Today has been my favourite day of the holiday, I know I said that yesterday, but today has surpassed it.
It was a tour west again, this time to see mostly abandoned Soviet architecture in Chiatura, plus some unusual places of interest. Our wonderful guide was Sally, plus we had a driver and just two other tourists, a couple from Amsterdam, Hanukah and Sasha who were very interesting.
As always, the traffic was bad in Tbilisi, this is because of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine resulting in 60,000 Russians moving to Georgia to get away from the war. Its not just about avoiding fighting, but because all living conditions for the Russian people have vastly declined with the worldwide sanctions and their bank accounts are suspended. Georgia is a good place for them as its a neighbouring country with a lot of Russian speakers. Theres also Ukrainian refugees, they get on as theyre all opposed to the war.
We had a great conversation about languages, especially Georgian, Dutch, English and Russian. Georgians dont have many swear words so tend to use English ones and that makes me so proud! Russian swear words are pretty good too as
they tend to be short, I must learn some. The Dutch dont have many taboo words and use diseases as swear words, mostly outdated ones such as cholera and typhoid, but sometime cancer is used. The impact seems a little lost in translation.
We were also discussing the difference between Dutch and English people, I was very interested because my new jobs HQ is based in the Netherlands. So whereas English people in emails say a lot of sorry to bother you, I just wanted to say I hope you dont mind but, the Dutch people get straight to the point. They find all that faffing rude because its wasting everyones time. Good to know.
The Eastern people of Georgia are different to the West too. So in the West, if you are visiting a family, they will keep asking you if you want something to eat and you keep having to say No multiple times when youre no longer hungry. In the East, if you say No once, chances are youll go hungry for the rest of the day.
humour. Yesterday there was an armed robbery in Kutaisi where locals were taken hostage. The police asked to speak to the hostages and I was given examples of some of the supposed conversation:
There are 11 regions in Georgia, some with their own dialects, some with their own languages. Other differences include work ethics, mannerisms and culture. Apparently Russians near the border are slow workers, whereas the Georgians next to them are fast and efficient.
Sally remembers the Russian invasion, she was 10 years old at the time. She recalls cousins, aunts and uncles who had been driven out of their homes escaping to them. Shes upset that no other countries sent aid, unlike how they are for the Ukraine now. We could only guess: less social media, fewer people have heard of Georgia, general indifference of things being far away.
urban exploration and photography, so we worked well together with no hold ups. Urban exploring is basically nosing into old, decaying and abandoned buildings. Its illegal in The Netherlands and the UK but legal in Georgia. However, you should always be careful.
The city of Chiatura has a population of 10,000 and the main employment is mining and working in the manganese factories or services for the factory workers. Both men and women work in the mines. Theres no university here and few opportunities. The people are poor and the young adults are moving away for a better life.
Our first stop was by an abandoned cable car station, theres a lot of cable cars in the area, this is because of the many mountains. The cable cars are public transport, being a lot more efficient than using winding mountain roads to get to the top. They are faster than the tourist ones that I am accustomed to.
Nearby were two manganese factories, one abandoned, one still in use but from the outside, they both looked derelict.
