A storied crossroads between Asia and Europe, between Islam and Christianity, between covetous empires muscling in from the north, south, east and west, Tbilisi’s history is a kaleidoscope of invasion and reconquest.
The Republic of Georgia’s strategic capital has been occupied through its 1,500-year history by Persians, Arabs, Byzantines, Ottomans and Russians. Throughout this turbulent past it has retained its essential character: A polyglot outpost on the old Silk Road that has welcomed all traders and coopted all invaders. This easygoing attitude endures today. Its 1.5 million citizens bustle about a small city in the heart of the Caucasus that is replete with Georgian Orthodox churches, techno dance clubs, medieval citadels, flea markets that flog postcards of homeboy Stalin, a park with animatronic dinosaurs, a balconied historic district, and numberless wine shops and mom-and-pop outlets for khinkali — the signature meat dumpling of the realm.
This interactive city walk unfolded over two days in a counterclockwise circle covering 12 miles (19 km).
— Paul Salopek
Walking Tbilisi
Paul Salopek
February 7 2015, 4:07 pm
Founding bird
Paul Salopek
Georgian King Vakhtang Gorgasali went hunting in the 5th century. His falcon vanished. He found it drowned in a pool of water, with a pheasant clutched in its talons. Both birds were boiled. “Tbili” means “warm” in Georgian: “City of the thermal hot springs.”
February 7 2015, 4:08 pm
Guram Sali
Paul Salopek
Guram Sali: veteran mountaineer, urban alpinist, avid motorcyclist, lover of words, and walking guide in Tbilisi. Our stroll begins at Abanotubani, the city’s old redbrick heart, a fabled bathhouse district.
In his words: “Tbilisi is the kind of place that’s gathered many ethnic groups and many religions — there is Christianity here, and Islam, and Zoroastrianism, and Judaism. In a word, it’s an interesting city. I don’t know why I live here. I don’t know why I like it here. I can’t tell. This city has attracted many people. Many Russian poets have been here, basically most of them — Pushkin, and Lermontov, and Yesenin. And Tchaikovsky lived here, the composer. Something about this city attracts people, I don’t know what.”
February 7 2015, 4:17 pm
Paul Salopek
Juma Mosque
Juma Mosque. Echoes of Islam. The first Arabs arrived in the Caucasus shortly after the death of Mohammed, in 654 A.D. Juma Mosque, the only mosque still in use in Tbilisi, was razed and rebuilt three times between the 16th and 19th centuries.
February 7 2015, 4:35 pm
Guardian
Paul Salopek
Guardian. Tbilisi citadel.
February 7 2015, 4:54 pm
Wishing tree
Paul Salopek
Wishing tree atop the Tbilisi citadel. Gardeners pruned the tree severely. “What happens to all those cut wishes?” Guram said.
February 7 2015, 4:57 pm
Invaders' view
Paul Salopek
Invaders’ view of the capital. The latest wave: backpack tourists.
February 7 2015, 5:50 pm
Public art
Paul Salopek
Soviet-era public art — the iron spaghetti of above-ground gas pipes.
February 7 2015, 6:02 pm
Paul Salopek
Ascension Church
Ascension Church. Built at the site of a former fire station. Today, the siren’s wailing is human — Georgian polyphonic hymns, sung alternately by men and women, and rooted in pre-Christian folk traditions.
February 7 2015, 7:20 pm
No
Paul Salopek
No to Nazism? Or Hinduism? Or Buddhism? Or Jainism?
February 7 2015, 7:31 pm
Urban trail food
Paul Salopek
A touch of France in the Caucasus.
February 7 2015, 7:51 pm
Repurposed technology
Paul Salopek
Old CDs doubling as TV antenna.
February 7 2015, 7:57 pm
Restaurant Jerusalem
Paul Salopek
The walk’s last kosher meal was in Jerusalem, 2,300 miles ago. Old City, Tbilisi.
February 7 2015, 8:00 pm
Western Wall
Paul Salopek
Mural of the Western (“Wailing”) Wall outside of the Tbilisi synagogue. The city supported a Jewish community for centuries. Targeted by Soviet anti-Semitism, some 24,000 emigrated to Israel starting in the 1970s. Today fewer than 10,000 remain.
February 7 2015, 8:18 pm
Sioni Church
Paul Salopek
Sioni Church, where the cross of St. Nino is locked behind glass. The daughter of a Roman general, St. Nino walked to Georgia from Turkey, and converted the Caucasus kingdom to Christianity in the 4th century. Her cross is made of two grapevines, lashed with her own hair.
February 7 2015, 8:28 pm
Watching
Paul Salopek
What else is new. Once romanticized as the charming “Florida of the Soviet Union,” Georgia declared independence from the Kremlin in 1991, and then lost a territorial war with its former overlord in 2008. Relations with Russia remain chilly.
February 7 2015, 8:29 pm
Churchkhela
Paul Salopek
“Snickers of the Caucasus.” Nuts rolled in thickened grape juice — the inescapable snack called churchkhela.
