If you fly from JKF to Tbilisi and connect through Istanbul (Dubai being the other option), beware of a too-good-to-be-true one hour layover, for you must then transverse over a kilometer of airport shopping mall, up and down, over and through, where world travelers aimlessly pluck at luxury brands no matter the hour, hurtling through space as fast as your legs and your luggage will allow, between your arrival and departure gates. We made our connection, but just barely. Our checked bags, alas, did not.
We stayed in the old town, where the city was founded in the 4th century, when a passing king lost his beloved hunting eagle (and the ibex it after) to a scalding sulfuric spring. He returned to build baths, named the site Tbilisi, meaning “warm place,” and the city has remained a famous hot springs destination ever since. The architecture is a fascinating hodgepodge, medieval, art nouveau, brutalist, and whatever we're calling those featureless high-rises ubiquitous today. The old town is charming, but choked by tourists and the cynical businesses that serve us, including a fresh pomegranate juice stand run by a foul band of audacious criminals who charged me forty lari for twelve ounces of red liquid cut with orange juice.
There is a lively and diverse international scene of travelers and ex-pats who have come to enjoy Tbilisi's rich culture and hopping night life. People come from all over Turkey and Central Asia, Europe, the UK, and, of course, American, but Russian was the most common language we heard on the street. More than one hundred thousand Russians have migrated since the start of the war in Ukraine, creating an uneasy dynamic and stoking fears that the Russian eye will turn here next.
Tbilisi is nested in a valley carved by the Kura River with low mountains on both sides. On a cliff above the old town stands the ruins of the Narikala Fortress, and on virtually every crest or precipice a church, cathedral, or monastery imposes itself onto the skyline. The post-Soviet period has been rocky. Too many once beautiful central neighborhoods are crumbling as development money goes into over-built luxury areas on the periphery. Although the public transit system serves the entire country, including more remote regions, pretty well—despite being a chaotic mix of subways, bus routes, and private mini-buses called Marshrutkas—traffic in Tbilisi is brutal. Highways separate the river from the riverside neighborhoods. Crosswalks are infrequent and navigating the city on foot is far more dangerous and confusing than it needs to be. Stray dogs and cats are everywhere, but they behave themselves most of the time, and somehow there is less biological matter left on the streets than there is in New York. More than a million people live in Tbilisi, which is nearly half the population of the entire country, but few Georgians say they are from there, preferring to claim the region or village their family first came from instead. The climate is arid and subtropical. Figs and citrus trees are common and the mountains look shrubby and parched.
Of that drifting, touristy time, a few moments sparkle and stay. The stream around the hot springs continues into the mountains within the enormous National Botanical Garden. We spent hours exploring its waterfalls, fountains, horticultural plots, and grand trees, including a few American Sequoias. We heard a persistent but arrhythmic chock-chock sound above us, only to find a two Mediterranean tortoises in clumsy nuptial embrace. The much smaller male would knock his shell into his mate's before his attempted assent and once perched open his beak to release short squeaky ecstatic cries.
We stopped once for a Turkish coffee outside a rug store. The owner prepared the thick, strong dram in small metal brew pots half buried in hot sand and we drank it right from our fancy little cups right on the street, the sweet, bitter, scent mingling with the musty lanolin from the imported rugs.
After a long walk in the Chugureti neighborhood, we found an old soviet factory that has been converted into a thriving mini arts district called Fabrika with a hostel, restaurants, bars, a music venue, clothing boutiques and art studios around an open central courtyard. Ultimately, the wine we had there wasn't our favorite, but it was interesting to see this international oasis of commerce and art in an otherwise neglected neighborhood.
Of the rich culinary traditions of Georgia, I'll write at length later this week, but wandering the streets, it's impossible to ignore the little basement bread bakeries on nearly every block. You order at a low window from an older woman who works in a room with a long table covered in balls of fresh dough and a round open-topped incredibly hot oven called a tone (pronounced ton-ay). A tone is in the same family as a tandoori oven and the bread it makes is called shoti. Often the baker will roll the dough out into a long thin strip right when you order, then throw it onto the side of the oven's interior. The shoti is ready in just a few minutes and is one of the pillars of the extraordinary Georgian table.
And one night, after a long day of walking, we found a natural wine shop called Tsitska with a wonderful selection of wines, including many new to us. We chose a 2014 Rkatsiteli from Stori. Due to the very small quantity of traditional Georgian wine that is made, it is rare to see older bottles, although many of them have aging potential. We took the bottle back to our artfully renovated room, with high ceilings, pink flowered wall paper, and sumptuous claw footed tub, and enjoyed this beautiful wine in the bath.
More soon,
William