Shiraki · Oil on canvas · 60×40 cm · 2010 · Private collection, Michael Perdue
Some paintings sell at gallery openings. Some at auction. This one sold while the buyer was pushing a cart through IKEA in Minneapolis.
Michael Perdue is a dairy farmer from Iowa. He had visited Georgia once or twice — enough to fall in love with the country. When he saw “Shiraki” on my blog or Facebook, he didn’t hesitate. He typed “sold!” from his phone somewhere between the flat-pack furniture and the meatballs.
The price was $700. I was happy — I needed the money, and I genuinely loved this small oil sketch. Two horses crossing the Shiraki steppe in winter. Grey sky, black outlines, the road disappearing into nothing. 60×40 cm. Done quickly, the way the best ones often are.
Michael wrote about it recently:
“I said to you ‘sold!’ on our great art piece while still in the states on an IKEA shopping trip in Minneapolis so long ago… if you have an artwork that speaks to you by Hans, buy it. You’ll never regret it, esp if you’ve spent any time with him in Sakartvelo.”
— Michael Perdue, Tallinn
The Shiraki steppe is one of the most remote and dramatic landscapes in eastern Georgia — flat, barren, windswept, the Caucasus mountains on the horizon. I’ve driven it a hundred times with Kaukasus-Reisen. The horses belong there. So does this painting.
It’s in Tallinn, Estonia today in Mike’s collection. I hope it brings a little Caucasus into the winters of the Baltics.
The story didn’t end there. A few years later Michael moved to Georgia himself — he ran a hostel above Sighnagi in Qedeli for about five years, a place that later became the well-known Lost Ridge Inn. Eventually he moved on to Tallinn, Estonia, where he lives with Ieva, an Estonian photographer.
Michael Perdue, Tallinn 2025
Michael and Ieva in Vashlovani, eastern Georgia
Today Michael runs small group tours through Georgia and Armenia under the name Caucasus Design Adventures. His clients are mostly people who know him from his beer bars in Riga and Tallinn — places where Caucasian carpets and design were always the theme. People started asking him for carpets, so he buys and sells a few. It follows its own logic.
The tours run mostly in Kakheti — visiting his winemakers, the Vashlovani steppe, and the kind of off-beat places most tourists never find: sunflower oil crushers, hidden villages, forgotten roads. He uses Lost Ridge, his old house above Sighnagi in Qedeli, as a base or stopover. This year he plans trips to Racha in June, Kakheti in September, and a first tour to Armenia in October.
Dedoplistskaro and beyond — the steppe, the borderland, the edge of things — captivates him still. As it does his guests. The Iowa dairy farmer who bought a painting of the Shiraki steppe on an IKEA shopping trip ended up becoming a Caucasus guide. Some paintings really do change things.
Newsletter
New paintings. New texts. New places.
Directly to your inbox.