The Homes That Still Exist in Memory

Reflections on Georgia's displaced communities, cultural heritage and the meaning of home

With thanks to Manana Tevzadze, whose work preserving the cultural heritage of Georgia's displaced communities inspired this article

When we think about displacement, we often imagine the moment people leave.

We picture families fleeing conflict, carrying what possessions they can. We think about borders crossed, temporary shelters established, and humanitarian assistance delivered. News cameras capture the emergency, governments issue statements, and aid agencies mobilise.

Then, gradually, the world's attention moves elsewhere. What receives far less attention is what happens ten, twenty, or thirty years later. Yet for many displaced people, that long aftermath is where life is actually lived.

I was reminded of this recently through the work of Manana Tevzadze, a cultural heritage specialist and former Chair of the Georgian National Committee of the Blue Shield. Through her work documenting the intangible cultural heritage of internally displaced communities from Georgia's occupied territories, Manana has drawn attention to a reality that remains largely overlooked beyond the region.

Nearly 300,000 Georgians remain internally displaced as a result of conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia dating back to the early 1990s and the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. Today, they represent almost eight percent of Georgia's population. Many have spent decades living away from the places they once called home. For some, an entire lifetime has passed in displacement. Yet what struck me most was not simply the scale of displacement, but the persistence of memory.

Home Beyond Access

For many displaced communities, home becomes something profoundly complicated.

The villages still exist in memory. The churches remain in stories. The orchards continue to grow in recollection. Family photographs may have been lost, houses destroyed or occupied, and access blocked by military checkpoints and political realities. Yet the emotional geography of home often survives.

This was evident in the testimonies gathered through the project "Protection of the Cultural Heritage of the Occupied Regions", led by the Georgian National Committee of the Blue Shield and the Penn Cultural Heritage Centre.

Former residents of the Didi Liakhvi Valley spoke about village festivals, pilgrimages, songs, food traditions, agricultural practices and local customs that once shaped everyday life. They described celebrations tied to churches they can no longer visit and sacred places now located beyond occupation lines.

One tradition in particular stayed with me.

The annual festival of Geritoba once involved a pilgrimage to the Church of St George in the village of Geri. Following displacement, the tradition adapted. Celebrations moved to another sacred site. Later, when that location also became inaccessible, families continued the observance within their own homes.

The place was lost.

The tradition endured.

In many ways, this story captures something profound about cultural heritage.

Heritage is not simply preserved in monuments and historic buildings. It also survives through memory, practice, ritual and relationships. Sometimes it survives precisely because people refuse to let it disappear.

The Long Life of Displacement

Several years ago, while working on Housing, Land and Property (HLP) issues in Iraq, I encountered similar experiences among communities displaced by conflict. Again and again, people spoke not only about the loss of houses but about the loss of familiarity.

They missed neighbours.

They missed routines.

They missed landscapes.

They missed the feeling of knowing where they belonged.

One of the lessons I learned was that displacement is never solely a housing issue. It is also a disruption of identity, memory and orientation. This is why the stories emerging from Georgia feel so familiar.

An elderly resident displaced from the Liakhvi Valley described transforming the barren ground around an IDP settlement into orchards and vegetable gardens. Another recalled continuing village traditions around family tables, offering toasts to churches that could no longer be reached.

These are not simply nostalgic acts…. They are acts of resilience.

People rebuild meaning in the spaces available to them.

Temporary Homes That Last Decades

The language of displacement often creates its own misconceptions.

Terms such as "temporary accommodation" suggest a short interruption before normal life resumes. Yet many of Georgia's internally displaced people have now spent more than thirty years away from their original homes.

Children have grown up in settlements built as temporary solutions. Grandchildren have been born there. Entire generations know these settlements as home.

This tension emerged powerfully in accounts from Georgia's IDP communities. Older generations continue to dream of return while recognising that younger generations have established their lives elsewhere.

One grandfather reportedly reflected:

"For the younger generation, their motherland is here, and life goes on."

It is a simple observation, but it reveals one of displacement's most painful realities. Time does not stop. The places people leave behind remain frozen in memory, while life continues elsewhere.

Heritage as a Form of Recovery

What I find particularly inspiring about Manana Tevzadze's work is the recognition that cultural heritage can contribute to recovery.

Too often heritage is viewed as a luxury that becomes relevant only after urgent humanitarian needs have been addressed.

Yet for displaced communities, cultural heritage can be deeply practical.

It helps maintain identity.

It strengthens social bonds.

It creates continuity between generations.

It reminds people who they are.

Projects documenting oral histories, festivals, agricultural traditions and local customs are not merely preserving the past. They are helping communities maintain connections that conflict sought to sever.

Perhaps most importantly, they provide opportunities for younger generations to learn about places they may never have seen.

The stories collected from elders become a bridge between memory and future identity.

What Home Teaches Us

Last year, while visiting Ukraine, I was struck by the resilience of people facing displacement and uncertainty. More recently, I wrote about the Ukrainian housing initiative CO-HATY and its understanding that rebuilding after conflict involves much more than constructing houses.

The same lesson emerges from Georgia.

Home is not simply a building….. It is a relationship…..It is built through memory, routine, belonging and shared experience.

This understanding is increasingly recognised within international discussions on displacement. Recent debates within UN-Habitat and the World Cities Report have highlighted how displacement involves the loss of social, cultural and psychological dimensions of home, not merely physical shelter.

Georgia's displaced communities have understood this reality for decades.

Their experiences remind us that while houses may be abandoned, destroyed or occupied, home often survives in different forms.

It survives in stories.

It survives in songs.

It survives in festivals.

It survives in gardens planted on unfamiliar soil.

And it survives in the determination of people who continue to carry a sense of place within them, even when they can no longer return.

In a world increasingly shaped by conflict, displacement and uncertainty, that may be one of the most important lessons of all.

Home is not only where we live……Sometimes it is what we remember.

And sometimes, against all odds, it is what we continue to rebuild.

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#Resilience #CommunityRecovery #RecoveryAndReconstruction #ConflictTransformation #HousingLandProperty

#HLP #HousingRights #HumanDignity #HomeIsMoreThanShelter