08.06.2016 – it’s been a month since a group of teenagers form YMCA Moscow returned from fantastic journey in Georgia. With great support and hospitality of the YMCA Georgia it made it possible to organize a small camp for participants from Moscow at an amazing place – YMCA Camp Orange in Ureki.
Thanks to Roots for Reconciliation Project, we got to know so many wonderful people and places, so we decided to share this feeling with our YMCA younger generation.
This trip became a very special time for everyone of us. An amazing feeling appears when you can show to your group some places that you already know and love. During that week we visited Batumi and had a city quest there, we took a long, bit difficult but extremely beautiful walk in National Park Mtirala, we had a chance to taste the special atmosphere of Tbilisi and Mtskheta.
Great thanks to Rezi Shavladze, who helped us in organization in advance, and especially for this beautiful tradition to meet us at the airport. Million thanks to Gela Chikhradze, the Secretary General of YMCA Georgia for everything: for creating the atmosphere of Home, for his caring, for all the small things that made our children dream to come back. Thank you for this incredible concert, for beautiful house, for your stories, for bringing us to the sea and walking with us, for fantastic food and for people that surround you.
The most important for me personally is that all our guys said that this Georgia and people here are so different from what they used to hear and expect. None of us have ever seen such hospitality as we faced here. Our camp was small, but this small step became very important in our hearts.
We hope that soon it will be possible to host a group from Georgia in Russia and show all the best here!
"We stayed at the YMCA Camp Orange camp. The living conditions there were perfect, and food as well. All the staff there was very polite and nice. Georgia is a very beautiful and green country, so I just enjoyed every second I was there. We visited Batumi, a city with a very interesting infrastructure. The city center is shaped in a very traditional, old Georgian style. The seaside promenade is build in the European style, and adapted for all the visitors and tourists of Batumi. The camp program was as good as possible, like every time at the YMCA. The beach was very close to our Camp, so we went there several times. Of course it was too cold for swimming, so we just gone for a walk at the beach.
At the last day, we visited Tbilisi. We didn’t have much time, but we met some of our friends from YMCA Georgia and tasted together national food. I really liked this trip to Georgia, this was a great experience for me, and for other participants too! I also wanna say thank you to our friends from Georgia, because they made this trip possible!" – Olya, one of the participants.