Georgia Trip

I decided to go back to the Republic of Georgia for one week because I hadn't been back since I left in 2004. I wanted to see all my old friends and see how the country had changed in the last 5 years. The first thing I noticed right away was the new airport. It was a real modern nice airport. A far cry from the one I remember from 2002 when we arrived in the middle of the night and they turned the electricity off at the airport before we left. This airport has ATM machines, cafes, baggage carousels etc. It is great. Americans don't even need a visa. The police just stamp your passport and let you go. No paper work, no money, no questions, nothing. The war undeniably hurt little Georgia there is no question. But still Tibilisi is looking up. There are new stores and cafes spread out along Rustaveli Ave. There are still some empty shops too and a lot still seems to be under construction such as the old department store. But things generally seem to be headed in the right way. People all over the country now have better roads to drive on and 24/7 electricity. These are two huge things I didn't have from 2002-2004. Everywhere you look in Tbilisi something seems to be under construction or soon to be. Nestan is working for a Turkish construction company in Tbilisi. Right now her company is working on remodeling the old intourist hotel. It will be a 5 star hotel called the Radison. A lot of foreign investors pulled out after the war but Georgia is still moving ahead and hopefully in a few years the foreign investors will come back. I didn't see a lot of tourists in Tbilisi and in Ambrolauri they told me tourism was way down from this time last year. But my friend Nino told me that Kazbegi was full of tourists when she recently went there. So there are still a few adventuresome tourists who want to come to Georgia. Tbilisi does a much better job of catering to tourists than Dushanbe, Tajikistan. There are few to no souvenir shops in Dushanbe but I saw a lot to buy in Tbilisi. My little town in the mountains Ambrolauri also is looking up. It seemed like the whole town was under construction. All the main roads were fixed this year and the side roads are due to be fixed next year. The road from Ambrolauri to Oni is now paved all the way with a white line down the middle. Tkibuli also has new roads in town. All the roads in Racha seem better except the road from Oni to Shovi is still the same. There is a new bridge though in Shovi because the other one was bombed. I don't know about the road up to Uravi but I suspect that it hasn't been done yet. There are also all new road signs for people pointing out hiking trails and points of interest. There is a new camp at Shauri Lake. Some of the cabins up at Shovi have been remodeled too. The Stalin statue hasn't been fixed (yeah). Considering Oni was bombed less than a year ago it looked pretty good. I didn't have an opportunity to look around too much but it looked like the hotel in the town center was being rebuilt and the main street was nice and new.
Valeri my host brother said the war set them back about 5 years. I don't know maybe it did. But Racha is starting to look-up a bit and its potential is huge. There is a lot to see and do there for outdoor lovers. There is still of course a lot of work to be done and some people in Racha are still just sitting on their hands and not helping. But it looked like a lot of people were helping and trying to make things better. Change takes time and 5 years really isn't that long but if the people in Tbilisi and Racha continue at the pace they are on their country and city will be a lot better in the not too distant future. I took a lot of pictures some of which are on this blog. There are even more new blds. in Ambrolauri that don't appear on this blog. There is even a Chinese family living in Ambrolauri now and they have a shop selling Chinese stuff right next to the Magti shop as you come into town. The Khavanchara wine still tastes as great as it ever did.
When you take the marshrutka from Didube you see a lot of refugee houses in rows along side the main road through the country. There are even refugee house in Oni. Most of the refugee houses are near Gori though.