I first went to Georgia in 1993. I knew there was a civil war. It was one of those blurry things you heard about as the Soviet Union broke apart. I wanted to be there. To go to a war, see it, smell it. To travel, learn languages, become a photographer. So I went to Abkhazia for two months, after the fall of Sukhumi.

I felt at ease in the Caucasus. I figured that to get a better grasp on the region, I should visit its capital, Tbilisi, before returning to Germany to study. It was love at first sight. I hadn't been anywhere before where I felt so at home - where I felt I fitted in, could get along with people, take pictures. I thought Georgia would be a war-torn country; that people would constantly go on about how horrible the Abkhaz, the Ossetians, the Russians were, or moan about the sadness of life after the break-up of the Soviet Union. It's what I expected of a society closed off for seventy years behind the Iron Curtain, and now exploding into freedom and chaos. But Georgia turned out to be the perfect place for me. As a stranger I could be part of it. I came for the war, but stayed for the peace. I stayed for six years.

Georgians were open, hospitable, welcoming. Life circled around conversation, being with friends. In endless supras, traditional feasts, the most delicious food and wine were offered despite the shortages. People spent time with each other, families and friends, eating, drinking. They constantly discussed, argued, and told stories. Every day, there was some unbelievable tale. They played piano, sang heartbreakingly beautiful songs. What I experienced felt raw, natural, direct. It was like Western Europe only better, more intense. I started to knot great friendships. I was caught by the magic of Georgia's history and culture, the beauty of the country, the Caucasus Mountains, the Black Sea. Sometimes it felt quaint and old-fashioned, sometimes in those years wild and scary as well. I found the sound of the language seductive - I got goose-bumps listening to it. Despite the hardships, there was constant joking, and a lightness to life that I had never experienced in Germany. Or anywhere. I embraced Georgia, sincerely, and it embraced me back.

I had to leave in the end, to sort my life out. I became an international photojournalist of sorts. I went to live in Paris, New York. I went to Afghanistan, Iraq, got into Magnum, worked for Time magazine. But every week I was away, every day, I caught myself doing something related to Georgia - ate a Georgian meal or read something, bought a new map, listened to Georgian music, talked to someone there. And after a while, I came back. Here you feel so much closer to life. It's like eating real, tasty tomatoes compared to the pale ones everywhere else. You feel more. People connect fast, they aren't guarded. Everybody knows everybody so you're never isolated. (When you go out for dinner, it's either a date, or it's with twelve people. The idea of eating alone is unimaginable!) You get involved in everyone's stories. And caught by Georgians' sense of humour, the constant joking, bantering, and their never taking anything - least of all themselves - too seriously. From the hard times to the better times, I have never laughed so much in any place.

The Georgians are the most un-Soviet people in the whole of Eastern Europe. I was reminded of this while I was covering the South Ossetian war in the summer of 2008. When the Russians drove in - those oppressed Soviet kids on their old tanks - and met the boastful Georgian cops in their new uniforms, the differences were spelled out: the texture of their clothes, their body language, the way they talked, the attitudes they bore - it was like two centuries clashing with each other. People in Georgia don't react in a Soviet-type way. Yes, they have conspiracy theories about X, Y and Z (as everywhere in the Caucasus, there's always some wild rumour in circulation) but they think for themselves. This, their openness and hospitality, make Georgia a great place for photographers. Here you can photograph pretty much anything you want. I had official accreditation, but apart from when entering some official buildings, no-one has ever asked to see it. Here and in Chechnya, you are trusted. In Russia and everywhere else in the Caucasus, people constantly stop you, you have to show your papers all day every day, or you get arrested taking pictures of innocent things. In Georgia you are free and can be yourself. There's no fear.

During the 1990s, the quality of life in Georgia was very bad. Living conditions were dreadful, corruption was out of control, and the level of petty crime was insane. Once, I flew from cold, dark Tbilisi and had to change planes in Prague. I sat down in the airport next to a guy and we realized we both came from Tbilisi - because we both smelled of kerosene. The conditions contributed to the bonds those of us who lived there shared with each other. The country's transformation since is barely believable to those of us who went through the dark years. I wouldn't say everything is perfect now, but there's practically no street crime, people feel safe, most things work properly, corruption has been pretty much wiped out. Tbilisi has become like every other modern European city. Except that it still has its charm and spirit, its own rebellious individuality.

Photographers have been attracted to Georgia over the years for the nostalgia of it. Funerals in Georgia are like gypsy weddings, or the Kumbh Mela - they're on the list of the top ten of photographic kitsch. I've talked to photographers passing through, where the conversation goes, 'How many funerals did you get? Did you get a village funeral?' That's all very nice but you can't reduce Georgia to those cliches. I guess it's unavoidable at one level. The bane of photography being that it tends to pull you towards conventions of what makes a 'good picture'. It's much more challenging to try to make a good picture of a supermarket, but of course photographers are going to be drawn to the grumpy, scruffy old man with the big nose, selling potatoes out of the back of a beat-up Volga. That's the obvious thing a photographer will do in Georgia, but it's so 1989! This book was conceived as a way to show contemporary Georgia, avoiding the obvious cliches.

The idea of a group of Magnum photographers coming to Georgia was first discussed with President Mikheil Saakashvili in December 2008. He was excited. It all happened very quickly. We arranged sponsorship from the Ministry of Culture. The photographers started arriving at the end of February 2009, and the last one finished at the end of April. I am based in Tbilisi, while each of the other photographers visited for two or three weeks. Each had a subject, a theme, to focus on, but it wasn't a magazine assignment. Their job was to be what they are: travellers, individualists, with their own points of view, free to notice what they thought worth noticing, on their own journey of discovery. Of course their experiences were shaped by their guides: writers, filmmakers and other local personalities, with their own views, who joined them as their drivers, translators, fixers - their Georgian companions.

We photographed Georgia during one spring, and this book is about that one moment in time, hence the book's title. In the end, spring 2009 arrived late and there's rather a lot of winter in it, but the title is still relevant. This is the moment of Georgia's renaissance, its revival, its awakening. Some people may scream and call it propaganda - photographers lending their talents to help get people interested in Georgia. For me, I have no problem with that. To have brought my fellow Magnum photographers to Georgia is one of the big stories of my life. It is the best thing that I could wish, to be able to bring the best people I know to the country I love, share it and have them fall in love with it too.

Which, I'm happy to say, they did.

Thomas Dworzak
Tbilisi, June 2009