Pete Kiehart for The New York Times
SHUKHUTI, Georgia — Luka Torotadze, 11, was crouched beside his great-uncle Bitchiko’s grave, wiping dust off a plump, leather ball that rested beneath the headstone.
The ball, once black but now the color of ash, has been there for 15 years, and though it might have looked odd among the flowers and candles and picture frames nearby, a stroll through any of the cemeteries of this rural village would eventually reveal several dozen more just like it, plopped down like pumpkins in a field.
It was a Saturday afternoon, the day before Orthodox Easter, and a few feet away Luka’s cousin, Barbare, and her sisters were helping their mother clean the gravesite of the girls’ father, Vitaly.