Walking Around

We really enjoy walking around this city; the visual aspects never fail to stimulate us.  Sunday's walk was in the old town and today's was along Agmashenabelli the way up to the bazaar near the train station: two very different walks to be sure.  The old town is where we focus on the destruction, by nature or man, of the old homes that will never be duplicated in a modern form.  They have tried in the past to make new versions of some of these places and to us these feel like Disney...we have seen it in Signagi as well as here in Tbilisi.  But we go so we can record what we are seeing either with the iPad or camera. How many of the originals will eventually be left is anyone's guess, we can only wait and see.  The doors below are in the old town.

Unrestored doorway in the Old City

Restored

Today's walk kept us on the left bank of the river which is "home" to us.  We have seen great changes here along Agmashenabelli.  Trees were removed and the street was rebuilt; buildings were refurbished on the outside, but not so much on the insides (which is too bad).  The big green market that once was where we took our visiting family and friends for its total assault on the senses has had its own evolution.  We will skip the history on the market and jump to the past several years.

Last year we were excited to see a newer structure erected at the market into which we assumed, because we had seen it under construction, that soon it would be a vibrant market place much like the one in Yerevan.  Today, however, we saw that there was nearly no change inside, most of the coolers all resting unused in the same place as last year.  No more vendors inside as we had hoped.  The once exhilarating experience of shopping amount rows and rows of well displayed fruits, cheeses, dried beans, flour, and meats does not seem to be on the advent of immediate return.  We can only guess that some 70% of the new market space is unused because the space rental is too high.

Fresh pomegranates ready for adding to a dish or made into juice.

Get your fish live and have it dressed at the market.

Outside vendors often sell a wide variety of fresh produce, all very fresh.

There were many more huge trucks like this with produce from Turkey.  We don't think we had ever seen so many.  It does make you wonder about the future of Georgian producers.

Inside the large structure are only a handful of vendors compared to what the building could accommodate.

Suckling pigs, now displayed in meat coolers, used to be displayed on long tables.

This row of cheese sellers is the closest there is to what'll we used to see here.

In the "old" days there would have been five/six or more more of these displays plus all sorts of beautifully displayed dried fruits.

Spices ready to be scooped up and placed into carefully folded packets of paper.

All kinds of nuts organized by quality.

Outside the building along the sidewalk are more fresh fruit vendors.

Everyone needs a bag or two.  The vendors only use small bags depending on the product being sold and expect the buyer to have his own bag.  Hence one needs to have bag sellers like the woman above.

This is the place to come for tiny fish as well.

As we started home from the market we heard singing. The lady in purple was on her balcony singing away.  She did have a lovely voice and it was a nice way to end our visit to the market.

Agmashenabelli Avenue is a long straight street with renovated facades on the buildings for many blocks.  The urban renewal has not quite reached the end closer to our home yet.

A view inside the Apollo Theater...outside is renovated, but inside is glorified rubble.

Near the Apollo is a garden space, where we discovered a new sculpture (to us).  In the same space an older woman was selling sunflower seeds; however, she was more interested in eating them than selling.

It has been very interesting to us to see the city one year on from the end of the Saakashvili era.  The new President has lost the support of the people who put him there (and we're not speaking of the voters) and the business community has put the brakes on completion of old projects and the beginnings of new ones.  Yes, there are skeletons of new high-rises going up in the city, but so many others just sit gathering dust.  We're in a period of stagnation.