I walked back to the hotel, down steep streets toward the glass domed presidential palace.  A lot of the streets on my map were closed for security so I followed several dead ends but got to where I wanted to be, the upper entrance to the Rike Park Theater and Exhibition Hall.  I have described this building as looking like two tubes, or perhaps jug mouths, pouring culture down into the river from just below the presidential palace.  There’s been enough progress on the building that I can tell that the main entry is at the bottom of the hill … Continue reading Rike Park Theater and Exhibition Hall, Tbilisi, Georgia.

The town closest to the Russian Border on the Georgian Military Road is Stephantsminda.  Most people still call it Kazbegi.  The town itself is not particularly pretty with rundown buildings, jumbles of electric wires and a jungle gym of above ground natural gas pipes typical of old Soviet towns. The natural setting makes up for the open infrastructure.  It sits at the foot of Mt. Kazbeg which rises to 16,512 feet.  However the town’s main attraction is not the mountain but the 14th century Gergetis Sameba (Gergeti Trinity) walled monastery that sits above the town and below the big mountain … Continue reading Stephantsminda (Kazbegi), Georgia

I rode up The Georgian Military Road 6 months ago in the March snows.  The Russians built it in 1799.  Watch towers on hills provide line of sight communication from the border to Tbilisi.   We drove across Jvari Pass, at 7815 ft.  A Soviet monument of mosaics highlights Russian and Georgian history, celebrating the military road that carried Russian troops to help protect the Georgian kingdom from Moslems, and then helped them impose Russian rule in 1801.  The road was crucial to the economic development of Georgia. The road in the pass is under reconstruction.   Many of the tunnels, lined with … Continue reading Jvari Pass, Georgian Military Road

tThe Georgian Military Road connects Tbilisi with the Russian Border.  It was started in 1799.  In 1801 Russia annexed the Kingdom of Georgia.  I rode up the Georgian Military Road last March and took pictures of some of the same watchtowers, churches and mountainsides in the snow.  Now you can see them in the summer.  These pictures are taken south of Gudauri, which is the ski area where I traveled last March.  I did not get north of the ski area.  I missed a lot.  The next post has pictures from North of Gudauri Continue reading Georgian Military Road in the Summer

The key to overcoming jet lag is to keep pushing.  I arrived in Tbilisi at 3 AM Saturday morning and was in bed by 4:30.  I forced myself to get up at 11:30 AM even though it was bedtime in Sitka, (12 hour difference) and tried to figure out something that would keep me interested and awake until bedtime in Tbilisi, which is just when I would be getting my second wind because it’s time to get up in Sitka. I hopped on a marshruka (mini-bus) at Freedom Square and headed up to the lower terminus of Tbilisi’s funicular railway.  … Continue reading Tbilisi Funicular Railway

Georgia has beautiful countryside.  In spring rolling green fields lead to the still snowcapped Caucasian Mountains.  Flowers and flowering trees are in bloom.  Between towns there are citadels and castles in varying degrees of decay and on hilltops monasteries and churches.  In contract to the countryside Georgian towns can be less than picturesque, with abandoned Soviet factories, an industrial wasteland, on town outskirts oddly punctuated with massive works of Socialist Realism art, including a huge mural of Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space.  Georgian towns, like many former Soviet towns, have utilities above ground, including the pipes … Continue reading Georgian Road Trip, May, 2013

The last time I was in Tbilisi, in November, I watched the progression of autumn as trees turned, leaves fell and the winds grew cold.  I am watching the reverse this March.  I snowed on and off the first week I was here and I could see snow sticking on the hills above Tbilisi.  The weather has turned, it is in the 60s, sunny and the green lace and blossoms are beginning to appear on those same trees. I had a cold much of the first week so I went to work went home and didn’t have many adventures.  I’m … Continue reading Tbilisi, Georgia, March 16, 2013

Friday was a holiday in Georgia, International Women’s Day.  The Georgian Institute of Public Affairs, GIPA the University where I’m doing some work, takes the holiday for a ski excursion to Gudauri.  ( გუდაური in the Georgian alphabet, the word looks beautiful, I hope your computer can decipher it.)  The busses gathered at 8 AM at the Radisson Hotel on Rose Revolution Square, on the other end of Rustaveli Street from where I am staying on Freedom Square.  I was not sure how long a walk it would be.  I’ve walked it many times but never without interruption.  Rustaveli Street … Continue reading Gudauri Ski Area, Georgia.

The Georgian Military Road, an ancient trade route over the Greater Caucasus Mountains.  Pliny wrote of it.  In 1799 Russian Tsar Alexander I ordered the road paved and the rivers bridged as the Russian Empire annexed Georgia and moved further into Armenia.  The road was “completed” (If such a road is ever completed) in 1817.  It is one of the highest paved highways in Europe.  There are watchtowers along the route as it travels river valleys and switchbacks up mountain sides.   The road passes the Zhinvali River Dam and we had one cigarette break the Ananuri Fortress-Monastery which was a … Continue reading Georgian Military Road

For the text to explain these pictures please see the post on Gudauri Ski Area.   Continue reading Rustaveli Avenue on International Women’s Day

Breaking News.  The Opera House, newly restored, opens on Sept 16, 2013 for its 162nd season.  I will miss it, I leave Tbilisi on Sept 14. In a 2004 letter I wrote:  “The Opera House looks like it came from the tails of Scheherazade, which have probably been preformed there many times.” In 2005 I wrote: “On Thursday Lika took me to the Opera.  It was the opening production of the season, which meant, in Georgia, the opera is Abesalom and Eteri (Esther) by Zakaria Paliashvilli.  It is kind of the Georgian national opera.” “The plot is sufficiently operatic; a … Continue reading Tbilisi Opera House