| The first pictures I took in Georgia. | |
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The first day I arrived in Georgia was at 6 AM on a Sunday after flying since 9 PM the previous night from Heathrow, and crossing another four times zones. All I took pictures of was the river in front of the apartment. Our building is a seven story Soviet-Style apartment bloc. Then the decided the roof was wasted space, and added another apartment. That's where we live. There is a small 'patio' where we hang our clothes to dry. It is from here that I took the picture, looking towards the east and slightly southerly. The river is the Mtkvari, and runs through Tbilisi. That is the Sukhoi Most (or bridge) that you see. The water is always brown, and only deep enough for fish. Once I saw a house boat floating down. The metal sheet in the front left is the cover for our diesel generator. Across the river you can see some blue tarps, that's the open air market where you can buy anything. The US Embassy is just beyond the trees behind the market. |
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The same spot, looking west, slightly south. The building on the far right that looks like it has tarps all over it does. When the Abkhaz blew through the territory up to the Inguri river, they sent a wave of IDP's before them. IDP's are Internally Displaced Persons, and differ from refugees in that refugees leave their countries. IDP's just move around within it. So the building, which used to be a hotel, now houses a bunch of families who left everything they couldn't carry back west. If you need cheap labor, look here first. I could identify more buildings, but you can't see them enough to make them out. I'll take individual pictures of any important buildings and post them separately. | We went to a mountain fortress/cathedral. |
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This is a view from the walls of the fortress Narikala, looking down on the cathedral inside. You can see the walls going along the left of the picture, with the Mtkvari River below. It is a sheer dropoff below the walls. On the backside of the fortress is the hilltop, and more walls. Very steep, and very defensible. The church looks new bacause it has only been rebuilt from its ruins within the past five years. |
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Here I am standing at the same point, only looking behind me, away from the cathedral. You can see how steep the mountain is, and that the walls continue to the next hilltop. To the picture's left is the backside of the fortress. |
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I cannot say who this is due to security risks. But, needless to say, we are looking down upon Tbilisi and the River Mtkvari, from the highest point of the Narikala fortress, the same place we took the other two pictures. The wall continues to my left, and the cathedral is on the right. That houseboat is the only boat we've seen on the water. It had a party going on, and was blasting Madonna so loud that we could clearly hear it. Behind his shoulder is the other Metekhi Cathedral, which you see in the next picture. |
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The same photo as before...the cathedral on the corner will be shown in more detail on the next page. |
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Call me sentimental, but I just couldn't leave the Narikala without getting a picture of the first sheep that I saw in Tbilisi. There are the grey mounds you can just barely make out where the shadows on the grass meet the sunshiny walls. There is a guy outside of work who takes his 3 billy goats for a walk every day, but sheep are less often seen inside the city. On the near horizon is the fortress walls again, and the front door to the cathedral is immediately to my left. |
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