Tbilisi, Georgia
The castle above the Old Town
Here we are – in Tbilisi a day before our group arrives. Having settled in our hotel, we can’t wait to start our walks around the city. Looking from the window of the hotel, we see an old fortress about 500 metres almost directly above us, all lit in the early evening sky.
The sulphur water hammams in the Old Town
Luckily, we were based in the Old Town, so we started our advance reconnaissance trip from the old (Turkish looking) hammams. The bridges and the well-paved pedestrian street took us round the corner, past the small river to a waterfall. High beside us, on top of the hill there were attractively painted old wooden houses with long balconies. Later, we climbed the steep hill to the Naricala fortress, from where there were magnificent views over the city. It appears that the elevation in the city varies between 380 m and 770 m above the sea level, allowing for buildings, erected on the top of the hills to stand out significantly.
A view to the town from the fortress
We walked round the old town checking the exchange rate of the lari against western currencies, then, after changing money, we moved to the central Rustaveli street, aiming to go to a few art galleries, not included on our tour. Rustaveli is a famous Georgian author, from the time of Queen Tamar (end of the 12th century to the beginning of the 13th), who wrote “The Knight in the Panther Skin” – a classic book, given in the trousseau of every Georgian bride since the 12th century until today.
A house in the Old Town
Rustaveli street was quite impressive – many old stately, non-communist looking buildings on both sides of the street. The Byzantine looking Opera house was being repaired, despite the fact that we could hear rehearsals going on inside. In the National Art Gallery we enjoyed the exhibitions of Vakho Bugadze, while in the Modern Art Gallery it was Zurab Zereteli and theSea Photographs of Tilda George (a Georgian, living in Germany) which held out attention. We saw the new/refurbished building of the Fine Arts Museum, with its Art
The paved walking area around the sulphur springs
long windows and elegant shapes – it would be wonderful, when completed! Later, we saw its collection in another building.
On the next day, when we were taken by our guide to be shown around, we were able to put the things we saw into the context of history.
The old name of Tbilisi was Tiflis. It’s formation was a matter of coincidence – the King of Iberia – Vahtang Gorgazali came hunting in this area and shot at a bird, which fell down. His hawk went to collect it, returned wet, with the wet bird and died not long after. The king went to investigate and discovered sulphur hot water springs, coming out of the mountain (at 42C), just below the old castle. He decided to build a city there and named it Tiflis, which means “a hot place”. He demanded in his will, that his descendant should bury him there and move the capital of Iberia there, so the city grew from the 6th c on wards. However, it remained only the capital of Iberia. Later, these lands became the property of the Romans, the Parthians, the Persians, the Arabs, the Byzantines and the Seljuk Turks. In 1122, after winning an unequally balanced battle with the Seljuks, the King of Colchis (Colchis is the kingdom, visited by Jason and the Argonauts) David the Builder moved his capital from Kutaisi to Tiflis.
The houses perched on the cliffs around the springs
The river Mtkabari, which springs in Eastern Turkey, passes through Georgia and flows into the Caspian Sea, meanders between the hills, on which Tbilisi is situated, very much like the river Yantra meanders between the hills of Veliko Tirnovo in Bulgaria. It was unreal to imagine, that earlier this year, the river had overflown and drowned 12 people. Additional stress was added to the life of citizens of the city, when the authorities decided to release the animals from the zoo in order to save their lives. There are 16 bridges over the river, the latest – the Bridge of Peace – designed by and Italian architect, really caught our imagination – it was designed to have floating lights on its roof at night, which arrested ones attention instantly. The whole city is very beautifully light at night, all churches, statues, bridges and old remains create a fairy-tale image of the city.
Old Murals
The Bridge of Peace
The city with 1,5 million inhabitants is full of churches, some with murals – old, new and restored ones. Interesting ones are the Metchi Church, the Anchis Church, Sioni Church. It was interesting to hear, that the Georgian Orthodox Church is in the same group as the Greek, Bulgarian, Serbian and Russian Orthodox alliance. The colours, in which the decorated their churches, however, differ. During communist times, all church murals were restored into blues and greens, which were the Russian colours, while now they are trying to return to the paler yellow/brown/beige tones of the Georgian style.
In the Historical Museum, we saw the Exhibition of Gold – jewellery and objects, found in this land – they were very old and exquisite – some reminded us of Thracian gold, found in the Balkans. Also, there was an exhibition of Art from the East, and another interesting one – The Victims of the Communism in Georgia.
