Dachi

As a child in Rustavi, Dachi collected wheels from abandoned toys and insisted every broken thing was only waiting for the right missing part. His first successful repair was a chair nobody trusted enough to sit on. He tested it himself, fell over, rebuilt it and became unusually good at distinguishing confidence from a sound joint.

His Tbilisi workshop is small, practical and far less tidy than the carefully labelled drawers suggest. He likes pieces that show how they were put together. When Elene’s book press stopped working, he repaired the mechanism and left the worn handle alone. She checks the bolts anyway. He pretends to be offended, then admits that checking is a perfectly reasonable habit.

Sandro visits with descriptions of impossible sounds. They build resonant wooden boxes and argue about whether an accidental rattle is a defect or the whole point. Dachi’s humour is dry enough to pass unnoticed until the conversation is over. The small bird and quiet Georgian word on his hoodie suit a man who prefers reassurance to a speech.

Medea has asked him to help test a portable riverside seat. He wants to make it sturdy immediately; she wants to learn who needs to sit, where and for how long. Listening before reaching for a tool is harder than he expected. He is beginning to understand that being useful includes leaving room for someone else to define the problem.