Neli Giorgobiani got on her knees and began pulling weeds from the grave. She came to the cemetery two days ahead of Georgia's Day of the Dead to clean her family's plot for the big day. "All of my relatives will come on Monday, so I need to make sure the grave is in good shape," she said. 

A retired teacher in her 70s, Giorgobiani brought garden gloves and tools to Tbilisi's Vake Cemetery, an Escher Maze of densely packed graves and cypress trees. She cleared grass from the grave, tapped the black earth back in place and leveled the surface with circular movements. 

While at it, she updated her late husband on the earthly goings-on: Their granddaughter got married; their grandson will be going to university this year; their street was renamed again. 

There was quite a bit of activity all over Vake Cemetery on that day, as others had also chosen to come early. But it is the Monday after Easter when cemeteries really come alive as that's when the Georgian version of the Dia de los Muertos takes place. 

Massive crowds impede traffic in Tbilisi on that day, as people stream to the graveyards to dine and drink wine with their dead. The number of buses on the streets gets doubled on Easter weekend to ferry the crowds around. Police are deployed strategically to bring a semblance of order to the chaotic vehicular and pedestrian traffic around the graveyards. 

Some choose to hit the graves a day early or a day late, to avoid the throngs, but Easter Monday draws the biggest crowds. Families come bearing candles, paschal sweetbread, wine and Easter eggs – died blood-red with madder roots and onion peels per local custom. The elderly lean on canes or their family members' arms, as they trudge through the jigsaw puzzle of graves and tombstones, and squeeze themselves through narrow, zigzagging pathways. 

What begins as a solemn pilgrimage often turns into gregarious graveside picnics. Less so in Tbilisi, but in small communities, families often invite nearby parties over to their graves to dine together. These gatherings then escalate to grand feasts, complete with barbecues, toasts and a full assortment of traditional dishes and ceremonies known as supras.   

The menus of these supras also tend to be more elaborate in the villages, where cemeteries helpfully feature gazebos and picnic tables. In the drama-prone region of Samegrelo both the observances and the cemeteries have a more theatrical flair: sculptures tower over the graves, life-size photographs of the deceased smile from tombstones emblazoned with poetic epitaphs and even full-on necropolises with curved marble columns can be found.  

Local homemaker Nora Gvazava brings a two-storied, wedding-grade cake to her son's grave near the regional center of Zugdidi. "He loved strawberry cake so I always make it on this day and bring it to his grave. I use preserved strawberries if the strawberries are not in season by Easter." Her son died 15 years ago in a car accident on the precariously winding roads that lead from the region up to the Svaneti highland. 

Although the tradition comes in slightly different permutations in various corners of the nation, all across Georgia food and wine are symbolically shared with the dead. The eggs and pieces of paschal sweetbread are left on the graves. "It is going to reach down to them," the visitors say as they tip their glasses and pour wine on the black earth. The leftover food is normally picked up by the cemeteries' attendants. 

The origins of the Day of the Dead are debated. Although it is tied to the religious calendar, the Georgian Orthodox Church does not necessarily approve of these gatherings and even distances itself from them. If people choose to visit graves around the Easter period, then they should do it with joy as Easter is a joyous occasion, the Church prescribes. 

"We tend to mourn exceedingly," said the head of the Georgian Church, Patriarch Ilia II, in his Easter epistle this year. "If we are believers, then we should believe that the Redeemer defeated death and that the souls of the dearly departed are alive, more alive than ours." 

Many use the Church's exhortations as an excuse to party hard at the cemeteries. "Some people tend to go overboard and turn this into a celebration," Giorgobiani said, as she sat resting on the basalt border of the grave. Two middle-aged men and a younger woman looked on from the photos imprinted on the black marble gravestones. 

"I don't think this should be a sad occasion, but it is not a happy one either," she said. "It calls for a little bit of solemnity and quiet, at least out of respect for those people who recently lost someone and are still grieving. We should not disturb the dead either, with the loud talk and drinking." 

Giorgobiani then introduced this correspondent to the tenants of her family's grave plot. "This is my husband to the left and that's his brother. Their sister is in the middle. She died young of breast cancer. My folks are over at the Saburtalo Cemetery. I need to go there too and put their grave in order for Monday." 

At Saburtalo, a sprawling graveyard that encroaches upon residential and business towers, a woman in her 20s planted clumps of irises on a grave. She then video-called her husband. "What do you think? It will look beautiful when everyone comes on Monday," she said, bringing the phone close to the plants to make sure they were visible to the camera. 

"My husband is in Germany for work and he is really upset he can't come to his mother's grave this year," she told Eurasianet. "I will video-call him again when we gather here on Monday, so hopefully he can participate in that way." 

If the black earth inside the rectangular borders of the grave has faded or is overgrown with vegetation, it suggests that nobody is left above the ground to remember those who are six feet under. "It pains my heart to see an abandoned grave, so when I'm done here I go to nearby graves and clean them too." Giorgobiani said. "I hope it pleases their souls that someone on this earth still cares." 

There are ongoing debates on the proper Day of the Dead etiquette and whether feasting is really the optimal way of communing with the dead, but most Georgians appreciate the tradition. "I really like that we have a day set aside for remembering the departed," said Lela Parjiani, a phone operator with a local cellular company. "The rest of the year belongs to the living, so it is good that we give one day to the dead."