Old gold
Looking at the old, beautifully classical building in
The Opera house
the centre of Tbilisi, I wondered how and when they were built. It emerged, that Georgia was annexed by the Russian Empire since 1801 – a little later than the time of Catherine the Great and since then, the Russians took an active role in improving Georgian roads, Tbilisi’s city centre, the railroads, in order to support the economic development on the country. The Tbilisi University opened in 1918, but shortly after that in 1921, the Red Army invaded. After the “Fall of the Wall”, crime and corruption was prevalent, but the Rose Revolution in 2003 brought some stability. However, that was soon shattered by the 2008 South-Osetia conflict.
The Puppet Theatre
The food in Tbilisi was wonderful – we tried the local specialities – kachapuri – this could mean either a pizza-like circle, or a filo pastry square, usually full of cheese, but it could also consist of other vegetables or meat. Food seems to be often shared. We had wonderful starters: aubergine with walnuts, or spinach with walnuts, meat was well presented and cooked.
Tbilisi in the sun set from the roof-restaurant in our hotel – Tiflis
It was interesting to see that Georgia, which is trying to enter the EU, is absolutely full of Russians, who make the largest proportion of the tourists and eat in large groups in the restaurants, spending lavishly. We assumed this was due to the common boundary. In comparison, in Armenia, which has signed to join the Russian Economic Union, we did not hear any Russian anywhere – neither on the streets, nor in the restaurants.
There again: Chris with the fortress
Also at some restaurants, the waiter’s English was not good enough – we had an occasion at ta restaurant right behind the Hammam baths – in the heart of the Old Town, when Chris and I ordered two different types of fish – the waitress brought his fish, but not mine. I assumed that mine was more difficult to prepare, but later, when I queried the order it emerged she did not realised there was a second fish ordered. Since then, I started ordering entirely in Russian, which was much more commonly spoken.
The shelf, full of tranlsatiins of Georgian poetry and fiction
We discovered that wine in Georgia is only served in a glass in a measurement of 125 grams. We liked the local wines and later in our trip, we went to a vinery, where we tried a number of their produce. But about this – later.
Walking in the streets of Tbilisi, one saw varied folk, quite simply dressed, many in black, very few sporting high fashions. We visited the English-language bookshop in Tbilisi and were very impressed by a wide bookcase, full from top to bottom with Georgian authors, translated in English! Well, I will admit that one shelf was dedicated to Boris Akunin (who is Georgian), but the rest were genuine translations. (I doubt that you can find one shelf of books from Bulgarian authors, translated in Bulgarian in any bookshelf in any Bulgarian bookshop!!)
The almost completed new Art Gallery and Theatre
If you like enamel, you can buy beautiful jewelry. Some unusual and old icons, which we saw in the Fine Arts Museum, were also made with his technique.
Everywhere in Georgia, you have to go into a museum (except in Art Galleries) with a guide, whom you pay separately (even when you are in a group and have a guide). They explain the exhibits to you – the inscriptions underneath are mostly in Georgian and Russian at very great speed – you barely have time to assimilate the material and you are moved on. At some museums, you can pay to take pictures, in others – you are not allowed to do so.
Modern architecture in Tbilisi
One interesting issue we had in Tbilisi is that in the central town, there are no pedestrian crossings or lights. This means, that every time you want to go to the opposite side of the streets, you need to cross 4-6 lanes of traffic! There are about 2(?) subways on Rustaveli Street. Also there are a tube and a cable car in Tbilisi, which we never used. Lights appear only on the way in and out of town.
As far as purchases are concerned, we bought some postcards (it was the Devil’s own job to find where to buy stamps from and then where to post them!) Some of the stamp –sellers have letter-boxes, but you can only post your stuff there if you have purchased the stamps form them! Even hotels do not have letter-boxes! Finally, we had to ask our guide to post some for us in the central post –office. We also purchased some woollen scarfs – quite expensively and some CDs with Music and Georgian films with English-subtitles.
The King, who made Tbilisi a capital –
Vahtang GorgazaliWe saw some exciting examples of modern Georgian Architecture – look out in my pictures for the silvery tube buildings, which will be a new theatre and an Art Gallery. We noticed some exciting modern buildings on the way to and from the airport, too.
To cut the long story short, we have fallen in love with Tbilisi, it is very much worth a visit – we may want to return there again sometime in the future.