- Shawn Basey
- Jun 9
- 7 min read
Updated: Jun 11
Now that we’re situated back in Tbilisi, I’ve had some time to stretch out, explore, reconnect, and get to know the city again. It’s something like meeting a lover after ten years, where the nooks and crannies might all be the same, but she’s wearing new clothes, has a new hairstyle, and all that. Not like I have much experience in meeting old lovers, but I imagine the metaphor works. It’s hard not to be romantic while writing this at a street café while someone tickles the ivories on a piano next door.
And these things aren’t really that surprising. We’ve been back and forth during our entire stay in Belgium, and I’ve been watching these things from afar. And of course, with my having an overgrown, innate cynicism, it means very little ever surprises me.
So, I’m going to modify what I mean by this list. It’s 5 things I’ve found most surprising were I a newcomer. I’m taking off my old hand hat and putting on some rosy glasses, letting the disappointments sink in for the first time again. Woohoo.
Water
I was debating whether I should include water on this list or make a blog about water all on its own.
I’ll preempt this with a strange statement. Georgia is a country that prides itself on its water. If you’re not from the former-USSR, you’d probably not know this. But perhaps the most famous product that came from the Red Riviera second to wine was Borjomi sparkling water.
And for good reason, all the mineral waters here are magic. Seriously. Hangover cures. I haven’t suffered a hangover here yet, precisely because there’s a 24-hour shop on my corner that sells mineral water. Just pick one up while coming home…
But that’s not the surprising thing. Here I’m talking about the tap water.
Now, Georgian Water P… P for Power? Why is that the same company? Anyway, they claim that the water is pure and clean every time they test it. Naturally they would, because they’re selling the product.
The water goes out very often. Usually they text you, sometimes they don’t. It's because they're fixing the pipes constantly, and one wonders just how well, since they're often fixing the same pipes repeatedly. That means there are leaks, so contamination can get in, and when they turn the water back on, it's often brown... yet, GWP says the water is perfect!
What to do
With the water going out irregularly no matter what neighborhood you’re in, you need to be ready, dear reader. If you’re moving to Tbilisi, the first thing you do upon moving into a flat is get yourself a bucket and fill it up with water. Keep that bucket in the bathroom. You’ll thank me later when you’ve got to flush at three in the morning after a night of khinkali and shawarma and things aren’t smelling so great.
Second, buy two or three 2-liter bottles and keep those underneath the sink and keep one in the refrigerator or icebox. That’s for drinking water. When GWP does manage to text you in time to stock up, they also text everyone else, which often means there’s a run on the water in the local shops and you’re going to be out of luck. So better to buy it in advance and just don’t touch it.
Lastly, get an under the sink water filter. You can find them at Domino or Gorgia, or ship one in from Amazon. They're super easy to install yourself, but if you really need help, contact me or Profy.
Lifts
I have mentioned my lift before. 5 tetri up and 5 tetri down. I was really hoping that issue would resolve itself while we had gone, but when we moved back it was the same BS. See why I'm cynical? It keeps me from a great deal of disappointment in life. Now, unfortunately, the lift status means I have to not only get back in touch with my religion in hopes the dang rickety thing works (I’ve already gotten stuck a few times, but thanks to my beefy arms I crack open that door like a tin of beans), but it also means I have to carry a crap ton of coins.
And I’ve got to have a variety of coins. Because it’s not just my lift. The lift coin box is a very common reality in Tbilisi. Some are for 5 tetri, others are for 10 tetri. Well, I haven’t found a 20 tetri one yet, but with khinkali at 2 lari a nipple, it’s only a matter of time before the lift guy union calls a meeting and raises the rates.
What to do
You’ve got to learn some new words. I used to just hold a one-lari coin and say the same words a beggar might use. That clearly doesn’t work, as people just assume I’m a beggar. So I leveled up my vocabulary.
"Damishalet 5 tetrianebad, gtkhovt." That means, “Break it up for me into 5 tetri, please.” So there you go. Memorize that line, my nouveau akhal Tbiliselebo, you’re going to need it.
Prices
Inflation around the world is no secret. Stuff’s been getting expensive everywhere. It’s not just eggs in the US, but also khinkali and khatchapuri here in Tbilisi. I remember for a time at some economic institute, there was a guy keeping track of what he called the “khatchapuri index”, which was the rate of inflation that hit the ingredients needed to make khatchapuri. Cheese, flour, butter, eggs… a real “basket of goods”.
