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75of mountainous Georgia is by helicopter only. From the East and the West Transcaucasiais protected by the waters of the already mentioned Black and Caspian seas, and even thesouthern approach is not a very easy route because of a number of other (althoughsmaller) mountain ranges. Although partly living at the seaside (east coast of the BlackSea), Georgians have never been great travelers and most Georgians still live in Georgia.Vocal Polyphony in GeorgiaUnlike many countries in Europe, where the tradition of polyphonic singing isrepresented only in some of the regions, the whole of Georgia is one big group of closelyrelated polyphonic traditions. Readers may remember the opening of this book when,walking down the streets of old Tbilisi and singing with my colleague two parts of threepartGeorgian song, we suddenly received help – the third part - from an unknownGeorgian who happened to hear us at that moment. Another story from the introductionof this book, when traditional singers started singing a harmony to a classical aria totallyunknown to them, just to “help” the opera singer at the table who was “left” by hiscolleagues without supporting harmonies, is also typically Georgian. In another small butvery precious moment for me, I remember walking up Chavchavadze Street late night onDecember 4 th , 1978, together with my late father, ethnomusicologist Mindia Jordania,and listening to the singing of a Georgian male, who was drunk (obviously just leavingthe feast) but was still singing and simultaneously supporting his friend, who was toodrunk to sing, and actually, even to walk. When a few moments later this “supported”friend also made a couple of painful attempts to start singing, I unconsciously wonderedwhether he would start singing the melody in unison or would sing a harmony. He startedsinging a harmony, and a moment later my father told me he had the same thoughts as Idid.Another story from my native Tbilisi is more interesting and multi-layered. I wasat my grandmother’s family house on the slopes of “St Mountain” (dominating mountainin the very centre of Tbilisi). It was late evening in a hot Tbilisi summer and all thewindows were wide open to catch the faint evening breeze. I was on the open verandaand I could clearly hear from the open windows that our neighbors, two Georgian males,were having a small feast. As usual, they were proposing toasts and drinking. I could hearevery word of every toast they were proposing. Georgian toasts are very interesting – onone hand they are always the same (I mean that everyone knows which should be thefirst, second, or the third toasts etc, with a certain space for improvisations as well), butstill you cannot “number” them like familiar jokes from an internationally known jokebook. In Georgia you need to verbalize these toasts through your experiences and ideasevery time you are at the table. The feast proceeded without singing, but at some pointone of them started singing an urban song, and his friend joined him very soon. Neitherof them was a great singer, but both of them were at least singing in tune. The onlyproblem (at least for me) was that they were singing in unison. That was disappointingfor me, as I believed Georgians never sang in unison. “Well,” I remember thinking,“Georgians do sing in unison sometimes”. A few seconds later my great aunty Keto cameout on the veranda. “These guys, Edik and Lova, they cannot sing but they are stillsinging!” she commented with a hint of annoyance in her voice. These names, not verytypical for Georgians, gave me an idea.“Are not they Georgians?” I asked with somesurprise, as their obviously native command of the Georgian language, good knowledge