“Tagveti” (in translation “Village of the Mice”) is a village where I was born and raised. Every time I mention the name of the place it always puts smile on the faces of the people and they always ask me the same question “Are there many mice in your village?” 

“Village of the mice” is a personal project. These photos are my memories about my village as it used to be. I left the village and moved to the capital when I was 16. Two years later I got interested in photography and started photographing with a borrowed camera and since then I’ve been photographing my village. 

After moving to the capital, Tbilisi, I rarely visited my village. I started studying and working to support myself so I was only able to visit Tagveti once or twice in several months. In the beginning the only reason I was photographing my village was to have the photos of those people and places that I missed. 

As the years went by Tagveti started changing. Because of the difficult economical situation in the country people started leaving villages. My village slowly became empty and because of this I decided to keep as many memories in the photos as I could. I always tried to find a time to visit Tagveti even for a day and to take as many photos as I could. 

Nowadays my village is almost empty. There are only several families living there. Most of the people that I knew and the people that are in my photos are dead or moved to the nearby cities. Houses where my neighbors and my relatives used to live and where I spent whole my childhood playing are now ruins. 

I’ve been living in the city for more than 30 years and this whole time I’ve been photographing my village. Despite the fact that everything I have is here, in the city, I still think that my home is back there, in the village of the mice.