Tbilisi's Alternative Ex-Pat Hangout: Perovskaia Street

So you’ve somehow ended up in Tbilisi. Maybe you’re maybe a backpacker, maybe you work at an embassy, an oil company, or an NGO. Maybe you teach English, or maybe you were just traveling and decide to call Tbilisi your home for a while. No matter: like it or not, you are an Ex-Pat now.

As a card carrying Ex-Pat, the question is, where should you go out to have fun? Of course there’s Shardeni Street and if you’ve not been there it’s probably because you probably arrive here last week. Don’t worry, you’ll end up there soon enough and you’ll see for yourself: Shardeni’s cafés, clubs and restaurants are nothing short of world class.

But, not meaning to disparage Shardeni one bit, when you get tired of all the great food, wine, cappuccinos, pate, and the sexy Vake elite who, let’s face it, are probably more attractive than you are, don’t despair: there is somewhere else to go.

Long before Shardeni was anything more than a gleam in a real estate developers eye Tbilisi already had another vibrant night life: Perovskaia Street. A lot may have changed, Shardeni has overtaken it as the premier strip, they’ve even renamed Perovskaia Akhvlediani, but nothing much has changed about how people have fun there. It’s rougher around the edges than Shardeni, but dare I say, it’s a bit more authentic.

If you want the international pub with live music scene you could do a lot worse than Nali, Buffalo Bills, or The Dublin Bar. Each of these have regular bands that play from bout 8:30 till midnight but each have a slightly different atmosphere. Nali, is arguably the most Georgian, Buffalo Bills has probably the campiest decor (and best air conditioning, layout and seating), but the band at the Dublin will break into occasional traditional Georgian Songs accompanied by guitar riffs. Regardless of which you choose, you’ll be sure to hear Pink Floyd covers and rub shoulders with not just the regular NGO crowd, but also the US military, oil workers from all over, and occasional groups of duty Peace Core volunteers on layover.

Around the corner on Vashlovani Street you have a few more choices. The first stop is a very typical British pub, The George. The owner being involved in the oil business himself, The George is almost exclusively a BP oil workers’ watering hole. A bit further down, is the Success Bar, one of Tbilisi’s most alternative lifestyle friendly venues. The clientele is mostly Georgians here but there’s a fair number Europeans too. Across the street, owned by the same people, is the modest but somehow charming Le Café. More of a bar than a café, this is a great place to hang out. Something you may want keep in mind is that they’re open till five in the morning.

If you’re into the electronic lounge scene, you’ll want to go back onto Perovskaia, and go a bit further to the Unique Bar. Referred to by in-the-know locals as “Cash Bar”, the name refers to not any kind of currency but rather the name of the bar’s Turkish owner. Unique is a place to chill over Red Bulls with vodka, while you watch the bartender Annabelle take breaks from dancing behind the bar to photograph herself with her sell phone.

Lastly, no sampling of Perovskaia’s bars would be complete without a description of Le Charme, a dark blue, mirrored, completely unremarkable bar that would hardly worth mentioning if it wasn’t for the friendly, attentive and charming staff.

Of course there’s a many more too: an Indian restaurant, a Chinese restaurant (oddly named Picasso), a Café that calls itself The USSR, a Japanese restaurant, Tokyo, another pub Wheels (which claims they were the first on the street)... The list goes on and on, but regardless of what each venue offers, or what their individual quirks are, they have something in common: they are all old school. In the bathrooms you’ll still find a candle just in case the electricity goes out, and after your second drink you’ll swear you can still smell and hear all the Honda generators that not so long ago ubiquitously dotted Tbilisi.

This article first appeared in the July 30th 2007 edition of the The Georgian Times.

The Tbilisi Football Club – The Sololaki Team

In case you're wondering, Sololaki is the old town district of Tbilisi.

The Tbilisi Football Club Team Portrait

The Seven Levels Of Photographers

Think you need an expensive camera to take good photographs?

Think again! Here are some photos that my mother took with a Nikon P4 (that sells for about 180 USD)...

I might not agree with everything Ken Rockwell says, but I do think your camera doesn't matter.

Oh, and do check out The Seven Levels Of Photographers.

My Dog Ate My Homework – Caucasian Style

A acquaintance of mine who works for a local Tbilisi English language newspaper got the following SMS from one of his summer interns.

Would you mind if I worked at home today? I'm typing up my notes now and I could help you with editing or something. My brother's babysitter's sister was bride kidnapped*, so she can't come and I need to wait for my brother to come home from his friend's house

*Bride kidnapping is the kidnapping of a girl by a young man in order to convince her to marry him. In it's worst form sometimes rape is involved, though often the mere fact of being kidnapped is often enough to to stigmatize the girl so that consent becomes her only perceived option.

The above notwithstanding it must be noted that bride kidnapping being regarded as a cultural tradition in the region and some young couples plan a kidnapping together. You can think of it as sometimes the equivalent of eloping. Sometimes (co-planned but also not co-planned) kidnapping can also be a way to avoid the necessity of parental consent. Since bride kidnapping is a cultural feature, with the fall of the Soviet Union and corresponding increase in cultural awareness, there has been an increase in bride kidnappings.

