Report - Georgia - an Interesting Country

[Harry_Flashman]

As a country, Georgia is a fascinating place, as I discovered on a recent roadtrip there. The whole country is brimming with ex-Soviet buildings and infrastructure which could provide some really good opportunities for further exploration. The photos below were just of some bits we came across on the way which proved to be worth a quick stop.

Railway carriage bridge

Seemingly a cost effective way to provide a footbridge across a section of river. The carriage floor had dropped away in parts but was still solid enough to allow a crossing.

Chiatura cable cars

Chiatura is a mining town in Western Georgia where Soviet era cable cars are still used by the mine workers and locals to ascend the steep cliffs surrounding the town. Each car has an attendant who takes a small fee from you for the journey which is well worth it for the views from the top. The cars themselves vary in age and condition from old and rusty through to very old and very rusty and the safety mechanisms such as emergency braking systems are seemingly non-existent, which makes for a slightly more interesting ride.

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[Bertie Bollockbrains]

I went on holiday to Georgia recently -agreed it's a fascinating country with probably the best wines of anywhere in the world - i think they invented wine making 1000s of years ago. It's my lasting memory of the place and I probably sound like an alcoholic now. Cheap to fly to (for the distance) via Ukraine with UIA and cheap whilst out there with stunning mountain scenery. Also just about the oldest Christian country in the world with a very unique culture and heritage. You will need a lot of time out there due to poor roads to get to the really interesting places such as Svaneti (which is also the highest inhabited village in Europe). Armenia next door highly recommended but the relatively more expensive of the two countries.

 

[Olkka]

Nice one. Agreed with the wine! It's definitely on the come up tourism-wise, the Wizzair flight to Kutaisi from Luton is packed out with young backpackers these days. Also can't recommend enough nipping over the border to Abkhazia for dereliction paradise.

 

[AlexUrbex1]

Great report. Hope to see more. I know someone who was arrested at the cable car. Did you have any problems with the army there?

 

[Harry_Flashman]

Great report. Hope to see more. I know someone who was arrested at the cable car. Did you have any problems with the army there?

No, no problems at all - we just hopped on the cars with no issues, no strange looks or anything like that, so I guess they were relatively used to visitors using them. That said, I expect that recent tensions in the region as a whole might have changed the situation there a little, but as far as I'm aware Georgia hasn't had much direct involvement in the conflict.

The only "issue" we did have was a slight misunderstanding with a couple of Police officers. It turns out that the hitchhiking gesture there is to point an index finger down the road rather than the thumb out gesture I'm familiar with. When we were driving we saw two Police officers pointing and just assumed they were asking us to pull over for a check. When we stopped they both hopped in the car, with one of them immediately going to sleep on the back seat, at which point we realised they were after a lift rather than doing a check! We weren't able to communicate either way to work out where they actually wanted to go to and couldn't even manage to use Google maps to get an idea from them (not sure if the Latin rather than Georgian alphabet meant they didn't recognise anywhere on it). We ended up driving with them for about 2 hours before they got out - I'm still not sure if it was where they actually wanted to go or if they just had enough of my driving!