Khinkali Prices
Well, I don’t know about the prices of all that, but I can tell you about khinkali, those juicy meat dumplings so popular here. When I left during covid, they were running for about a lari. Fancy “sakhinklays” would charge about 1 lari 20 tetri. Now you’ve found a deal if you can slurp them down for 1.80, and about 2 lari means you’re not getting ripped off. Anything over 2 lari, avoid.
Beer Prices
The “beer index” is my other most sensitive economic metric. But coming from Belgium, beer here seems kind of dirt cheap. Then looking at my own salary—which is something the equivalent of what the average Georgian should be getting paid (mind you, they get far less), and it’s a bit more of a disaster to alcoholics across these fair mountains.
A “domestic” non craft brew these days will run you anywhere from 6 – 10 lari. It’s quite a range, mostly because Georgians have the habit of just inventing prices out of mid-air for everything. My swilleries of choice charge around 8 lari, but I’ve been known to throw down 10 when the company is good.
This is for pints/.5 liters mind you.
Which translates to something like 3 or 4 euro a pint. If you’re on a European or US budget of course, that’s still pretty cheap. Not as damned cheap as it was a few years back, and considering that nobody is making any more money than back then…
Now, for local craft beers, expect 11-16 lari. For international beers… you’re going to have to start doing some complicated maths to see if it’s worth it. That’s about 4 or 5 Euros/USD per pint. Which I guess is about the international average.
Coffee Prices
Coffee in a café has also taken a hit on the budget, but this comes with mixed blessings. Before, coffee was 2-6 lari, but you were pretty much limited to Lavazza in paper cups (for Americans, Lavazza is like the Folgers of Italy). Nowadays, we’ve got access to much better coffee, but it comes at much higher prices. Americanos start around 9 lari, for instance, at a proper sit down place with proper ceramic mugs.
You can still get cheap paper cup coffee though, if your heart really desires the slumming experience. That’s up to you. But anyway, I’ve got a whole blog on that already.
Playgrounds
Over the past few years, there was a movement to make all kinds of colorful, wonderful little playgrounds all across Tbilisi. This was when my kid was first born, so that was really awesome. They even rebuilt the playground at our building. Hooray for that. There were two slides, a straight one and a curvy one, and two swing sets, a bouncy boat thing, and some seesaws.
Notice how I use the past tense. Now there is only one slide, one seesaw, and the two swing sets.
I’m not sure what it is about Georgians and playgrounds. Do they just hate playgrounds? They actively destroy them, and nobody maintains them, so that they just become hazardous waste areas where you have to have a constant eye on your kid so they don’t end up cutting their wrists on some exposed screw-spear and dying from tetanus or the plague or whatever.
I took the little guy to another “new” playground, which was finished just last year and was being spread on City Hall’s social medias as quite the accomplishment. It featured a wooden castle, a bunch of slides, a zip line, and some swings. The castle seems to be in the process of dismantled, the wood walls being stripped for, I guess, firewood. Only the frame of the zipline still exists, and the only thing in a not-questionable condition was a swing.
After about 10 minutes, the little man gave a deep sigh and said, “Let’s go home.”
Now, in Belgium, not only were there well-maintained playgrounds every 200 meters, there were also indoor playgrounds in every neighborhood and town. Awesomeness! But well, just not here. There are a couple of amusement places that are just fine-tuned to drain bank accounts, so there’s that. Yay.
Tourist Touts in Neu Tiflis
Another thing that wasn’t really a surprise for me were the Turkish-style touts that sprang up in the newly renovated district of “Neu Tiflis” (I do have a blog on that after all). Every step you take is another representative of another restaurant begging you to come inside or to look at their menu. Back off people! If I wanted to see your menu, then I’d look.
The situation is so bad I completely avoid the district every time I’m in the neighborhood. And I even have to include a warning in my audio tour about it. But the tour also takes you to Orbeliani, where I was, at last, pleasantly surprised.
The newly renovated district of Orbeliani has somehow avoided the fate of annoying restaurateurs with failing marketing schemes. For some reason the businesses avoid this tactic, thus making the district on the whole that much more enjoyable.
Actually, I’m not really sure if they avoid it. As I write, I do see some workers hanging out on the street. So either the natural laziness of Georgians kicked in today, which finally has a great effect—leaving tourists at peace to admire the architecture and enjoy the scenery, or they were told not to harass people. Either way, I guess I’ll be returning to Orbeliani.