It's a bit shocking for westerners, not only how common bride kidnapping is, but also how casual attitudes about it sometimes are. A not insignificant number of young girls find it romantic.

Khevsuria is For Real?

Remember my post about Kurban Said, Essad Bey And Lev Nussimbaum?

Well, when Nussimbaum talked about Khevsuria I (like probably a lot of people) assumed that he made it all up. After all his description of the place seems more allegorical than than documentary.

Khevsuria is quite near Tifilis, and yet the land is free, independent and no policeman dares to follow his victim there. A gigantic wall of rock surrounds Khevsuria and separates it from the rest of the world... From the cliff wall down into the void there hands a long rope. Whoever has the courage can catch hold of the rope and let himself down to the Khevsurs. The police never follow... Only the refugee dares use the rope, to be accepted if he is so inclined into the society of the Khevsurs and protected for ever from all dangers.

Well it turns out that at least the place Khevsuria itself is real! I'll tell you what else, I've been to Shatili, (which is in Khevsuria) and I can assure you, taken with a grain of salt, Lev Nussimbaum's description is at least romantically accurate: It's very, very isolated, and situated in a deep valley of northern slope of the Greater Caucasus mountains. It's accessible only in the summer and even in July there was some snow.

Cool. All this started when I was looking at An Ethnographic Map Of Georgia, and the Chechen like towers next to the Ossetian looked familiar.

An Ethnographic Map Of Georgia

The artists name is Zaliko and his website is www.zaliko.com.

This page on his site shows the has larger versions of the various nationalities featured on the map.

Tbilisi-Moscow-Kiev Video Bridge: 30 Years Of Mimino

The 30th anniversary of the film “Mimino” and the birthday of the famous Georgian actor and honorary citizen of Tbilisi Vakhtang Kikabidze will be observed on July 19 at 12 PM in the Tbilisi RIA-Novosti International Press Center.

The video bridge will link the Tbilisi Press Center with Moscow and Kiev.

Representatives of the public will be able to come and give their congratulations to the beloved actor.

The video-bridge will take place in Tbilisi at Kakabadze Street No. 2 (the building of “Kinos Sakhli” – i.e. Kolga), on the 5th floor in the RIA-Novosti International Press Center. Passes and also accreditation for journalists can be received by calling 44-18-35 or 43-80-84.

The Coolest Macro Photography Ever

Hey, let's face it: macro photography, when it's pretending to be art, usually sucks.

As a kid, when I got over my phase of torturing bugs, I started photograph them. I thought this was way cool, but then I grew up and realized that it was so hard to photograph bugs in a meaningful way that I gave up and started photographing rock concerts (thank God that phase is over too, but that's a different story).

Well, imagine my shock when after 30 years, I came across the coolest macro shot ever!

I'd crop it differently, and certainly would play with the colors, but hey, anybody can be a critic: this shot is genius.

The Photographer is Vladimer Shioshvili and you can see more of his work (not all macro photography) on his flickr site.

Kus Tba, Tskhneti And Tsalka

A couple of weeks ago me and a couple of friends did a another little trek near Tbilisi. The plan was to walk to Kus Tba, Tskhneti and Tsalka, but frankly I can't honestly remember if we reached all these places (their all villages, and they are quite similar to each other.

Here is a a map of the area:

And here is some pictures that a one of my co-trekkers took:

See that last picture? It really seems quite innocent on a computer screen, but it's really the bottom part of a gorge that we had to climb down (for about an hour!).

It started innocently enough: the whole way there for about 5 hours was uphill and then on the way back when we undecided to take a quieter road instead of the highway we made a few tactical mistakes. First, the road became unpaved. Then it was kind of uneven. Then it looked more and more like overgrown unused road. Then it would have been fair to call it a trail. Finally it was a cow trail. And then, well you can see for yourself in the photograph...

It reminded me of how I felt when I was studying Russian: I distinctly remember thinking "This is hard! I should have never started this, but since I have, I might as well keep going." and then a good half dozen times over the next three years "You should have quit the last time you were thinking about it. It was far from too late. It's gotten a lot harder, but it can't get much harder than this, so you might as well keep going now."

At a certain point what we were doing looked like more like rock climbing than walking, and I distinctly remember thinking that properly equipped, trained, prepared and led, certainly real mountain climbing (which I think is an insane sport) would have been safer than what we were doing. The guy building my house called on my cell phone at some point to ask me if I knew it was bear country too.

When we were wading through streams and thorn bushes I also remember saying to my American friends "I no longer feel like I'm a US Marine boot camp, I feel like I'm Viet Cong.".

The final descent involved a loose shale 90 degree incline onto a busy highway. One slip and it would have meant a long tumble before being spit out in front of speeding cars.

Fun!

The Tbilisi Footbal Club