a cultural buff’s guide to tbilisi

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So, you like museums, art, theatre, and live music. Then you are in the right place if you are in Tbilisi. 🙂

I spent 10 days in Georgia’s capital this June before travelling deeper west into the country. Though I would venture out on some days to discover the country’s north, south, and east, coming back to Tbilisi always felt like I was returning home.

The city’s hills hugged both the Kura river and hot sulphur springs; its slopes dotted with medieval stone churches. Strains of music would waft through the air, an accompaniment to the fragrance of freshly baked cheesy pies. A patchy sky overhead seemed perpetually torn between sunshine and rain.

Popular legend credits King Vakhtang I Gorgasali as the city’s founder in 458 CE. An achievement reaffirmed by an equestrian statue of him perched on the riverbank. The story goes somewhat as follows: One day the king and his falcon went hunting. The falcon caught a pheasant, but both birds fell into a nearby hot sulphur spring. Chaffed at his discovery of these scalding hot waters miraculously emerging from the earth, the king decided to build a city at this spot. And so, Tbilisi—meaning the ‘warm place’—was born. Archaeological findings tend to dismiss this tale and place the city’s habitation further back in time to the Palaeolithic age. Continue reading →

towering peaks and gold jewellery: georgia, land of the golden fleece

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This is the story of Colchis. A contemporary of the Sumerians and Ancient Egyptians, with references in Classical Greek mythology, this pre-Christian kingdom today lies somewhat in obscurity.

But three-and-a-half thousand years ago, Colchis was not some figment of literary imagination. It was Jason and the Argonauts actual gold-encased quest. Its peaks that touched the heavens, where narrative saga decided Zeus would chain Prometheus.

Deep inside the isthmus joining Europe and Asia, in valleys tightly sandwiched between the soaring peaks of the Greater and Lesser Caucasus Mountains were a people of immense wealth. Gold dust speckled its rivers which when caught using sheepskin with shaggy hair, turned them into ‘golden fleece.’ The people there then transformed this gold into exquisite jewellery typified by fine granulation and inlaid gems.

Headdress with four deer, two lions and a pair of birds, made with cutting out portions of metal, Vani, Burial 24, end-4th Century BCE.

Headdress with four deer, two lions and a pair of birds, made with cutting out portions of metal, Vani, Burial 24, end-4th Century BCE.

Continue reading →

batumi: stories told and untold

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Mosaic in Batumi Piazza by Georgian-Swiss designer Natalia De Pita-Amirejibi comprises 88,244,735 cut and treated tiles of 1 sq. cm each. The marble for the tiles was sourced from 15 different countries.

Mosaic in Batumi Piazza by Georgian-Swiss designer Natalia De Pita-Amirejibi comprises 88,244,735 cut and treated tiles of 1 sq. cm each. The marble for the tiles was sourced from 15 different countries.

Batumi sits on the far western frontier of Georgia, on a pebble-strewn Black Sea coast a mere 20 kilometres away from neighbouring TĂĽrkiye. Not many travellers to Georgia make it this far. Which is a pity. The chalk to the rest of Georgia’s cheese, Batumi is an over-the-top Las Vegas-styled sea-side resort in a country known otherwise for its soaring mountains, Soviet remains, rich Orthodox Christian history, and earthy wine.

Brazen, brash, and straight out of Disneyland, Batumi is generous to the curious traveller. It tosses in a Byzantine fortress and a world-famous botanical garden into a quirky mix of fantastical skyscrapers, restored Russian Imperial-era edifices, fabulous outdoor art, mega events, and global cuisine.

Much like it did with me. Continue reading →

travel diaries: in search of king tamar’s svaneti

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Fresco of King Tamar [left] with her father King Giorgi III. This fresco in Vardzia is the only surviving portrait of Tamar painted during her lifetime in the 12th Century.

Fresco of King Tamar [left] with her father King Giorgi III. This fresco in Vardzia is the only surviving portrait of Tamar painted during her lifetime in the 12th Century.

Mepeta Mepe, King of Kings Tamar was only 18 when she was crowned co-ruler of the Kingdom of Georgia in 1178. Six years later, when her father King Giorgi III died, she became its sole ruler. Here, I’d like to add some context regarding the word ‘Mepe’ before I write further. Georgian is a gender-neutral language, and Mepe means king or sovereign ruler, immaterial of whether the person is male or female.

