Georgia April 2025

It is something of an understatement to say that my debut trip to Georgia has been a long time in the making. In fact a previous trip was fully locked and ready to go in the diary, a result of that strange time in our lives when our two lads had left home to seek love, fame and fortune, and we were faced with the daunting realisation of just how much our lives were intertwined with theirs. Nathalie had dealt with this adroitly through art and a series of increasingly exotic sailing trips, but I was maybe floundering a bit more outside of some interesting excursions to photograph small bands in even smaller venues.

An opportunity came to explore new horizons with a week of photography workshops in Tbilisi. Not usually my thing but the combination location and workshop lead (an esteemed and fascinating Magnum photographer called Antoine d’Agata) made the whole event increasingly irresistible and I was soon signed up with flights and accommodation booked up.

The event was scheduled to start on March 31 2020.

That I can type that and around 99% of the then world population would know why it never happened is testament to that most extraordinary period in time. Also so strange to look at the email trails from that time and see that the event was rescheduled first to June of that year and then to September before being canned altogether.

We really had no idea did we?

So what was it about Georgia that grabbed my attention and never let go, that lodged itself both in my psyche and, more practically, on my list of desired destinations?

In part it is geography of course. The place is often beautiful, rolling and rugged hill country interspersed with countless valleys and gorges, ringed by spectacular mountain ranges or, in the west, the Black Sea. And there is also the Georgian people, well known for initial taciturn responses to strangers that easily gives way to broad grins and warmth, and combines with a notorious sense of riotous fun. Stories abound of people from international organisations who have been kidnapped on behalf of some cause or another, and subsequently released having forged friendships in the wild drinking parties that ensued in captivity. On one occasion a group  even being released one at a time in the order of how well they performed in said drinking games.

Underpinning all this though are the reasons we have been pushing east on so many recent trips. It is not just that these countries form the border with Asia and all that lies beyond that, it is that these countries have historically acted as a conduit between vastly different countries and cultures. The valleys and plains have for centuries seen a flow of traders, armies and migrants. If our own island acts as a destination or starting point for distant travels, these border areas see rather a continual two-way flow. So while the national and cultural identities are as strong as they can be they are both forged in and shaped by these varying influences. And it shows too, not least in the architecture which captures the whole story from the ancient through to the modern with tantalising stops along the way including of course that of the Soviet Union.

It is fair to say that day one did not exactly live up to such romantic musings. A five hour night flight east is pretty brutal, leaving little time for sleep but depositing us at our destination in time for breakfast. Moreover, we arrived to very wet gales and an underlying dank greyness. We checked into our room and ventured for a coffee even as mini-rivers of rainwater flowed across the roads.

Of course, faced with such unwelcoming conditions as we ventured into our west meets east exploration we did what any self-respecting intrepid adventurers would do. We drank our coffee and went to bed until lunchtime.

Tbilisi carries with it a reputation as a chaotic and engaging city and comfortably manages to affirm this. Outside of some modernisation, including some tourist-focused infrastructure, much of the centre of the city is taken up by Old Tbilisi, a mishmash of narrow, winding roads and booby-trapped pavements. Most of the architecture dates back to the 19th Century and many of the European style intricate carvings, facings, balconies, doors and stairways are now in a glorious state of disrepair. In the mix are the various enhancements from the Soviet era, often concrete in nature and probably in a less than glorious state of disrepair a few weeks after they were built. Still, it’s a compelling mix and it’s a great area to get lost in, not least in the way the partially open doors of apartment blocks or gateways to courtyards offer a tantalising glimpse of the lives that exist beyond.

Tbilisi was a marvellously vibrant introduction to the country but the legendary Georgian countryside soon beckoned. We headed east towards the wine region (actually one of many wine regions it transpired) and we had silence in the car for a good 40 minutes or so. It was finally Nathalie who said what had hitherto only been thought and opined that “this is a bit shit isn’t it?”. And indeed it was, reminiscent of Lincolnshire on a bad day, not helped by the gloomy conditions.  Even an attempt to leave the main road and find our own way didn’t enliven things much and led to our first experience of that common Georgian phenomena, the road that looks promising before just sort of ending.

But we weren’t far from another Georgian phenomena, the one where things all change, unexpected and seemingly out of nowhere. We weren’t obviously aware of doing much outside of turning a corner and going up a hill but suddenly the landscape all changed and we saw the true beauty that is promised of Georgia.

