Post-nap, Kutaisi was noticeably much more alive (as was I), its streets busy with vehicles and Georgians of all ages and sizes. We changed some money into Georgian lari (I had some leftover USD from Ukraine) and, using the map our new hosts lent us (“Kutaisi – City of Smile”) headed into the old town, enjoying the very cool fountain covered in bronze animals, the big round theatre building and the shady parks full of old people on benches. Restaurants boasted foreign names – Cafe Sweden, El Paso, Bavaria – but all, as far as we could tell, served the same Georgian food.
When we knocked on the door of the Museum of Military Glory, we surprised a bunch of housewife-looking ladies sat round a cable eating cake. One of them recovered, turned on the lights and guided us through various Red Army campaigns and the more recent “Russian aggression”, as the Georgians refer to it (I, for the record, wholeheartedly agree). Two older, portly gentlemen asked where we were from, and immediately pressed wine and cake on us (the wine was amber and excellent, the cake was halfway between halva and tiramisu.) One also absolutely delighted Arpi by naming the Hungarian football team from 1963. Other than them, the museum was a charming, largely non-sequential photo gallery, with a few personal effects of soldiers, a few RPGs and launchers, pictures of Stalin and Khrushchev, pictures of a Georgian soldier wounded in Afghanistan meeting Barack Obama and Angelina Jolie.
We had more wine, took a group photo (one of the old blokes dragged a random Polish couple in) and said our goodbyes, then went next door to the sports museum. It was another two-room affair where the person at the front desk refused any payment, full of muscular wrestlers, Soviet medals, Olympic memorabilia and rusty guns. The woman who pointed out the highlights (in fairly good English) put the lights out behind us. The National Museum – the third of Kutaisi’s museums, all within rock throw of each other – was the first that actually charged, 3 lari (<£1.) Its treasures are better expressed visually, so wait for me to update this with pictures.
We took a tiny old cable car up over the odd-coloured Rioni* to a very quiet, laid-back Soviet-era amusement park on the hilltop. It was mostly empty, with the Georgian families present sitting on benches rather than availing themselves of the little electric trains and CAR FIGHT (dodgems, but with super soakers). I went straight up the Ferris wheel (identical to the one in Pripyat) and enjoyed the views and the utter lack of health and safety provision – it didn’t even stop for me to get on and off.
There was a little wooden restaurant nearby; we were definitely hungry, but I’ve rarely had a meal so totally delicious. A pork shashlik (with some of the best onions I’ve ever tasted, and an odd, unique, fruity Georgian sauce), cheesy local cornbread, khachapuri (a round flat bready thing absolutely covered in cheese, cut into pizza segments) and a half-litre of some of the best wine I’ve ever had, which given the hot day and the previously empty stomach hit me like a bag of hammers. We tipped the waitress substantially and staggered off down the hill to the riverside, past huge drifts of plastic bottles and rubbish.
The cobbled uphill stagger to the Bagrati Cathedral woke us up pretty well. An information board in Georgian, Russian and English showed what an absolute ruin the thousand-year-old building had been until its 19th century reconstruction. Now – after a highly controversial re-rebuilding which cost it its World Heritage Site status – it’s a compellingly weird hybrid of ancient stone, new stone and black metal, with a functional office integrated, perversely, into the fabric of the building. Little wood and stone altars are scattered around its huge floor like lost toys. Some of the exterior stonework has oddly Celtic looking carvings, from lord only knows how long ago, and in the courtyard a huge iron cross overlooks the city.
Down along a cobbled switchback road, full of weird Japanese export models, horrible American cars and Communist leftovers (they drive Ladas here, but unironically), to the river. Kutaisi’s “Chain Bridge” is clearly just a girder bridge with ornamental chains (“it must be to attract Hungarian tourists”), but, seeking the synagogue, I found a genuine treasure behind the police station and all the weird little dental surgeries: while living in Newport I’d been perplexed by its Kutaisi Bridge, but upon discovering in Kutaisi a Newport Street with a twinning plaque (font Blackadder ITC, classy), suddenly it all made sense.
* Fun fact alert! The Rioni was known to the ancient Greeks as the Phasis, and was viewed by Plato as the easternmost bound of the known world and by Herodotus as the boundary between Europe and Asia. It’s also where the word “pheasant” comes from. Who knew?
Good morning, Kutaisi! – Museums and wine – Chiatura from above – Pioneers’ Palace, Gori – Tbilisi – David Gareja – Akhaltsikhe – Vardzia
underneath the open sky 