The Mingrelian by Ed Baldwin Page A

dedicated to socialism and the worker’s paradise,” Lado said, resuming his story. “But, we Chikovanis have been traders for hundreds of years, buying rugs from Iran, Armenia and Turkey and selling them in Europe and Russia. I learned Russian in public school, Mingrelian and Farsi at home. My first trip to Iran was when I was 12, and we bought that beautiful Mashad that Ekaterina showed you on the floor of my father’s shop.”
    “Ekaterina seems to know her rugs,” Boyd said, remembering the two he’d bought from her.
    “She has a good eye,” Lado said. “She worked in the shop when she was young, but she works in the bank now. She was there to meet you. I was being watched.”
    Lado stood to peer over the railing. Seeing no interest in his activities, he pulled another package of cigarettes from his robe and lit up.
    “My grandfather was a minor government functionary in this district, and my father ran the family import business in Tbilisi. I went to Moscow University. But we remained Mingrelians.”
    Lado sat back down on the edge of the couch and looked intensely at Boyd.
    “We’ve been here, on the Colchis Plain, on this land and in these valleys in the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains at the eastern end of the Black Sea, for 3,000 years. We’ve been occupied by the Greeks, the Romans, Turks, Mongols, Persians and the Russians. But we’re still here!”
    “And you’re still Mingrelian.”
    “Yes!” Lado said triumphantly. Then he stood and called some instructions to his older son, Giorgi, below.
    Within minutes, Giorgi came with a bottle of wine and three glasses. He opened the wine and poured them each a small glass. It was, after all, still midmorning.
    “It is from here,” Giorgi said in faltering English. He pointed to the vineyards on the other side of the house. “Good, no?”
    “Yes, very,” Boyd said. It was a heavy red wine, sweeter than he expected.
    A tirade in Migrelian came up at them. Mariami had heard about the wine. Giorgi hurriedly finished his glass and retreated down the stairs. Boyd could hear him catching grief from his mother for giving his father wine so early in the day. Lado lay back on the couch, cigarette undetected, and enjoyed a long pull.
    “There were no banks during the Soviet time,” he said. “Marxism doesn’t permit finance capitalism. When the Soviets left, I wanted to start a bank. It was a natural extension of our trading business, and I went to London for a semester to study finance. My father had some money saved, very little.
    ”We started it there, across from the palace,” he said, pointing down to the town of Zugdidi. “We made loans to people to buy cows, tractors, fences. The government wasn’t sure how to handle banks, so the rules were loose. There were hundreds of little banks. It looked like we’d better get big quickly or we’d be swallowed up. Many of the other banks took in foreign partners and were soon bought out. I wanted to keep my bank for my family. I moved to Tbilisi to open a branch. I met an Iranian businessman through contacts we had in Iran. He was my first foreign depositor. My business with Iran grew, and today …”
    He paused to take a sip of wine and look down to see guests still arriving and being greeted.
    “Today, we are very successful, and we are still independent.”
    “So, why do you ...” Boyd started.
    Lado held up his hand before Boyd finished his sentence. He nodded. He knew he was being vetted, but even here, 180 miles from Tbilisi and in as controlled an environment as one could imagine, he was careful when speaking of what he had done. He looked over the railing again.
    “There is a resistance movement in Iran,” Lado said. “They are people of commerce, like we Chikovanis, who wish to continue their traditional trade with the rest of the world. Iran has much to offer – carpets, oil, industry, agriculture. They are hiding within the bureaucracy, like we did during the Soviet time, looking