February 7 2015, 8:32 pm
The Bridge of Peace
Paul Salopek
Loathed and admired, the lights on the futuristic bridge over the Mtkvari River rare triggered by motion sensors. Its components were hauled from Italy in 200 trucks. Guram helped build it, using climbing ropes.
February 7 2015, 8:49 pm
Ronnie in Bronze
Paul Salopek
“Let me tell you about trickle-down.” A lonely Ronnie in Bronze, in Rike Park. Another republican US President, George W. Bush, greets motorists from a fading billboard in the eastern city.
February 7 2015, 9:10 pm
Book sellers
Paul Salopek
Wind carries the words away. Book sellers, Mtkvari riverside.
February 7 2015, 9:15 pm
Paul Salopek
Book sellers
February 7 2015, 9:45 pm
Dry Bridge Flea Market. Stalin postcard for sale at the Dry Bridge flea market. Failed seminarian, bank robber, revolutionary, mass-murderer, sociopath. “One man’s death is a tragedy,” he said, “a million men’s deaths is a statistic.”
Paul Salopek
Dry Bridge Flea Market
February 7 2015, 10:31 pm
Pit stop
Paul Salopek
Refueling at Zakhar Zakharich, a local eatery on the west bank of the Mtkvari. Stolid Georgian fare: good blond beer, spiced meat dumplings called khinkali and skewered pork, all seasoned with cig smoke. Georgian food is trade route cuisine — influenced by Persia, Europe, Central Asia and Turkey.
February 7 2015, 11:21 pm
We are here
Paul Salopek
Alicia Keys in Dedaena Park.
February 7 2015, 11:38 pm
Georgian Picasso
Paul Salopek
Niko Pirosmani — Georgia’s Picasso — in the National Gallery. His famed naïve style was born from the street — he starved to death as a sign painter in 1918. Painting: “Tartar-camel driver.”
February 7 2015, 11:58 pm
Monument
Paul Salopek
Monument to the “Massacre of Tbilisi,” on Rustaveli Street, commemorating an early protest against Soviet rule in which 20 people were trampled and beaten to death by soldiers.
February 8 2015, 12:04 am
Cobbles
Paul Salopek
Back into the Old City.
February 8 2015, 12:14 am
Gloaming
Paul Salopek
Sunset on Mtatsminda Hill.
February 8 2015, 12:17 am
Pantheon
Paul Salopek
A new headstone goes up for “Writers and Other Public Figures” at the resting place of Georgian intellectuals, the Pantheon at St. David’s Church.
February 8 2015, 12:35 am
Mountaineer poet
Paul Salopek
Guram and friend at the grave of Vazha-Pshavela, the 19th-century “mountaineer poet” of Georgia. He wrote more than 400 poems, including long epics that chronicled rural life and death in the Caucasus with keening sympathy.
The river moans in its dark ravine
Turbid, with grief at its heart.
The mountains too are bowed down,
Laving face and hands in the water…
Guram at first refused to be photographed near the grave: “I am not worthy to be in the picture.”
February 8 2015, 12:49 am
Up
Paul Salopek
Up, up, up …
February 8 2015, 1:00 am
Paul Salopek
Mtatsminda amusement park
… to Mtatsminda amusement park, a surreal bubble of animatronic dinosaurs and Soviet-era cartoon music.
February 8 2015, 1:05 am
Paul Salopek
Luna Park
February 8 2015, 1:42 am
Wheel
Paul Salopek
All urban walks are circles. Mtatsminda ferris wheel.
February 8 2015, 2:25 am
Nightfall
Paul Salopek
Back down in the dogleg alleys of the Old City.
February 8 2015, 2:31 am
Spectral walking
Paul Salopek
But of course it’s permitted. Tbilisi by night is different town: The ghosts of 1,500 years worth of travelers pass by.
February 8 2015, 2:33 am
Night baker
Paul Salopek
Old City.
February 8 2015, 3:34 am
Urban campsite
Paul Salopek
Nodar’s café, in the Old City. The hearth is polyglot: Georgian, French, Russian, Farsi, Turkish and German words ring from the bar tables. All are smoothed by glasses of red Saperavi. “One day,” Nodar says, “I’ll put some hitching posts outside for camels.”
February 8 2015, 4:05 pm
A public water fountain in the crumbling heart of Tbilisi’s old quarter offers a sip before a micro-tour of one of Europe’s last unrestored 19th-century urban cores.
Paul Salopek
Old City
February 8 2015, 5:40 pm
Thermal baths
Paul Salopek
Tbilisi’s fabled thermal baths, private and public, once healed the aches of Pushkin and Dumas. During the height of the Silk Road, there were more than 60. Today, a few barely hang on, patronized mostly by tourists.
February 8 2015, 5:43 pm
Coda
Paul Salopek
Closing a crooked circle of space and time. Abanotubani.
