Returns to the Caucasus

Tbilisi: anatomy of a fragmented city

source: personal archives

One winter night, I stepped through the gate of a weathered old building in Tbilisi’s old center. In the courtyard, rickety walkways ran along the walls, cluttered here and there with laundry, plants, and faded paper lanterns. I moved cautiously, lighting my way with my phone, searching for the small apartment I had rented for the week. I found it at the end of a long corridor, beyond a creaking staircase, framed by two garden chairs and a large flowerpot.

In the morning, I woke to the sound of voices drifting in. The neighbors, already up, were chatting from balcony to balcony, leaning out over the comings and goings of the courtyard. As I pulled back the curtain, I caught sight of a daily life that went on and it was only then that I truly realized where I was.

Tbilisi is a layered city — a millefeuille of centuries you have to peel away slowly. Time is written everywhere. The imprint of invasions and uprisings lies stacked upon the walls like a vast, colorful mosaic. To ancient buildings and carved wooden balconies have been added Soviet blocks and overgrown boulevards suffocated by restless traffic.

Not long ago, I was passing through Belgrade, and something in its air felt oddly familiar. Later, I came across a line by Momo Kapor about the Serbian capital: “It is a city built to human scale. A city that won’t overwhelm the passing traveler with grandeur, but will bind them to it forever with a hundred invisible threads.” And it struck me that the same could be said of Tbilisi. It, too, takes hold of you quietly. A bit of Europe, a bit of the East, a charming disarray, and a memory still alive, and sometimes painful.

This isn’t a museum-city like Paris, Venice, or Vienna, where movement seems frozen for fear of disturbing its beauty. Nor is it a city in perpetual pursuit of spectacle like New York. One should not expect instant wonder, but a slow unfolding. Tbilisi is a place you feel you’ve known before — a city you return to more than you discover.

The Kura River cuts through the city from end to end, broad but hard to reach. Its banks are lined with speeding traffic, with buses and cars hurtling north toward the Caucasus or south toward Armenia and Azerbaijan, through a semi-desert that in winter crunches under a layer of fine snow, and in summer lies dry with low heather. For a country otherwise so green, this landscape always comes as a surprise.

The Kura’s edges are no place to linger. Better to climb toward the hills, to Turtle Lake, for a bit of shade and a glimpse of sky. I spent long moments there, surrounded by stray dogs, letting the noise and haze of the city rise slowly toward me.

In the district of Abanotubani, remnants of antiquity and Arab-Persian influences are still visible. People come here to soak in sulfur baths and sip tea at the end of the day. Around them stretches a maze of narrow alleys, now filled with souvenir shops and restaurants. One afternoon, while wandering, I lingered in a carpet shop and left a few hours later, a century-old kilim tucked under my arm, woven by the highland tribes of Georgia.

Visitors come from afar to see these tightly packed houses and their carved wooden balconies hanging like lace. Some walls crumble, others give way to new hotels awaiting the spring crowd. In the basement of one of these crooked houses, hidden down a quiet alley, I find a small bakery. Around a few wobbly tables covered with warm bread and khachapuri, a colorful crowd has gathered, and I struggle to make myself heard over the surrounding confusion.

source: personal archives, 2023.

Freedom Square opens onto many possible paths to the wanderer. One way leads deeper into the old streets; another follows Rustaveli Avenue and its luxury stores toward the residential neighborhood of Vake.

On one side, bars and taverns where I spent many evenings — in the dimness of a counter or around crowded tables where khinkali and mtsvadi arrive in steaming waves at all hours. People remember you, laugh to see you return in good company, and happily pour you a glass of chacha to accompany meat and fried fare. There you feel the special warmth and spirit of Georgians, who, between two storms, never seem to lose their joy or pride. In those same streets, new places have opened — bars and restaurants run by recently arrived Russians. A different atmosphere — quieter, perhaps more refined — yet not without its charm. Still, the two communities, burdened by decades of tensions and grievances, cross paths without truly meeting.

In the opposite direction lies Vake — a neighborhood of modern towers, old buildings, wine shops, and bakeries, where everyday life unfolds at a slower pace, away from the bustle of the old town. Often, walking along Chavchavadze Avenue on my way to do errands, I pause before the gates of a church. Beneath the trees, well-dressed pilgrims chat loudly in the dappled light.

There are two places where the visitor loses all sense of time and space: the bazaar and the train station. One spills over with crates, makeshift stalls, rusty tools, and bunches of dill. The other hums with engines, shouts, and hurried departures. Everything is a little dirty, a little loud — vendors call out, dogs sleep in the middle of this rugged and inhabited disorder.

Of course, no few paragraphs can capture the essence of a city. It took many returns for Tbilisi to imprint itself on me — its blend of warmth, defiance, pride, and care. Even now, I think of Georgia with a quiet longing. And what I remember isn’t only the cities, but also the mountain paths, the fields, the quiet patches of land where I sometimes went to lose myself.

source: personal archives, 2023.

References:

• Ryszard Kapuściński, Imperium, 1993

• Momo Kapor, Guide to Serbian mentality, 2023