Georgia Series Part 1

"What do you know about Georgia?" I was asked by a georgian friend. Not much, was my answer accept that the country was once russians, fought a bloody war with Russia quite recently. It was near Russia, Turket, Armenia and somewhat close to Iran. And that was about all information I had on this exciting country. I had been to Tblisi with the National 7s Rugby team before as a player but you normally don´t see much of the city during those trips.

So a couple of years ago, we decided it was a good idea to go to Georgia to take our clubs U18 Youth-Rugby-Team. They certainly know how to play the sports there being the national sports (I suppose) and it would be a great challenge to our U18. Nobody really knew what to expect. And this time around we planned for some culture as well.

Well, so here are some facts (that I got from Wikipedia :) ): Georgia is a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the south by Turkey and Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan.

The capital and largest city is Tbilisi.

Georgia covers a territory of 69,700 square kilometres (26,911 sq mi), and its 2017 population is about 3.718 million (which is about the amount of Berlin, Germany). So much for the facts.

I arrived a few hours earlier before my team did so I decided to walk through Tbilisi. It´s a fascinating town. There is an old city that is amazing to walk through. It´s situated in a deep valley surrounded by smaller "peaks".

Next to the old parts of the city, several interesting new buildings have been recently constructed with quite some architectural flair.

It is this mix, that makes the Georgian Capital so interesting. There were still streets in which you could see, that life can be quite rough here - or so it seems to me, as a European where everything is shiny and new. Some of the buildings and cars still had the typical appearence of eastern "block countries".

I always have the impression, that these are tough but very honest societies. But that´s just my 2 cents of thought on this.

What struck me, was the amount of churches in Georgia. Georgians have adopted christianism in the early 4th century. Today almost 80% of the population practice Eastern Orthodox Christianity. When we took the bus, even the busdriver would perform the cross sign on his chest everytime we passed a church.

I haven´t said anything about the incredible hospitality of the Georgians. It´s amazing. Mostly combined with loverly food and an abundance of very drinkable self made Cha Cha and wine, we spent some cool evening with our local hosts in Tbilisi. It seems that Tblisis is becoming more and more of an electronic music hub aswell. The Georgian capital is bustling and I can only recommend a trip.

I will do another bit on the incredible countryside when travelling in Georgia. This will be up in the next weeks or so. There are to many cool places around that I want to share, so stay tuned for more.

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Best regards and safe journeys!

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