The Hidden Dangers of Running in Georgia

In a country where exercise is a completely foreign concept, I was surprised and delighted to find a running buddy.  Lika and I run together a few times a week at the old, deserted Telavi football stadium in the evenings.  Usually, we have no trouble getting in or out as the gates are left open pretty late.  Monday, however, was a slightly different story. 

European football, not American

We got in just fine and ran our laps just fine and even stretched just fine.  Then… the gates were locked.  When we went to leave, we found that the way was shut.  You see, the dead had made it and the dead would keep it and… no, that’s the wrong story. 

But the gates were quite visibly shut and locked.  And the fence is pretty high.  And pointy on top.  We walked around and tried the other gate, only to find it in precisely the same condition.  This was a situation but not yet a problem. 

These benches are designed by top chiropractors to provide maximum lumbar support.

Next to the field is a very large derelict building that used to be either apartments or flats.  At the moment, it’s blown out windows and collapsing walls.  There was, however, a light on in one of the rooms on the second floor.  Lika suggested that whoever was in there might have been the one to lock the gates.  We should go in and find this person.   In the derelict, crumbling, mostly abandoned building far away from anything else in town late in the evening.  Good plan.  Courage screwed to the appropriate sticking place and loins properly girded up, we ventured in.

Looks promising, right?

Every movie with a scene wherein the hero (or heroine) goes in search of something in the abandoned Soviet building ends badly.  I was quite certain that every shadow was hiding a crazed axe murderer, a psychotic KGB holdover, and a horde of radiation zombies.  No one answered our shouts, but we could hear voices from upstairs.  Naturally, we went up. 

That's right.  Let's go further down this rabbit hole.

The hallway was completely deserted and filled with rubble, but there was light and noise coming from the corner room.  We knocked, but there was no answer.  Very cautiously, ready to jump back at any minute, we pushed the door open.  Empty.  The fire was lit, a television was going, but there was no one inside. 

At this point, it was entirely too creepy and we had to get out.  Quickly.  Very quickly. 

However, this still left us with the problem of being locked in the stadium at night.  The situation had indeed developed into a problem. 

We looked around behind the building, but all we found was a horse.  He didn’t look too inclined to help us.  With the aid of some dead tree branches, we tried clambering up and over the fence, but we couldn’t get nearly high enough.  Lika called her parents, but they didn’t know what to tell us. 

Finally, we decided to go wait by the gate again in hopes that we could flag down a passing police officer or someone else equally useful.  The gate still sported its pair of serious-looking padlocks.  That started me wondering: why were there two padlocks on one gate? 

They weren’t locked, that’s why.  Each part of the gate had a padlock securely through it, but the only thing holding the two padlocked sections together was a stick jammed through them.  The only thing holding the gate shut (and keeping us panicking inside) was a stick.  It wasn’t even a big stick.  Pippin would have looked at me in disdain had I told her to fetch it. 

Still, next time we go running, Lika has suggested we find somewhere else. 

We'll miss our cheering section, though.