Ascenseur

In Tbilisi we lived in a very nice apartment in quite an old-fashioned soviet building. It had all the great attributes such as a big internal courtyard that reminds of a countryside life with spontaneous vegetation, vegetable and fruit gardens, car garages and all sorts of DYI activities. When you enter the shady entrance halls of the building you never know if you get out alive. The walls are covered in artworks and messages that, just as cave art, tell you the story of the mysterious life and rituals of the neighborhood.

And of course, the elevator. This wooden case is put into motion by some very mechanical procedures. The button that triggers it is like a lever that activates some metallic wires and drums. One of my trips in this machine turned out to be quite strange. It went on and on, and i thought for a while that that’s my life now: just go down in the wooden box and listen to its grumbling sounds. The infernal machine was descending into the underworld of this soviet building, that would be home to secret laboratories where silent serious people conduct experiments of unknown nature. But i did not get a chance to see it with my eyes as the trip stopped abruptly and i had to leave the strange ascenseur.