An easy day trip from Baku takes you to the Absheron Peninsula. Here you will see the shrine of Mir Movsum Aga, a mausoleum for a holy man and a favorite burial ground for Baku’s elite. You will also find … Continue reading The Absheron Peninsula.
Soviet Town is one of the four cities in Baku, the others are Boomtown, the fantasy Art Nouveau town of the oil barons built between 1880 and the Soviet Revolution, Old Town, the traditional Silk Road caravan transshipment city, (It … Continue reading Baku’s Soviet Town
Baku’s Boomtown was built by the oil barons when the 19th century turned to the 20th. It is a fantasy land of Art Nouveau with Arab, and Persian touches. To read my 2004 letter from Baku, which has more information, … Continue reading Boomtown Baku
In Baku’s Oldtown you have a great selection of carpets. And of course there is always a cup of tea while you haggle. (Pictures from 2004) To see more pictures of Baku’s Old Town click here. To read my letter … Continue reading Oldtown Baku, Carpets and the Shah’s Palace.
Old Town Baku is the traditional silk road city with its caravansary, where the caravans stopped, and people rested and traded. There were also the docks on the Caspian Sea where goods were off loaded from Turkistan and the Volga … Continue reading Oldtown Baku, 2004
Suzi and I visited Baku, Azerbaijan on a long weekend from T’bilisi in spring 2004. Since we took the pictures in these posts Baku has hosted the Eurovision contest and has seen a lot of changes. This is kind of … Continue reading Baku 2004, Flashback.
On Saturday after work Lika and I went to see “Swan Lake” at the Tbilisi Opera House. I had not been in the Opera House for almost a decade. It’s been closed for 8 years for renovation. It was stunning, … Continue reading Tbilisi’s Restored Opera House.
Thursday, after I finished my work at Radio Nor, we drove back to Tbilisi. Ararat told us that the more roundabout road, over a higher mountain pass above the trees, was better maintained than the road we came in on. … Continue reading Saghomo and Paravani Lakes and Phoka’s Churches.
Ninotsminda was founded by Russian Doukhobor dissidents. The Doukhobors (Spirit Warriors of Christ) were exiled to this region in the early 1800s by Tsar Nicholas at his ascension because they refused to recognize the divine authority of the Tsar. They … Continue reading Gorelovka and the Doukhobors
IREX has taken on a new partner, Radio Nor, a community radio station, in Ninotsminda. Ninotsminda is located near the spot where Georgia, Armenia and Turkey meet. The Lonely Planet guide mostly ignores this part of Georgia. There isn’t much … Continue reading Ninotsminda, Georgia
I love going someplace I know well, discovering something new and rediscovering something old. I had both experiences on this trip to Georgia. I arrived on Saturday morning and met my colleague and friend Lika for dinner Saturday night. We … Continue reading Tbilisi 2016
I’ve been home in Sitka two weeks now, writing reports, enjoying the Sitka Summer Music Festival and thinking of my recent trip to Tbilisi, Georgia. It was a shorter trip than usual, which was a good thing because if I … Continue reading Iron Butterfly, June in the Republic of Georgia
My friends at Radio Atinati in Zugdidi, Georgia have their station across the street from an old Soviet mural made of iron. It shows the progress of transportation from winged Mercury to Space flight, with cars, trains, horse carriages, carrier … Continue reading Updating Art to add a Bicycle.
These are pictures taken on the back roads from Tbilisi to Gori and back in April with the spring blossoms just coming out and green buds just beginning to tip the limbs of trees and bushes. The last picture is a housing development for internally displaced people (IDPs, or refugees) from the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008. The three before that are entering Tbilisi. The one what looks like a lattice was an award winning Soviet building. It is now the Bank of Georgia. Continue reading Georgia Road Trip, April 2014
Uplistsikhe was a town on the Mtkvari River along the Silk Road. It thrived in pre-Christian times. It was carved into sandstone with an amphitheater, worship chambers (with pits for animal sacrifices) and apothecary (with stone niches for different herbs.) Some of the chambers were carved to look like they were wood plank inside. Portals were carved into the stone to make entering the caves seem like entering a building. The nobility lived up on the hill, the commoners lived on the river flats. From the top you get a good view of the abandoned stone houses below. There is … Continue reading Uplistskhe Cave City, Georgia
The road from Gori to Ateni Sioni Church goes past the oval shaped Gori fortress. The church was not opened and I did not get to see the fabled frescoes. In fact it is under renovation and is surrounded by piles of stones that look like they will be used in replacing walls around the compound. There is scaffolding around one side of the main church. With the state of deconstruction the church does not look actvie. The Atenis Soni Monastery (actually a convent) is about a mile away. It is small and lovely. A nun showed us around. It … Continue reading Ateni Sioni Monastery and Church
On Saturday I took a field trip a little to the east. This is my last contracted trip to Georgia and the IREX project ends in September. From the start of the summer it will be mostly clean up. I visited three sites, Gori, the Birthplace of Stalin, Ateni Sioni with its Monastery and convent, and Uplistsikhe, an ancient town carved out of sandstone. Gori was invaded by the Russians in 2008 with a lot of damage to the town. Unlike Serbia, which seems to like to keep its damage visible for decades to prove how wronged they were, aside … Continue reading Gori, Georgia, Stalin’s Home Town
The fountain in Freedom Square is no longer covered with boards and the water is running, but when I arrived it didn’t feel like spring. A cold, wet rain greeted me in Tbilisi. But as the week progressed, first we … Continue reading Tbilisi Spring, 2014
I’m back in Sitka now but on my last Saturday in Tbilisi I went to my favorite gallery to look at some gorgeous textile art on UN Circle (Known locally as Round Square) and walked back to the hotel for a couple of miles, mostly along Rustaveli Avenue. It was a clear, cold day and I took some pictures. The Cafe Elvis is in the Philharmonic Hall, I like that. At the end of Rustaveli is Freedom Square with the column with a gold St. George slaying the dragon on top. The Art Nouveau bank building is around the … Continue reading Rustaveli Avenue, Tbilisi
IREX is kind enough to put me up at the Marriott Courtyard Hotel on Freedom Square. The front rooms have a wonderful view. I get to watch the traffic circling around and around the monument in an automotive ballet of near misses and skillful maneuvers. The monument had the cable skeleton of a Christmas Tree. The lights were gone but the ice frosted the cables so they formed a delicate spiderweb around St. George’s column. I got to watch the workers climb on that latticework to take it down once the ice melted. I was able to watch … Continue reading Tbilisi Through My Window
I decided to post a few more pics from my walks through Tbilisi this weekend. It is such a nice town to walk through. Enjoy Continue reading A Walk Through Tbilisi
Tbilisi has had a lot of influences being the crossroads that it is, between Black and Caspian Seas, between Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Some people say the balconies come from the Arabs, but they look almost Spanish (which, thinking about it, could come from the Arabs.) Some of these are wooden balconies from the Old City. When I originally posted wrought iron balcony pictures on Facebook my colleague Tina took me to task saying Tbilisi was famous for its wooden balconies. She is right, but I also enjoy the hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of the wrought iron … Continue reading Tbilisi Balconies
These are some pictures from Tbilisi at street level. Please look at yesterday’s post for text. Continue reading Tbilisi in the Snow, Day Two
Tbilisi is trying to erase traces of the Soviet Union, but when the snow comes and you squint you can imagine this as a Soviet City. Women of a certain age (and some of their daughters) bring out their (or … Continue reading Tbilisi in the Snow