As we ride up the Gorge, I’m unsure what to make of KoKo. I’m nervous even and everything feels surreal. The suspension in his old Mercedes is terrible and the car is bouncing around like crazy. With the petrol fumes, car heating, potholes and a hangover to boot, for a large part of the journey I’m doing my best just not to throw-up. Our conversation is frantic and doesn’t find ground easily. KoKo asks me nothing personal - not about my life in London, my aspirations, my relationships or what I am doing here. He only talks about ideas. We ricochet from one topic to the next - or at least he does, while I struggle behind trying to clutch onto threads of his dialogue. KoKo speaks seven languages and he is switching gear between Russian, French and English with complete fluidity. He is reciting poetry in Arabic and Farsi. At one point, when he is talking about the etymology of our Greek names, Saint Constantine and Saint Helena, he suddenly cries out ‘We are Saints!’. In this moment he releases his hands from the wheel and lets them fly above his head to make fluttering angel wings. The car swerves sharply for a split second and the skeletal winter trees that line the road briefly blur out of focus. ‘KoKo is unhinged and I’m adrift’ I think to myself. What am I to this man?, I think. Why has he come with me?

In our journey up the mountains I do learn something about KoKo’s personal life though. Over the past few years things have changed dramatically for him. He lost his ambassadorship in Switzerland (or perhaps it came to an end), his wife divorced him, his two sons went to study in Berlin and his political party dissolved. Since then he has been out of paid work. In the meantime he, like his grandfather before him, has been translating great literary works into Georgian and writing. When I ask him what he misses from the Soviet period, he replies: ‘Nothing… it was a peculiar and grotesque experiment’. ‘And what about today?’ I persist. ‘You know modern man is like King Lear, we are a society of fakers. We buy into a set of untruths and then believe our own lies. That’s what a faker is.’ I rephrase it for the sake of simplicity ‘We believe our own bullshit?’ KoKo sort of agrees but clearly doesn’t like my swearing.

When we arrive in the valley, the sun is setting. After a long, grey winter’s day, it has pierced through the clouds in the final hour to create a quivering golden chain of light around the peaks of the Caucasus which rise majestically above the ravine. The air is freezing but fresh and my nausea subsides. We pass the last few ramshackle Georgian towns before entering the fabled Pankisi Gorge. Churches give way to mosques, heavily bearded men stop in their tracks to peer through the tinted windows of KoKo’s Mercedes. The evening prayer sings out across the valley and I couldn’t feel more alone.

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