The country has the richest mineral resources, various types of soils, 3 million hectares of forests. The climate varies from the influence of the subtropical in the west of the country to the Mediterranean in the east.
Modern Georgia is a kaleidoscope of cultures, images, traditions. To plunge into this diversity is possible only by personally arriving here to immerse yourself in all this atmosphere.
To visit all the most interesting and amazing places in Georgia, probably not enough and a whole year of staying here – so much in this country in all.
RUSSIAN LANGUAGE
To go to Georgia you can bravely, armed with knowledge of only one Russian language. On it, almost everything is spoken, except, perhaps, only for young children.
Memorial plaque on one of the buildings along Rustaveli Avenue
Although in everyday communication everyone uses the Georgian language, if you ask something in Russian, you will be able to respond in the hotel, and in the market, and in the bus, and in the metro, and in the museum, and just on the street. But at the same time, all the pointers located on the territory of the country are duplicated in two languages: Georgian and English.
GEORGIAN LARI
Georgian lari is the national currency of Georgia. It was introduced in 1995 by the President of the country Eduard Shevardnadze in exchange for the transition currency from the ruble – the Georgian coupon.
One lari is divided into 100 tetri.
To date, 1 GEL is approximately 25—26 Russian rubles. When you arrive in Georgia, you can take with you rubles, dollars or euros. The rate is approximately the same.
Part 1 Tbilisi
ABOUT THE CITY
For the first time I was able to penetrate the culture and atmosphere of this city at the Tbilisoba festival in 2015 in Moscow. Then there were many well-known figures of the Russian stage, natives of Georgia, Soso Pavliashvili, Tamara Gverdtsiteli and many others. Their songs so radically conveyed everything that the Georgian capital is famous for, that to many Muscovites present at this holiday, it seemed as if they had made a trip to this city.
But the real meeting with Tbilisi was accomplished only a few years later. For many of our compatriots who grew up in the Soviet Union, Georgia has always been a blooming garden, where it’s warm almost all year round, and the local national flavor has always amazed imagination.
After many years of Georgia’s independence, its sunny image changed in many respects to another – more strict, sometimes gray, distant and unfamiliar. In short, Soviet and modern Georgia, like Soviet and modern Tbilisi, is, as they say in Odessa, two big differences. But I’ll try to introduce you to both of them. With the way we saw it from the pages of magazines and film frames of the 1970s, as well as with the way you see it, having arrived in Georgia today.
So, let’s begin.
Even during the Roman Empire, in the I – II centuries. AD There was a city called Tbiliada, which is noted on many maps of the Caucasian foothills of this time. In this area, the remains of ancient baths were found. But it is believed that the history of the city is still from the turn of antiquity and the Middle Ages – V century, when it was founded by the king of Iberia Vakhtang Gorgasali. Leaving in the year 458 for the royal hunt, he shot a pheasant in these places, which fell into a hot spring and was welded. He liked the thermal springs so much that he ordered the establishment of a settlement here and the construction of a bath complex. They were the basis of the historic quarter of Abagotubani (“quarter of baths”). Its center is the remains of an old bath complex, as well as a fountain with a pheasant, to which the city owes its legendary appearance.
The heir of Vakhtang Gorgasali, the king of the Dacha, did much for the development of the city. It was he who transferred the capital of Iberia from Mtskheta to Tbilisi. With him around the city walls were erected, and Tbilisi itself grew very rapidly due to the favorable location on the trade route between Europe and Asia.
The city became the capital of the united Georgia in 1122, when King David the Builder, the head of the Bagratid state, entered here. The historical development of the city with this moment through a series of many wars, invasions, changes of rulers and other events.
Since Georgia joined the Russian Empire, Tbilisi has become the residence of the so-called supreme Georgian government and commander in chief – the highest representative of the national military and civil authorities in Georgia and throughout the North Caucasus.
In 1840, Tbilisi became the center of the Transcaucasian region. Polukis high administrative status, the city began to develop rapidly on the basis of a mixture of Russian culture and cultures of the peoples of the Caucasus. Here, markets, squares, fountains, apartment houses and public buildings were built. Many of them are an important part of the historical and cultural heritage of Tbilisi and to this day.
Tbilisi City Hall. 1840-ies.
The city was visited by famous writers, poets, composers, artists. There were Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov, Alexander Griboyedov, Leo Tolstoy, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Maxim Gorky, Konstantin Paustovsky and many others. The atmosphere of the city and its inhabitants influenced the creativity of each of these world-famous geniuses of the pen.
In the second half of the XIX century the population of the city grew in geometric progression. If in 1865 there lived 71 thousand people, then in 1897 – twice as many. Tbilisi became the center of the industry of the Caucasian region. Many plants and factories were built here. This predetermined the fact that the city became one of the pillars of the workers’ revolutionary movement.
In 1883, a tram started to ride through the streets of the city in the form of a horse.
At the turn of the XIX – XX centuries. Joseph Stalin and his associates here launched a tremendous revolutionary and propaganda work, were the founders of the Leninist-Iskra organizations in the Caucasus.
Soviet Tbilisi as the capital of the Georgian SSR has developed quite actively and dynamically. Here were built richly decorated with stucco decor and columns of the capital’s administrative buildings, wide avenues, green boulevards, squares, monuments leading up and down in the mountain city of the staircase. In 1937, trolleybuses began to ride the streets of the city, in 1966 a subway was opened.
In 1989, the city’s population reached the highest point in the history of Tbilisi, and amounted to 1 million 259 inhabitants.
The existence of Tbilisi as the capital of independent Georgia enriched the city with new monuments, streets, buildings and structures. Unfortunately, much of the period of Soviet construction was lost, in 2006 the Tbilisi trolleybus and tram stopped its work. The city was shaken by more than a dozen political rallies and demonstrations, but it continues to develop, and very kindly welcomes guests from all over the world.
Today,