Georgia

We’re staying at the Hotel Tbilisi and it s old (about 100 years) but once grand. Also quite noisy; I’m on the kitchen side. No hot water in the center of town. At this hour it’s still noisy, too hot not to have the window open. The climate really is sub-tropical!

After a good dinner we went walking - the guides Pam and Luda, and Bob and I, past shops much more filled with goods than in Moscow, and past hundred of people walking, paseo style, on the main drag which our hotel is on, Rustaveli. Eventually we cam on a strange, interesting looking building which we thought might be a mosque. Luda and I popped our heads in and thought the lady at the door, and said :open” so we motioned the others to come. As they did, so did another couple, and we walked through floors of brightly decorated rooms, no furniture, but mirrors, chandeliers, vaguely eastern looking Blue and gold and white. And up stairs. At about the third level a little lady motioned us inside; through doors we could hear music and applause.

And we were in an opera house.

A giant chandelier hung in front of us; we were in the next-to-top tier of seats, horseshoe style, and on the stage, beautifully clad ballerinas were dancing to lush music played by a full orchestra. We were stunned! All of us, including the East German couple who’d come in with us, sat entranced. It was utterly delightful, gorgeous setting. At intermission Pam talked to the little lady who’d let us in, we plied her with cigarettes and gum. We were watching the Tbilisi ballet company in the Paliashvili Opera house.

After it was over we had a nightcap in the bar, Georgian brandy (good!) while the Germans drank Pina Colatas and Sinatra came in over the speaker system. I think this is when I decided that I’d never get enough of this international life!

Mtatsminda Park

We took a cog railway up the hill alongside the city - the M’tatsmund Hill, past the Mamadavita (st. David) church. There is a park on top, and wide panoramic view, but it was hazy and we could see little. As we rode down, a tour of boy and girl.Pioneers were on the opposite cog car, shouting and flirting with us. The kids here are very different in appearance from the Moscow ones - here they are darker, with wide-set dark eyes, a broad forehead, delicate bone structure. The girls wear the traditional schoolgirl costume of black with white pinafore. Didn’t see that at all in Moscow.

Notes on Baku

Tblisi is very different from Moscow. Luda is a tourist here too; she doesn’t know Georgian, the writing is unique, a non-western alphabet, and they don’t like Russians. So she gets Pam to do the talking in her less than perfect Russian, while Luda pretends to be American. After the ballet, we stood outside awhile and visited with the East Germans and a West German couple. They were all - WE were all - happy to be multi-national enjoying ourselves.

7 October, Still no hot water. It honestly is centrally generated and turned on in town all at once. Our Intourist guide is a middle-aged man who calls out all the “sights” far more conscientiously than Luda - but not all sights are interesting.

But the food Is delicious! Lunch was delicious - cold kidney beans in a spicy sauce, coleslaw, then shashlik with a spicy sauce. Apples for dessert - oh, and a good Schie soup first. Half the people in our group, at least, don’t can’t eat at least some of the food.The more for those of us who can!

The Ethnographic Museum

Ethnographic museum, which is a fascinating collection of houses from east and west Georgia (there is no central Georgia) brought together in a sort of Sturbridge Village. We were almost the only group there and I could have stayed longer. We then were dragged to the Art Museum which was of little interest.

And on to a wine tasting in an old part of the city. Some of the wines were drinkable; we had a lengthy lecture about them from the host who had retired to go into business for himself, and we received a free bottle of wine each, worth the $10 it had cost us to go in.

We returned to the hotel via a Berioska, where I bought a shawl and a length of fabric. Started on a skirt - it’s hot here, and I’m not prepared. Went to a Georgian Folk Dance concert in an old church - it was great! Gorgeous people doing incredible dancing. Then another hour of sewing and the skirt was ready to wear!

Places of worship, ancient and current

We drove up the Georgian Military Highway, which crossed the Caucasus eventually, to Mtskheta first — actually on a winding road to a little isolated church on a hill overlooking the town - the Jvari chapel (ca. 6th c). It is in a spectacular setting and quite touching. In the center is a stone base once holding, I am told, a pagan statue, around which the church was built in roman-cross style.

In Mtskheta itself there is another church, the Svetitshaveli Cathedral, fortress wall around it. It’s 11th C and an active church. Quite Byzantine in style. After that, a convent, then a return to Tbilisi for lunch.

And everywhere else

After lunch we set forth again to the old part of the city and the Sioni Cathedral which is the seat of “Georgian Catholicism” - the bishop of the Georgian branch of the Orthodox Church. The bishop’s house, quite charming is next to it. While most of the others went to a synagogue, Bob reluctantly trailed me as I tried to find the “Turkish baths” - Tibilisi has many hot springs. Found a church with tenements lining the courtyard, then what seemed to be a mosque. We tried to go in to it, quite handsome with blue tiles, only to find IT was the baths. There were also reconstructions of old domed, fully-underground homes - the old traditional houses of 300 BC, in an area where remains had been found.

And finally to a part of town we hadn’t seen - the “caravanserie” of the open marketplace. Some of the group is jaded, they’ve seen these everywhere else in the world, but I was fascinated by the bounty and plentitude of the foods spread out. It’s pomegranate time, and peaches and figs and apples and scallions and herbs and potatoes and giant cabbages. Some meat, but not a lot. Cheeses, mushrooms. I hear a flower market. And spices in bags - multitudes of bags. The ladies selling the spices offered me little cornucopias. I gave them stickers, having nothing else. They vied to give me the best mixture. I bought figs and ate one on the spot, being immediately and unmistakably returned to childhood and the swing on the fig tree in the back yard.

After dinner we went to the circus, a single-ring auditorium. Enormous. Like the ballet, a not-first class performance, but charming for the most part. Distressing to see the beautiful horses with obviously painful bits, the lurching farm animals (whoever has seen a water buffalo dance? Whoever would want to?) But the clowns were funny and the finale good. And the performing cats - 14 of them - were alert and well trained and unforgettable.

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