Georgia - April 2008

Taking it Easy in Tbilisi

The Guinness

It was time for a Guinness.  I chose to the Hangar Bar, seemingly so named as it had lots of model aircraft hanging from the ceiling.  However there appeared a bit of a naming dilemma going on as the pub also had a sign up saying it was called O’Brien’s. 

Enjoying a Guinness at the Hangar Bar

The Formula 1 race was being aired inside and out but I distracted the owner to have a chat. She kindly picked the next destination out of the box – Vienna, Austria.  I had a second Guinness and watched Cardiff City in the FA Cup Semi-final at Wembley playing Barnsley and winning to get into the final for the first time since 1927.

Rebecca kindly picking out my next destination for a Guinness

Getting There and around

My first impression of Tbilisi was ‘what a dark place’. Then again it was the middle of the night.  Normally I would bound off the plane full of vigour and head for the bus into town but not in Tbilisi.  Apart from the fact that I was travelling whist under the weather, with the aid of Imodium shall we say, it was also the wee small hours of the morning.  Flights in Georgia tend to arrive and depart between 1am and 5am for some strange reason as if trying not to be found out.  My plan therefore was to try to grab a bit more sleep before the first train into the city was due to depart at 5.30am. 

It had been a long old journey to get to this point – by far the longest on my Guinness travels to date.  I’d chosen to use the trusty Lufthansa service from Birmingham with a stop off in Germany.

The stearn looking statue on the hillside overlooking Tbilisi

Arriving in Georgia is quite welcoming; there is no visa requirements, no payments due, just show your passport and you are in.  This is a sign of how westernised the country is – welcoming visitors with none of the normal restrictions you would expect from an ex-communist country.  The other obvious sign is the name of the main road into the city:  George Bush Freeway.  There’s nothing like nailing your colours to the mast and trying to upset your neighbours to the north. 

 Freedon Square - my first sight in Georgia

Team Makeup

I was on my own for this trip.  Nobody else quite fancied it for some reason.

Tbilisi in the springtime

Accommodation

My hotel was in the old part of town, and here the emphasis was on ‘old’.  It’s hard to differentiate when wandering the narrow streets of Tbilisi whether the damaged buildings and infrastructure result of civil war, revolution, the earthquake of 2002 or general neglect.  My hotel certainly had neglect all around it but inside was well looked after.  My room was cramped and overlooked a small courtyard where the neighbours stored their bread and other groceries on their windowsills.  The bed squeaked every time I breathed in and out and the toilet would only flush properly with the aid of a bucket of water.  Surprisingly I still rated it and didn’t care much about these foibles.

Parts of the city have very much a French feel to them.

Food

I often enjoyed the local snacks, a naan bread filled with melted cheese.

In Bojormi I ordered the soup and kebab and chips – when I say ordered I mean nodded when the waitress said something and that’s what arrived.  The soup was excellent, more like a stew – thick tomato with pieces of meat floating in it and cracked wheat at the bottom, topped off with the inevitable coriander. 

Sightseeing highlights

My first view of the city was one of the most spectacular.  Freedom Square, with its tall stone column topped with the gold Liberty Monument depicting St George slaying the dragon.  This was the venue of the Rose Revolution in 2003 and the place where the Georgian president and George Bush addressed 100,000 people in 2005 commemorating the end of WWII.  Here, as dawn was breaking, I had the place all to myself.

The tiny Sioni Cathedral with its dark ornate ceiling was full of lit candles and busy with worshipers.  The cathedral is famous for being the place where in the early 1800s the Georgian nobility were forced by the Russian military to sign and agree to being annexed by Russia.  Today’s Georgia is a deeply religious country, mainly Christian, where years on Communist oppression failed to quash their beliefs.

Tbilisi is very much a city where you can wander around at leisure.  I kept stumbling upon small parks filled with bird song , overlooked by houses painted in various colours.  The city planners appear to specialise in modern brass statues – they are everywhere, most pleasant but a bit incongruous given the poor state of the roads and pavements around. 

If you like brass sculptures then Tbilisi is the place for you.

I found my way up onto the hill and the brand spanking new Sameba Cathedral built with the donations from a mystery benefactor.  People were thronging around including VIPs in suits and black limousines and TV cameras.  It initially thought that may have opened that very day but has in fact been finished four years.  It had gleaming gold roofs and acres of marble and fountains in front.  It reminded me of what it must have appeared like in prior centuries with huge amounts of money being spent on churches whilst people around lived in poverty.

The brand new Sameba Cathedral - it looked like opening day today.

The highlight of my last afternoon in Tbilisi was having my own hot sulphur bath in the Abanotubani district.  20 Lari bought me an hour with my private bath measuring about 2m by 2m, changing room, shower towels and soap. I was asked if I wanted my personal ‘scrubber’- something I’m sure means different things depending on where you come from.  I declined.  That’s one good way of giving yourself a deep clean after over five hours on a train.   The individual bath had a conical domed stone roofs capped by a chimney to let the hot humid air escape.

  Out of the City

I also spent a few nights at Bojormi, a spa town in the Lesser Caucuses some 100 miles west of the capital. I arrived on a minibus with the newspapers and headed for the brand new tourist office.  I had the impression I was the first western tourist in town judging by the way I was so well treated. 

Bojormi has a brand spanking new train station.........

.......the trains however weren't quite so new!

I caught a narrow gauge railway up into the mountains and the ski resort of Bakuriani.  The train, a strange looking electric locomotive with two small carriages waited at the station and soon filled up. I’m glad I stocked up with food as the journey took well over 2 hours.  We went through forests, pastures, people’s back gardens, past grazing cattle and spring flowers in the sunshine.  Some of the bridges on the route were apparently designed by Eifel (of tower fame).  This was not a service that relied only on tourists, it was being used by all the locals and it stopped regularly in numerous stations and even in the middle of the woods.  People would get off and disappear into the woods with their shopping bags.  I doubt it made any money as the amount of energy needed to haul it up to above 5000 feet must have cost more than our 60p fares.

The lovely two carriage electric train up to Bakuriani

A consortium of oil companies has recently completed an oil pipeline from Baku in Azerbaijan across Georgia and to the Turkish coast. I popped into an office that explained it all.  I guess a lot of PR was needed as the pipeline goes through some very picturesque and historical areas.  Indeed, there were a number of archaeological finds on display in the office.  A friendly guy talked me though the project in good English before giving me a cup of tea.  Just before leaving he asked me if I needed anything else such as Internet access on his computer.  I thought that was quite a risky offer to make – with a couple of clicks of the mouse I could probably have stopped millions of barrels of oil flowing from the east to the west. 

Quirky moments

In Bojormi I headed out of town hoping to get to the Romsnov Palace.  I wasn’t too optimistic about this goal either having read that it had recently been taken back into government ownership and used for official functions.  My hopes were dashed as I approached the park gates and the guards with machine guns indeed indicated that there was no way I would be allowed in for a peek at the house.  I continued wandering up the road, around a few bends and occasionally jumping up to see if I could glimpse the house over the wall.  I couldn’t.  I must have somehow attached someone’s attention because a police car drew up and the occupants started talking.  Now they could just have been asking me if I wanted a lift somewhere or knew what the time was but judging by their faces I think they were more interested in knowing why I was doing imitating a man on a pogo stick but without a pogo stick.  The fact that we didn’t seem to share a mutual language meant the conversation was going nowhere and they eventually drove off.

Walking the footpath up the hill out of Borjormi past the spa meant going over this rather dangerous footbridge over a river in torrent!

You thought that one was bad - how about this one!

Time to get cleaned up before heading home and where better than this hot spa