Red Bean Stew

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Luka is fed up with eating red bean stew in poverty-torn Tbilisi. When his friend, Karen, arrives and suggests they enter a derelict building to steal a switch from one of the walls to sell, Luka is up for it. He is willing to try anything to make some money so that he doesn't have to permanently live on bean stew. In a country where everyone is poor, electricity is sparse and bean stew is the only available source of food, the boys set out on their adventure. Gakharia brilliantly depicts Georgia in the early 90s. The reader really gets a sense of the desperation of the people in a country where there was chaos everywhere and Georgians were at war with each other.