Let me start with giving some short facts about the country
- Situated in the Caucasus region of Europe, 4.4 million people, quite resource rich – not necessarily oil or gas
- Has its own language and alphabet which are world’s on its own - I am not aware of a language similar to it
- It was the second Christian country in the world after Armenia
- In The Second World War Georgia lost the biggest number of people as a country, in correlation to the number of entire country population – 800 000 people.
- It was part of the Soviet Union until 1991, after independence the economy collapsed under the impact of civil war and the loss of both preferential access to Former Soviet Union (FSU) markets and large budget transfers from Moscow. Output fell by 70 percent and exports by 90 percent, the worst decline suffered by any transition economy
- Strong reforms generated rapid growth from 2004 through mid-2008, reaching over 9% GDP growth and ranking 15th out of 181 economies rated by the Doing Business report 2009, 4 years back being ranked 112th - the only country to achieve such progress in a short term.
The place I visited, Batumi is a beautiful place, some of the best sights being:
- The Botanical garden – we were lucky to go in spring when everything was green and blossoming. It has South & North American, Australia, Mediterranean, South-East Asian sections and it was a huge relaxation to just be there and walk around it. A very beautiful place which I would visit over and over again.
- The boulevard – is the 1.5 km alley along the sea coast with palm trees, cafes , beach on one side and a park on the other side, passing by some great fountains. Sunset was breathtaking.
- Dancing fountains – as we were walking on the boulevard around 8 pm we heard classical music coming from the park. As we approached we saw it was coming from a fountain which was dancing on the music changing colors. We watched and listened for over an hour when the show finished, it passed as if it was 2 minutes. It was so intense and beautiful. The next day we learned about another one even bigger and more spectacular. And it was –this one was even projecting belly dancers on the water while playing oriental music or ballet during classical music
- In the same park there are 2 yards with birds. One with ducks, pelican, swans, pheasant, guinea fowls, quails and a few others. The other is with peacocks and pigeons. For bird lovers :)
- The local market is a place which speaks clearly about the local reality. On the local food market we discovered a lot of homemade cooked pork meat, butter, cheese, local sweets... Also, the market had domestic beef, pork, chicken, lamb meet. Its vegetables are imported from neighboring Turkey. You can find different kinds of honey for a good price (4 GEL for 0.4 l)
- The church place on the top of the hill, cannot remember its name but once you are in Batumi you will see what I am talking about. On the way up we went through the village and see how houses are organized and how life is like there. Once on the top of the hill the view is rewarding – a 360 view of the city, the Black Sea, hills, mountains and villages as far as 20-30 km. A good place to just take a deep breath, think of nothing, unplug yourself from daily life and enjoy the beauty in front of you – one of those moments when you want time to stop.
Besides these places there are quite a few we didn’t visit. For 5 days we were well entertained and felt like there is more to do.
The culture, the place, the reality – of course I will talk about the tip of the iceberg as I didn’t have time to penetrate the culture deeper
- People – amazingly warm, friendly and hospitable. True souls! It reminded me Rwandans somehow and their un-touched human goodness. Genuine characters! I wish I would interact more with them but language was a huge barrier. I could tell from the short conversations we had, their behavior and what was translated to me. There is also some sadness I could read – they weren’t smiling or laughing too much and they were wearing mainly grey or black. It is a country which had enough traumas just in the last 20 years and that I guess explains it.
- The food – loved it!! Shashlik which is fried marinated meat is delicious. