12th of May
Eight o’clock sharp, Nur picks us up at the hotel and off to the airport. We have to leave before 10.00h since Mr. Holland from France is arriving for a state visit! So we have to get out of Monsieur’s way. Mount Ararat is now clear and the view very nice. Handling in Yerevan is again very smooth and so is the flight. After 45 minutes we touch down in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. The handling here is even faster and within 40 minutes we sit in our hotel room. Never made such good time in all our trips. Our hotel is right on Shota Rustaveli, the main Avenue of Tbilisi. Here are all the good shops, museums and government offices. We are pleasantly surprised: all very nice, very clean and a lot of building/renovating going on! It’s lunch time now and there is a place we hit right away: Wendy’s!! A fine burger later, we get on a hopp on/hopp off sightseeing bus. There is another tourist besides us so we basically have a private tour.
We pass newly renovated quarters (was ordered by the President), visit street markets where they sell old Soviet stuff, stop at view points overlooking the river and the old city and get off in the old town.
Tbilisi grew up below the walls of the Nariqala Fortress, which stand on the Sololaki ridge above the west side of the Mtkvari. The twisting alleys of the Old Town (Qala) are still full of hidden courtyards and carved wooden balconies leaning at rakish angles. Though almost no buildings here survived the Persian sacking of 1795, many date from soon after that and still have the Eurasian character of earlier times.
Tbilisi is also a modern city trying to move forward in the 21st century after the strife and stagnation of the late 20th. Its streets are crowded with pedestrians, construction debris and hurtling or crawling traffic. Flagship building projects, from a new cathedral and presidential palace, to revamped parks and museums, coexist with crowded old markets, confusing bus stations and shabby Soviet apartment blocks.
Dinner at a nice Georgian restaurant with good meat and good wine. Tbilisi – a place we like.
13th of May
We are still working on our permit for Azerbaijan since the folks there are a bit difficult to deal with! Nevertheless we decide to go to the airport where we are in no time through security and immigration. Despite all the efforts also by our supporting friends back home, we get the nasty news: No permit for Aserbaijan – so we have to stay another day here in this nice city! Not what we really wanted; but there is not much we can do!
Official reasons by the Azerbaijan officials range from not having parking space all the way to too much international traffic at an airport. From a Arzeri friend we learn the true reasons: Sorry but it’s not going to happen. Firstly you were originally flying from Armenia. Secondly you have been changing the plan and requesting permission way in advance. Unfortunately, they are suspicious and nothing can be changed… Reason being first flight from Armenia. As you are aware, there is an ongoing conflict…
Back to the hotel and check in. There we learn that Tom has to go back to the airport to reposition the airplane.The reason is that Monsieur „Le Président“ arrived with two Airbus 330 and needed the parking space. So the remainder of the crew decides to do another old city walking tour. We take a taxi up to Mother Georgia on hop of the hill with great views. From there it is just a short walk over to the Nariqala Fortress. It dates back to the 4th century when it was a Persian citadel. The tower foundation and most of the present walls were built in the 8th century by the Arab emirs, whose palace was inside the fortress. Subsequently Georgians, Turks and Persians captured and patched up Nariqala, but in 1827 a huge explosion of Russian munitions stored here ruined not only the fortress but also the Church of St. Nicholas inside it. In the 1990s the church was rebuilt.
The views are spectacular again and we climb through the ruins to take pictures. More and more clouds are coming up, so we decide to had down and have lunch. As we sit down it starts to rain. And it turns into a thunderstorm with heavy rain. Happy to be inside we wait till it’s all over and head back to the hotel. Some reading and working on webpage before heading for a Georgian dinner with show. Both is very good but not very Rohner-like. A glass of the best Georgian Brandy in the hotel; we all agree that the Armenian one is liked better.
Georgia became a kingdom about 4 B.C. and Christianity was introduced in A.D. 337. During the reign of Queen Tamara (1184–1213), its territory included the whole of Transcaucasia. During the 13th century, Tamerlane and the Mongols decimated its population. From the 16th century on, the country was the scene of a struggle between Persia and Turkey. In the 18th century, it became a vassal to Russia in exchange for protection from the Turks and Persians.
Georgia joined Azerbaijan and Armenia in 1917 to establish the anti-Bolshevik Transcaucasian Federation, and upon its dissolution in 1918, Georgia proclaimed its independence. In 1922, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan were annexed by the USSR and formed the Transcaucasian Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1936, Georgia became a separate Soviet republic. Under Soviet rule, the country was transformed from an agrarian to a largely industrial, urban society.
Recent history has been quite dramatic with fighting in Tbilisi taking place less than 20 years ago.
