The Surprising Beauty of Tbilisi, Georgia (June 15)

Tbilisi, Georgia

The trip from Yerevan to Tbilisi was the same as the one getting to Yerevan…except this time we had a mad bus driver! What took us over 6 hours to travel the first time took us only a little over 4 hours this time around. The difference was that we didn’t have any smoking addicts with us this time, and the driver apparently had a need for speed. However, add speed with bumpy roads and you will create sick passengers. The funny thing is that I was feeling sick before the bus ride, and during the bus ride I got better. My reaction however was opposite to Ross’ and another female passenger’s (this is a joke and not bad grammar). While I was sitting in the back, I was using the bumps to rock out to music. Everyone else just started feeling nauseous, and one female passenger (other then Ross ☺) puked.

Once we rolled into the bus station we started asking for directions on how to get to the Old City from the metro station we were at. It was extremely difficult to find an English speaker. I started asking every young female ages 18-25 because this demographic seemed to have the highest likelihood of having English speakers. To bad my biased estimations were wrong (I ran out of young females to ask), because the first person that understood some English that we met was Beka. He was a college student studying Economics and he personally guided us to the Old City since that is where he was originally going. He showed us to the area in which he thought we should stay at all the while telling us a little about the city. He gave us an outline of places that we should visit, and we parted. We found this nice hotel that was modestly expensive. We took it though because we felt the need for AC and comfortable beds for a change. We left our stuff at the hotel and then went out to explore the city of Tbilisi.

First thing we wanted to do was to get some food because we haven't eaten much for the last couple of hours. We asked the man at the front desk, who spoke English, what are some good kinds of Georgian food that we should get. He gave us a list of things to try, and the name of a restaurant to go to that he recommended that was great on prices and quality. When we headed out, we saw a side of Tbilisi that we never would have expected. What characterize cities and towns in the Soviet Union are buildings that were erected cheaply, and quickly. This resulted in architecture that was ugly and depressing. However every post Soviet Country has been trying to restore some of its old culture that the Soviet Union destroyed. Tbilisi has been for the most part very successful in restoring its downtown area. Many of the streets, buildings, and houses have been rebuilt and the city takes its influences from mostly French styles. It had a great vibe.

The restaurant was perhaps one of the best aspects of my time in Georgia. I had Mcvadi (very cheesy bread that went well with a sauce), Khachapuri (a cream and meat stuffed bread), and a Trout dinner. All of it came with a cheap bottle of chilled Georgian wine that was actually pretty good. All of this costed me less then 25 lari (16 dollars). It was absolutely delicious. As we were finishing our wine and talking, a woman by the name of Maggie approached us. She was an American who worked as a traveling journalist for magazines like Backpacker (cool job). She hasn't heard an American voice in a while so she decided to join us, ask us about what we thought of Tbilisi, Georgia, our trip to Armenia, what is going on in the world, other traveling adventures, and other random subjects. She also shared her wine with us which was a plus since we finished ours.

We parted ways and we payed for our meal. I gave a good tip because the meal was great, and the cute waitress who only knew a little English was extremely patient with us and always smiled at me. Which brings me to my next subject: Tbilisi woman. I don't know how it is possible but the women of Tbilisi are for some reason incredibly attractive. In fact they can compete with the woman of Istanbul and many of these girls would win in a beauty contest. I loved this so much! Best of all they are all incredibly friendly even though we have no idea what we are saying to each other. As we were exploring Tbilisi, two girls who were along the river saw us, and then immedietly started talking about us. I couldn't understand what they were saying because it was either in Georgian or Russian. Both way I looked back and smiled and they smiled back. I waved high to them and then they started bursting into flirtatious giggles. When we were walking away, one of their friends ran after us and told us to come with him. They tried with what little English they know to speak to us. They asked us where we were from, and we stated America (because everyone likes America now). They asked us what we were doing in Tbilisi and we told them that we were visiting. We all were trying to speak a combination of languages to each other. They tried speaking in English and Russian, and we tried English and Turkish. Eventually it came down to drawing pictures and hand gestures. The two girls along with their lone male friend motioned us to follow them. I was at first resistant, but then the very cute Georgian girl named Mariam took my hand, so naturally I allowed myself to be a victim of Karma. They took us around the backward, hidden alleyways of Tbilisi until they arrived at a building. Still holding my hand, Mariam guided me along a dark hall, up a flight of stairs and into a room to show me her place of work. Ross protested through most of it most likely because he wasn't certain that these strangers were trust worthy and because he already had a girl waiting for him in Trabzon. However I joked back to him by saying, "this is the good kind of trouble though and this is going to be one great story to blog about."

It turns out though that they worked at a craft school for jewelry making. They called someone on their cell phone who spoke English and he translated for us what they were saying and he translated what we were saying. Basically the school is also a place for female refugees from South Ossetia to pick up another trade. It was interesting to hear about the damage the Russians have done to Georgia but it was even more interesting to hear about how much these girls loved America. They were also especially curious about me because I showed that I was much more interested in this conversation then Ross. They asked me why I was here, why I wanted to travel here, and what did I think of Tbilisi. It did however get tiring after a while drawing all of these pictures and making so many hand gestures that we decided that it was time to leave. They accompanied us out and said goodbye. The lesson: to make an adventure more interesting, flirt with the local woman! I'm sure mother would approve...

Now moving on to a different subject. Tbilisi has so many churches it is unbelievable. Many of them survived the Soviets development plans and some have been recently rebuilt. It isn't just churches though. Tbilisi also has a Jewish population that attends a very old synagogue, and also a Shia Muslim population apparently because we saw an operating Shia Mosque. However we didn't go inside while we were there since service was going on, but we did go into a lot of the churches and the one synagogue. The churches of Tbilisi are very similar to the ones in Yerevan. Same structure, same theme in the paintings and frescos....there were many similar characteristics. It makes me want to look into it a bit more.

Later on our first night in Tbilisi, we continued to walk around the city. We eventually found Parliament and other government buildings. Apparently though we just missed a rally/demonstration aimed at impeaching the President of Georgia. Apparently the president was kind of an idiot and apparently in Georgia, idiocy isn't allowed to govern the people. If only America operated in such a manner...

There was also a very interesting Eifel Tower look alike that was fairly recently built in Tbilisi. It makes sense though because every thing else looks as if French Architects built it.

Overall, Tbilisi was a very surprising place! It has certainly done well for itself in terms of rebuilding a lost culture after the Russians left. However, the economy in Tbilisi isn't doing so well because the price for oil has dropped in recent months leading to a recession. Well that is what happens when you establish an economy based off the extraction of resources (this is a pun aimed primarily at the World Bank and IMF).