Tbilisi

I was in Tbilisi on two separate days. This is about my first day there.

First thing I saw was the train station, as we were coming from Yerevan. The train station was looking like being renovated for trade, with a big part of it closed and fenced off for the time of works. Most part of the remaining space was also used for trade. The ticket desk hall was taking up not more than 3% of space.

Here's a view of train station from Mtatsminda hill.

An old electric train was visible from the stairway.

The doors of Pirosmani museum were closed. The museum did not work.

I resorted to taking a photo through the bars of the door.

It was interesting around the Pirosmani street, with all the seasoned buildings around us.

Public transportation system had cool digital timetables on the stops, and they were showing precise information.

Excessive architectural details of the past.

We descended into the subway on Sadguris Moedani station, the title of which means «station square». The system was such: you buy a card and put money on the account. You can give the card back to receive the remaining money and the cost of the card — but in an improbable case that you still have the receipt for buying it.

One of many decorations of the city — a sculpture on the central street of Shota Rustaveli.

No museums worked on that day, because it was both the May dates and the orthodox Easter. Georgia turned out to be a very religious country.

A meadow flower growing from a wall.

Modern graffiti is simple — an IP address with the port number, no explanation. I googled, and it was a server with Counter Strike game. That was a lot of eights!

One more decorative sculpture in the tourist center — Irakliy the 2nd street.

I noticed a ropeway platform and wanted to visit it.

Its lower station stood in a super-modern, albeit still under construction, park called Rike. It was possible to pay the fare from that same card that was used in the subway. No card? They were available for rent at the ropeway, too.

Perhaps, classic views were opening from the cabin. Built by Lettner, the ropeway was moving quietly.

The river of Tbilisi was called Mtkvari by the locals and Kura by someone else. The color of Kura waters was not a pleasant one.

The Sololaki ridge was a very narrow one. Mother of Georgia statue (Kartlis Deda, ქართლის დედა) was visible in profile from the ropeway platform.

It was only during this trip that I learned that Georgian name of Georgia was Sakartvelo, not Georgia. Now I know and I have questions why do we call it Georgia then?

The terrain in Tbilisi was pretty crazy, by the way. The Sololaki ridge was very narrow. More mountains were visible from it, including this view of Tabori mountain. Below us, inside the picturesque gorge, was the botanical garden.

The Abo Tbileli church had a very interesting side entrance carved inside the cliff over Kura. The entry was private and locked — I checked. Later I observed how some priest went out from a posh black Mercedes, opened the door with his keys and proceeded inside.

I visited the lovely ruins which were the Narikala.

I caught this angle of a plane through a crack in the ancient wall of Narikala.

There was this street on the Sololaki ridge. Botanical garden gorge is to the left, and the city was to the right.

One of numerous bridges.

Abanotubani was another place from the main tourist destinations. It was a cluster of sulphur baths near Tsavkisistskali (Samarkhakhevi) stream mouth in Kura river. I never was in saunas of any kind, and I did not want to, how cool I am, huh?

Unpleasant soapy chemicals near the water discharge from the baths into the Tsavkisistskali riverbed.

These baths are old. One of them had a plaque with the years 1925-1926 on it.

A cluster of colorful houses was built under Narikala. A serious local man, who was waiting in the queue to the baths, told us that these houses were some kind of Disneyland built using american money in a style that is more Tatar than Kartvelian. He added that nobody lived inside, it all stood an waited.

The terrain of the city was indeed crazy — there were waterfalls right in the center. The one shown here is Legvtakhevi waterfall, falling 22 metres in the namesake canyon — from the botanical garden to Abanotubani. There were footpaths to this waterfall on the same Tsavkisistskali stream. I did not have to pay anything at that time, but writing from the future, I see it requires some entry fee now.

The canyon totally deserved this «Risk of falling or fallen rocks ahead» road sign. The walls were simply vertical. I'd give tourists caskets here not unlike construction workers'.

The footpaths we still under construction in the canyon.

Parajanov sculpture in the tourist center.

A cat was increasing the carpet sales. It didn't sell anything during the minute that we were passing it by for.

Our train went to Batumi, with our wagon being in the four-passenger per cabin mode. We were going to return to Tbilisi in a day or two, and I have the second part of the story about that.