Round Tbilisi

It has only now just come to my attention that I haven't yet put together a single coherent sentence about my time in Georgia.  That is what this place does.  It has such a wonderful aura to it that I can't actually remember what I did or in what order.  I seem to remember arriving just before a massive thunderstorm (which happened every night) and staying at a pretty great hostel/the only hostel in Tbilisi at the time.  Or one of two, but the second one was impossible to find.

Perhaps a series of photos will tell a better story of my time and experiences in Tbilisi and will shed some light on this engima wrapped inside a riddle shrouded in mystery.

Rustaveli Blvd was basically the heart of the city, and if you want to buy authentic Georgian goods, like hats and coats that rich Georgians in history wore on ceremonial occasions then this is where to go.  If you want to dress like the average, contemporary Georgian there are some great markets that sell tracksuits that have sprung up around the suburban metro stations.

I don't think I can stress enough to you just how much this city is on the brink of total collapse.  Everything is so beautiful but it is built on some sort of cliffs with natural springs coming out of them and so underneath the city water is pouring out and the entire structural integrity of the place has been compromised.  I was afraid to lean or put my weight on anything.

Nevertheless they are still building massive cathedrals way up on top of everything and it's kind of good they are because I took this picture totally by fluke and was not expecting such a successful result.

Absolute brink of total collapse.  I suggest you go see it now because there won't be much Tbilisi left.

While most Georgians make around $2,000/year there seems to be enough money in the pot to build brand new enormous government palaces for the current administration.

This is the entrance to the Chardin district, which has some sort of French connection.  All I could tell from it is that the cafes are overpriced and embarrassed about being in Georgia.

I can't imagine why anyone would be embarrassed about being in Georgia.  It might be the best country I have ever been to.  The only problem I have with the Caucasus is that no one can accurately create a map of it without upsetting some group.  And I can think of a couple of things wrong with this one here. 

Did you know that there is hardly a grade running from the Black Sea to the Caspian?  Tbilisi is the only place where things narrow considerable so by default everything moving trans-Caucasian must pass through it.  What a strategic location.  Aside from the lack of stable surfaces to build on.

In Kiev there is a similar stature called "Tin Tits" and if there is one thing I respect and admire about centrally planned economies it is that no matter what sort of war is on, no matter how many people do not have enough working dishwashers or if they need to truck cobalt in from Siberia to be processed in Latvia and then manufactured into something that they need processed cobalt for in Tashkent to then be distributed in Moscow, there is always enough steel that can be procured to build an enormous statue to look over all the republican capitals.  Or at least three of them.  I have only seen three of these things, and trust me, I would remember seeing more.

This seems to be some sort of transport pod that I found outside the Ministry of Transport in Tbilisi.

Loan me $5,000 and I will turn this into the nicest set of luxury condos Tbilisi has ever seen.