When I think about Zegardani one quotations is always flattering in my mind: The world of heroine mothers! Yes! Neither more nor less – I was in the world of heroine mothers. It was a world where motherhood is special and there is a special love between mother and child.  The land there is saturated by the smell of milk and steam… Heroine mothers covered with gray hair fail in counting their great-grandchildren!
“Myriad” – that’s how they answer on the question fingers - how many great-grand children they have, and then start to count them on their fingers. It appears they don’t have enough fingers for them and they are lost in calculation. Then they start again counting and caress their great-grand children, their posterity and their future.
Village Zegardani is one of the small villages of Skhalta community, Khulo municipality, 16 families live there and twelve heroine mothers are swinging cradles. Nowadays, sixteen mothers of many children are fussing, each of them have three or more child. Even in the Soviet Union there ladies (and not only they) were awarded by the title of “heroine” as mothers of ten and more children. Time passed and only nine heroine mothers from twelve are now alive. The youngest from them is 68 years old – Sonia Makharadze. Mrs. Sonia has got 13 children and 25 grandchildren. As the youngest “grandmamma” is looking forward a great-grand child. The oldest mother is Emine Shainidze is 87 years old. She has got 11 children, 40 grandchildren and 61 great-grand children.
Guliko Makharadze differs from other with a multiplity of grandchildren, she is 73 years old. She has grown up 14 children and 27 grandchildren for children. She feels herself quite well and helps her daughter-in-laws to raise 5 great-grand children.
People of the village Zegardani are occupied by agricultural activities. They are growing maize and beans there, but neither quantity nor quality are enough for them. “There were years when our harvest was good. It was our living source… It has been nearly eight years since the harvest is not good enough any more and the quality is rather bad: in two months after harvesting neither maize nor beans is fit for eating, infestation became a real problem,”- says heroine mother who had raised 11 children – Venera Shainidze. Her oldest son is 47 years old, the youngest -27. She has got 28 grandchildren and 6 great-grand children. Nowadays, 13 people are living in their family and their monetary income consists of the pension of Mrs. Venera and her husband – 300 Gel per month. Mrs. Venera has a lot of things to think about but the most important is the youngest son: “I’ve got two daughters-in-law at home, three couples are living in one family (my husband and me and two sons with their wives), third one is to be settled, how is it possible to bring third bride here? We have no room, no afford to let elder ones move and let them leave separately. I worry because the youngest son is already 27 and everyone needs his own family, his own nest…”
There are a lot of problem in our village: the school (there is only fourth-grade school and after the fourth grade pupils are to go to the neighbor village school), lack of arable lands, landslip processes, unemployment, absence of the hospital and means of transport. These people do not have any sport playgrounds. Inhabitants of Zegardani start talking about their problems with the problem of transportation: “In case we need to go to the city or the region we should take 5 km. walk till the village Tsablana. When we are returning from there to our village we must add some money and pay for the driver to take us to our destination. Mini bus was appointed for the pupils, it was coming at the morning and taking them to school, after lessons it was bringing them back.”
We do not know what happened but the fact is that the mini bus is not functioning any more. When we ask the driver about the reason - he says that somebody from Tbilisi called him and said that they would not pay for that route. He does not know who had called. 5 kilometers are every long distance for a pupil to school and back. We are afraid a spine curvature is a real threat for our children because of the heavy backpacks and the distance they are carrying them to school.”
Winters in Zegardani are long and very snowy. People living there say that there is no need of stairs to step to their houses – the level of snow reaches the balcony. Young people get bored from unemployment and having nothing to do and as a result of heavy rains they can not visit their neighbors. Furthermore, meeting with friends and playing games are the only means of entertaining in mountainous villages. They play joker, backgammon, dominoes… In winters, young people  are skiing and in the village school they have a competition in table tennis. Unlike these young people, Mrs. Guliko is warming herself at the kiln (as wood is the only thing the village inhabitants are not concerned about) and she names absence of the hospital as a main problem: “In the last winter my daughter-in-law almost had died, neighbors saved her life. She was going to give a birth to child and as we had no hospital our neighbor put her on the palanquin and carried her to the nearby village with bear hands, ambulance could hardly reach that village to carry her. Actually, we do have an ambulatory in Skhalta, but they don’t have even such medicines as Dimedrol and Analgin. I remember the times when we had a very nice hospital and we were much healthier. Our gorge really needs one hospital.”
Spring in the village Zegardani is indeed wonderful. Wild plums are blooming there and not very far from them pure snow twinkles on the dazzling sunbeams. Soil in these areas are creeping and on spring, when the snow is melting, landslide processes get active. People of the village still remember April 19th of 1989 when landslide sacrificed lives of dozen people in the village Tsablana. Even now, reminding this event from the past people can’t help crying and regret about believing in the promise of the government acting then: “They gave some documents to all of us –  people who lived in the area that was under the threat of a landslide. They promised to build cheaper apartments and to settle us in the lower area, but no one remembers these promises. We meet every spring with fear but don’t have anywhere to go…”
Notwithstanding very strict weather conditions the elder people are not going to leave the village: “We were born and raised here, the land is saturated by our sweat and we just can not go somewhere else, we want to be buried here!” They require attention of the local self-governing bodies: “In the past, they used to recall about our existence and invited us in the region, they used to give us memorable gifts… Nowadays government does not remember us,  our golden medals lost their value!”
In the village Zegardani people consider that inhabitants there are vulnerable but officially they don’t have  the status and only six family from them have got social aids. As there is no possibility of employment for young people in the village they are forced to go to Turkey and harvest tea seasonally. This is how Mr. Badri Shainidze, 45 years old is supporting his family: “Turkey is our bread-winner. We are harvesting tea during the whole summer there in order to support our families. The maximum amount of money earned from there is 3 000 Gel per season, of course it’s not enough to support the family during the whole year. We need stable working places!”
Spring is coming nearer and nearer in Zegardani. People are preparing for spring works. Then heroine mothers will go to pastures together with their grandchildren, young men are preparing for travelling to Turkey for tea harvesting, the rest of the family members stay home to take care after their village…

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