Whenever I come to Tbilisi, I always come across with the unforeseen fifth time of the year – summer in the middle of spring and summer in the middle of fall. It’s scary to imagine what will happen if I arrive in the middle of summer… When being in interesting cities, I get the creative flow for writing poems, whereas in uninteresting cities I cannot write. It’s so incredibly interesting at the festival in Tbilisi that it’s simply a shame to waste time on them. And poetry goes to sleep.

Tbilisian graffiti comes down from the walls and summons the night dogs. Dogs invite to Thai massage in the human voice. Thai masseuses appear to be bookinists and, taking advantage of my illiteracy, are selling me Georgian translations of my own poems. And I, together with all masseuses and bookinists, am getting into the minibus to see the sea and mountains.

The minibus gets held into a traffic jam, as there are a lot of poets at the festival in Tbilisi and each of them has their own night minibus. Then one of the drivers turns on loud music and the entire city, wine and churchkhela sellers, poets and the night dogs, sea and mountains begin to sing along and dance to it.

At the exit of the minibus there’s Belarus and customs, where they take away my wine and churchkhela, sea and mountains, and even the poems I came up with in my dreams. They leave me with just this text as the customs declaration.

Participant of TIFL 2018, Belarus poet Andrej Khadanovich