“It’s an extraordinary opportunity to travel a little-known part of the world,” said Professor of Russian Darra Goldstein, who started teaching the “Williams in Georgia” Winter Study course in 1987.
For the past 37 years, students at the College have been jetting off to Tbilisi, Georgia, where they spend three weeks immersing themselves in the former Soviet republic’s rich culture and history.
Goldstein first visited Georgia in 1978 while conducting research for her doctoral dissertation. During her visit, she was blown away by the nation’s culture and food, and her passion for the country’s cuisine prompted her to write The Georgian Feast: The Vibrant Culture and Savory Food of the Republic of Georgia in 1993 — the first cookbook on Georgian cuisine to be published in English.
“I was so in love with the country, the culture, and the people that I wanted Williams students to experience it,” she said. Once tensions eased between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1987, Goldstein was able to accomplish just that.
With the support of the Council on International Educational Exchange, an organization that facilitated exchange programs with the Soviet Union, she launched the “Williams in Georgia” program in 1988.
In its early years, the program operated as an exchange: Students from Tbilisi State University came to the College for the fall semester, while 25 students from the College traveled to Georgia over Winter Study.
“[The Georgian students] came in the fall so that they could meet the next cohort of students coming during Winter Study,” Goldstein said. The goal was to foster “actual bonding and lasting friendships,” she added.
The exchange lasted until the Soviet Union collapsed in 1992. “The Georgians had no money to hold up their end of the exchange, so it became just Williams students going there,” Goldstein said.
Since its founding, the program has only been suspended twice: at the onset of the Georgian Civil War in 1991 and during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021.
Since 2013, the cohort has downsized from 25 students to around eight each year in order to ensure that the program is financially accessible. “We don’t look at who’s on financial aid and who isn’t, but we want to make sure we can pay for everyone who’s accepted and we can’t commit [to providing full financial aid] to more than eight.”
The program has partnered with the Rondeli Foundation — an independent, non-profit think tank focused on improving Georgian public policy — for the past two years. The foundation arranges homestays, internships, lectures, cultural events, and excursions in Georgia, Peter Orte, a visiting assistant professor of Russian who has helped Goldstein lead the trip following her retirement in 2017, wrote in an email to the Record.
During their internships, students explore a career based on their interests — from shadowing neurosurgeons and journalists to working at the National Bank of Georgia.
Recent excursions have included visits to fifth-century archaeological sites, treks through the Caucasus Mountains, and wine tastings in Kakheti, the self-proclaimed birthplace of the beverage.
Students in the program live with local Georgian families. Goldstein said that homestays provide students with an authentic, immersive experience — complete with home-cooked meals and, for some, the opportunity to learn Georgian.
This Winter Study, 12 students at the College headed to Tbilisi. Zee Taylor ’27 said that she has found a deep sense of comfort with her host family. “Every year for the past two to three decades, my [host] family has opened their doors and hearts to random people they have never met,” she wrote in an email to the Record. “For three weeks, we are family.”
Olivia Johnson ’26, who is currently in Georgia, reflected on watching the widespread protests across the country, which began in October 2024 following a controversial parliamentary election.
“The protests happening here are absolutely central to understanding Georgian life right now,” she wrote in an email to the Record. “The majority of people I talked to, aged 19 to 70, saw protest as a crucial part of their lives. The end of Soviet occupation in the ’90s, the 2008 war, and a whole set of democratic squabbles — this need for protest is not new.”
Nick Lilley ’25, who studied Russian at the College, traveled to Georgia as a sophomore in January 2023. “It was an opportunity to use my limited Russian… and also to experience a new culture,” he said.
Lilley said that, over the years, five students who went on the trip met their future spouses while in the country. “There’s this idea that you could go on this trip to Georgia and find your future wife or husband,” he said.
Beyond acting as a matchmaker, the program counts among its graduates distinguished alums, including Lisa Kaestner ’91, the International Finance Coorporation’s country manager for Ukraine and Moldova and Steven Fagin ’89, the U.S. ambassador to Yemen.
“The exchange is the reason I ultimately became a Foreign Service Officer in January 1997,” Fagin, who traveled to Tbilisi with the first cohort in 1988, said. “It was responsible for my whole career, in a way.”
Goldstein added that the program’s singular focus on Georgia is unique. “[Programs] that went to Russia [before 2022] are now mostly in Kazakhstan or in the Baltic countries,” Goldstein said. “I honestly don’t know of another program that is Georgia-focused the way this is.”
“All of this was possible only because of the efforts of Professor Darra Goldstein,” Fagin wrote. “She’s the one who made the program happen. We all owe her a debt of gratitude.”
