Made in Europe

For more than 30 years, my father has been travelling from Georgia to Germany or the Netherlands to buy second-hand cars, preferably Mercedes Sprinter vans. He packs them full of bicycles and furniture such as used leather sofas, chairs and tables. For some years now, he has also been buying scrap cars. He dismantles them into their components, which he sends to Georgia by container, often on behalf of Georgian wholesalers. Then my father drives 4,800 kilometres back to Georgia in a Sprinter alone. Spare parts and second-hand goods from Europe are valuable enough in Georgia to sell them for a small profit, despite the high cost of travel. This is how my father earns his living in the international flow of goods—under difficult conditions: hard physical work, health hazards, separation from his family and poor accommodations.