Coming back to Tamar, her title was not the only unusual part of her story. Georgia, under her rule, reached its political and cultural zenith. Its borders spread from the Black Sea in the west to the Caspian Sea in the east, and the Greater Caucasus Mountains in the north all the way to eastern TĂĽrkiye and northern Iran in the south. She founded multiple cultural academies, and the arts and literature flourished with masterpieces such as the epic poem Knight in the Panther’s Skin by Shota Rustaveli written as an ode to her extraordinariness. Continue reading →

travel shorts: georgia, birthplace of wine and the toastmaster

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When the word for ‘cheers’ [Gaumarjos] translates to ‘to victory,’ it tells you a lot about the role of wine drinking in a country that has been racked by attacks for millennia.

Wine in the Caucasian country of Georgia is not just a drink. It is an integral part of elaborate feasts called ‘supra‘ led by a ‘tamada‘ or toastmaster, who makes fiery toasts using scooped-out animal horns without ever getting drunk. It is a celebration—of a people holding onto their own identity. Hoping for wins at war. Winning those wars. Rejoicing in those wins. Whether the borders expanded or shrunk. Continue reading →

photo essay: remnants of soviet georgia

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The relationship between Georgia and Russia is, well—complicated. Irrevocably woven, yet defiantly independent, Georgia’s past avatar as the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic still peeps through across the country. You only need to look. A brutalist masterpiece. A colossal deserted mine with cable cars still frozen mid-air in space and time. Poker-faced apartment blocks sliced with horizontal walkways and plunging lifts. Magnificent abandoned sanatoriums built over healing springs that have given way to tall overgrown trees, moss, and wildflowers.

An urbex paradise. A lesson that nothing lasts forever. Continue reading →

travel shorts: home at the kutaisi family house museum

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I am
what inspires me.
You are
what you love.
If you set your heart
upon a purpose,
you shall arrive there—
and believe me—
there,
you will find me.
~ Mari Berdzenadze, Excerpt from LAK’ECH

Deep in the heart of Kutaisi’s oldest neighbourhood is Mari’s home. Number 39 on Dato Berdzenadze Street—the street is named after her brother who died aged 21. He was the bodyguard of Eduard Shevardnadze, foreign minister during the Soviet-era, and independent Georgia’s second president. Dato was killed during elections. The house goes by the name Kutaisi Family House Museum. Continue reading →

usgalimal, south goa’s 30,000-year-old geoglyphs

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I am often asked what is my favourite travel destination. High up on the long list is India. Just when I think I have figured the travel scene out here, it throws me a googly. Now look at Goa for instance. Top layer: beaches and Portuguese-era culture and churches. Second layer: pristine tropical nature and ancient Hindu temples. Third layer? Prehistoric geoglyphs.

Yes, even I was taken by surprise. Far from prying eyes is a collection of some 125 rock carvings spread over 5,000 sq. metres on a laterite shelf dated between 20,000 BC and 30,000 BC in South Goa. They are known as the Usgalimal rock engravings, named after the nearest village. Continue reading →

museum visit: piprahwa relics—the light and the lotus

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By oneself indeed is evil done and
by oneself is one defiled, by oneself
is evil not done and by oneself is one
purified. Purity and impurity
depend entirely on oneself; no one
can purify another.

~ Dhammapada, Verse 165

The story of Buddha’s Piprahwa relics is as unusual as the story of the man himself—a 6th/ 5th Century BCE prince, Siddhartha Gautama from the Indo-Gangetic plain, who renounced worldly life and possessions to find a faith built on compassion and self-discovery.

Throughout his life, he was adamant he be treated only as a teacher and not God. Because there was no God. Only our karma. Continue reading →

72 hours in chennai: colonial history, an apostle, and hindu gods

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Chennai had long been on my wish-list. Even though I have travelled extensively through Tamil Nadu, including its magical temple towns’ route, the southern state’s capital had somehow evaded me.

When I got an opportunity earlier this year to explore the city whilst on a personal philanthropic project [I run pro bono workshops in development communication skills for the social sector], no surprises that I grabbed it with glee! The weather was perfect. It was February. I was going to be based in Alwarpet, right next to the city’s historical centre, Mylapore. And I was in no rush. Continue reading →