A life's work can be a place far away

When Malkhaz was in prison as a political dissident under the Soviets he fell in love with a passage from a book that talked about "a place far away", in Georgian a place far away translates "shorety". In a KGB prison you didn't know how long they would keep you or where you would be taken. After he was released during the Perestroika he read archeology and history books and found there was a place called Shorety with ruins of an ancient monastery. He went and found it in a remote forest. Malkhaz has spent the last 21 years excavating and restoring the place (by organising summer expeditions for students). First he had to build a road, about 4km up the mountain through thick forest. Often he uses his own money when other funds run out. His dream and passion is to hand it back to the Church fully functional one day, even if it were to take him his entire life.

(We went to Shorety as a family and spent few days in tents with the students of this summer's expedition.)