Keifi · Qortsili

Supra · Tamada · Sadghegrdzelo

The supra is the central social institution of Georgian life - a ritual with its own grammar, its own officer, its own rules about who speaks, when, and about what.

What is a Supra?

A supra is a Georgian feast. The word literally means "tablecloth," and the table is the point: an enormous spread of food and wine, prepared by people who take feeding others very seriously, arranged so that refusal becomes nearly impossible.

There are two kinds. A festive supra - called a Keifi - is for celebrations: weddings, birthdays, reunions, the arrival of guests. A funeral supra - kelekhi - is for mourning. The structure is similar; the emotional register is different.

Wedding in Georgian is Qortsili — ქორწილი. Our wedding feast will be called Qortsili Supra.

Why Georgia is the way it is

The Legend of the Late Arrival

There is a legend - and Georgians tell it with complete affection for their own character - about what happened when God was distributing lands to the different peoples of the world.

The Georgians were absent.

When they finally arrived, all the land had already been given out. God asked them where they had been, why they were late. The Georgians replied: they had been feasting and toasting - in God's honor, in gratitude for his world, in celebration of the day.

God was so moved that he gave them the piece of land he had been keeping for himself.

The most beautiful, fertile, warm, extraordinary piece of land on earth.

This is why Georgia is the way it is. And this is also why Georgians are never in a rush to stop toasting.

The Tamada

Every supra has a tamada: a toastmaster. This person is selected by the host or elected by the guests, and for the duration of the feast, they are the emotional conductor of the table.

A good tamada needs three things: eloquence, genuine feeling, and the capacity to drink a substantial amount of wine without showing it.

Tamada starts each toast - choosing the theme, speaking about it, sometimes using poetry to convey message. Then other guests may add to the toast before everyone drinks. Guests do not drink between toasts without the tamada's signal.

Sofi's Dad was Tamada to many many weddings, he would break the rule of "Tamadas do not leave supra to dance" and always dance with her.

Sadghegrdzelo

The Georgian word for toast is sadghegrdzelo - and etymologically, it is extraordinary. It means "long life to." Every toast, at its root, is a wish for the other person's survival and flourishing. A statement of care, not ceremony.

The Toast Order

A traditional supra follows a rough sequence of toasts, moving from the sacred and collective toward the personal. It is not rigid - a good tamada reads the room - but this is the grammar of the evening.

Peace / God

The first toast is usually for peace, or to God. Sets the register: this is a serious occasion, approached with gratitude.

The Occasion

Whatever brought everyone here. The birthday, the wedding, the reunion, the fact that everyone made it.

Georgia

A toast to the country. Always present. Always emotional.

Hosts & Guests

The table is a covenant between hosts and guests. Both sides of that covenant get their moment.

Parents

To parents. The people who built the people at this table.

Women

A long toast to the women in the room and in everyone's lives. Said with genuine feeling.

The Fallen

Those who should be here but aren't. The table becomes quieter here.

Children

For the children at the table and the ones not yet born.

Love

To love. In all its forms.

Closing

The tamada closes the supra. The table does not immediately end - it continues in more informal toasting - but the ceremony has its closure.

ვეფხისტყაოსანი

Georgian literature

The Knight in the Panther's Skin

Written around 1200 by Shota Rustaveli, Vepkhistkaosani (ვეფხისტყაოსანი) is the Georgian national epic - and it is remarkable for reasons that go beyond literature.

But the most extraordinary thing about the poem - for a work of the 12th century - is its stance on women. The female characters have full agency: they choose their own husbands, govern kingdoms, and are portrayed as equals in intelligence and moral authority. Rustaveli wrote this as a direct reflection of Queen Tamar's reign.

The golden age

Queen Tamar

Tamar reigned from 1184 to 1213. She is called Tamar Mepe - King Tamar, not Queen, because the title of king superseded gender - and under her rule Georgia reached the greatest territorial extent and cultural flowering in its history.

She was brilliant, politically ruthless when she needed to be, and deeply educated. She is venerated as a saint in the Georgian Orthodox Church. She is also, quietly, a feminist icon in a country that has always had a complicated relationship with that word.

The fact that Rustaveli dedicated his epic to a female ruler, and made female power the moral center of the poem, tells you something about what Georgia valued at its best.