I need to describe this carefully, as the scene rolling out in front off us was not dramatic in the sense of soaring peaks, deep valleys and vast forests, but something more nuanced and subtle. Although hilly in places much of the landscape consisted of an endless series of hillocks, ridges, crevices and buffs, the contrasts generating a pleasing pallet of subtle pastel colours. The now emerging sun cast a pleasing relief over it all, creating numerous little shadows, and setting off the colours of rock strata that peaked out from the green surface at regular intervals.

We were soon to learn that the locals have a long history with this rock, craftsmen having learnt how to master it’s inherent malleability for their purposes. The first sign of this came with a church on a hill that was entirely hacked out of the rock face, the next even more impressively with a monastery on a hill where the use of the rock in carving out entire buildings created an almost organic look, more reminiscent of wood that rock.

At this point we should pay tribute to the Georgian propensity of placing monasteries and other religious buildings on prominent viewpoints, no doubt creating wonderful views for the inhabitants but also tremendously evocative visages at a distance. Perfect indeed for landscape photography or a movie scene but designed hundreds of years before these existed. Always worth thinking of others in the future, thank you Georgians.

Preferring to complete a loop and re-enter Tbilisi from the south, and so visit the industrial Soviet city of Rustavi (as well as avoiding a retread of the East Midlands leg of our journey), we observed and obeyed a large, blue traffic sign indicating the direction. The confidence of the sign, alongside the prominence granted to the route on our map, was somewhat belied by the reality, which was a 50 minute drive across a wide plateau along an extended line of rutted mud works not to be dignified with the description of track, let alone road. Two large flocks of sheep, attended by lively sheepdogs (wolves and cars being their main prey) and stooped, white-haired men with leather waistcoats and long sticks (some cliches are true) were our only company if you discount the unseen Azerbaijanis across a border that was at times mere metres away.

Doggedly moving forward in a straight line and avoiding a swerve that might create a diplomatic incident, we finally started our descent to be met with a distant view horizon of industrial buildings and rising plumes of smoke. As we neared this tableau turned into mile upon mile of old steel and brick and often derelict buildings, long snaking pipes, chimneys, pylons and wires, and old rusting trains. Everything seemed black, even the water of the wetlands in which part of this was placed simply reflecting back the darkness of what lay above. 

Welcome to Rustavi.

This city being largely a Soviet construct and therefore centrally planned, the living part of the city is of course completely different. Such cities often have a Truman style movie set feel about them, with their wide, straight avenues and impeccably fronted and often grand buildings (at least in the centre, the outer parts being equally neat and straight but far greyer and more compact). Here the feeling is amplified by what we observed before and is almost incongruous given the obvious decline of the industry that drove the city’s growth.

These were scenes that were to become a regular theme, rolling countryside with ancient buildings on distant peaks giving way to signs of industrial decay alongside communities somehow evolving and surviving. We saw it in Gori, Stalin’s home town and once recipient of a Soviet project that saw a thriving textiles industry with 10,000 employees, and in Chiaturi with it’s manganese mines deep in cliff faces that were accessed by steel cable cars hanging off long, looping ropes strung across the valley. We even saw it in picturesque Kutaisi with its rusting trains, hollowed out commercial buildings and fading and its endearing but fading fairground.

And there is almost always the Soviet presence, never more obvious than in Tskaltubo, a Spa Town built almost entirely to devote itself to the health and leisure needs of communist party members. In its heyday it attracted countless thousands of visitors and the attendant economic activity. Now, most of the previously grand buildings that were built so precisely for the benefit of the devoted and privileged are in a derelict state, with just a couple of the more central ones now the subject of extensive renovation and restoration. A haunting and evocative place.

And yet despite the fading and worn facades of once grand buildings or dramatic dereliction of more recent industry it is not this that defines Georgia or its people. This comes with the multitude of moments, the bustling markets (“this is the price but this is a market so it’s not the final price”), the unexpected coffee shop and restaurant finds (including the coffee shop that was a day away from its grand opening which meant he still served us coffee but wouldn’t charge us for it AND insisted we try his new bread recipe too), old Georgians randomly shouting at us, the young brother and sister playing knock and run over the road from our Tbilisi hotel (the woman running out to remonstrate with broom in hand straight out of Tom and Jerry central casting), the coexistence with a million street dogs, and a multitude of other moments often unexpectedly around the next corner.

Right now Georgia is fighting to define its communities locally and its country on the world stage. If its past is marked on its landscape, buildings, and monuments, the present and future are stamped on the irrepressible character of its people.