be
dying out, for few people are interested in becoming masseurs in
Abanotubani, Tbilisi’s legendary bathhouse district.
 |
“There is a different mentality today. They seem to be ashamed of the
body,” masseur Roma Nazarian, who was taught to massage by his
grandfather 25 years ago, said of modern-day bathers. “They just soak
and leave.”
It wasn’t always so.
With its dome-shaped bathhouse roofs and the tiled facade of the
Orbeliani baths, no neighborhood is more representative of the Georgian
capital than Abanotubani, where legend has it that Tbilisi was born. In
the 5th century, King Vakhtang Gorgasali found his hunting falcon being
poached in the same sulfuric waters that feed today’s bathhouses.
Dazzled by the waters, the king ordered his capital moved to the spot,
which he named Tbilisi, based on the Georgian word “tbili,” or “warm.”
Documentation of the hot springs goes back to the 10th century when
an Arab geographer, Abu Dulaf, noted in his diary that "the water in
Tbilisi boils without fire,” but recent archeological excavations
indicate an even earlier settlement -- Roman-style baths with plumbing
that date to the 1st century. The baths were a tradition that quickly caught on, helped by the
city’s historic position at the epicenter of the Old Silk Road. By the
13th century, there were 63 baths in the area, according to Tbilisi
historian Tsira Elisashvili. In the early 19th century, Russian
visitors described 10, about the same number that exist today.
The Abanotubani baths are built along Persian traditions, but unlike
the water in Persian baths, which are manually heated, the water in
Tbilisi comes from the earth from between 75 and 107 degrees Fahrenheit.
Massage techniques also follow Persian styles, although only one
masseur, 30-year-old Ramaz Babaian, still walks on bathers’ backs, a
technique he learned from his grandfather.
“When I was little, my grandfather used to bathe me and I used to
watch him massage people. I liked it and learned where the nerve endings
were, how to walk on the spine to get the circulation moving,” Babaian
recounted. A first-class bath in Tbilisi starts with a long soak, followed by a
rigorous massage on a slab of marble. The masseur (or masseuse) then
uses a coarse woolen mitten to remove layers of old, dirty skin off the
body. Next, he (or she) rubs a soothing coat of satiny suds into the
exfoliated skin and then pours buckets of hot water over the body to
rinse it.
Two of Tbilisi’s most renowned bathers were Russian poet Alexander
Pushkin and the French writer Alexandre Dumas, who praised the baths as
“luxurious,” and described a bathing ritual not unlike that of today.
No formal training exists for masseurs; the vocation, usually not the
domain of ethnic Georgians, has been handed down from generation to
generation. But, these days, nobody wants to learn, masseurs say.
Business in the Tbilisi baths has decreased over the years because
most people now have bathrooms in their homes and young people are less
interested in getting massaged, masseur Nazarian said. With the
dwindling customer demand comes dwindling desire to learn what can prove
a trying trade.
“The work as such is not hard, but breathing the sulfur for ten hours
a day isn’t so good,” conceded Rashid Mamedov, a 59-year-old masseur at
the 286-year-old Bathhouse #5, Tbilisi’s oldest bath.
One tradition that has all but disappeared is the “bride check.”
Zohrav Mamedov, a 46 year-old masseur at the Orlebiani baths, recalls
how it was common for potential brides to be met at the baths by a
prospective mother-in-law and aunt-in-law, who, under the cover of the
steamy baths, would examine the girl’s body for defects.
“It was hush-hush. They don’t do that anymore, Tbilisi people,”
Mamedov continued. “They might still come from the regions to do that,
but young people today have other ways; like the Internet.”
Other changes are in the works as well. Abanotubani is a
predominately ethnic Azeri district and the gentrification of Tbilisi’s
Old Town is making its mark on the neighborhood’s traditional
lifestyles. While newly constructed and renovated buildings are
replacing crumbling structures, upscale cafes and restaurants have
pushed out old mom-and-pop establishments. Nazarian says there used to be half a dozen teahouses scattered around the baths. Now there is one.
Nano Zazanashvili, office manger for Tiflisi Hamkari, a local
cultural heritage preservation non-governmental organization, fears the
Old Town revitalization program threatens the identity of Abanotubani.
“The new buildings are not authentic. They’re made of concrete and
reinforced concrete and the bricks are decorative. They’re imitations,”
she complained. Nobody knows who will move into these new buildings,
Zazanashvili added; a reality that will also affect the individuality of
the neighborhood, as it displaces the existing social network.
But masseur Rashid Mamedov, a lifetime Abanotubani resident, takes a
long-term view. As long as there is someone who needs a job in Tbilisi,
there will always be masseurs in the Tbilisi baths, he reasons. "The youth are not very interested in this kind of work, “ Mamedov
said, “but if you were jobless, you’d come and do this work to save the
family.”
Editor's Note:
No comments:
Post a Comment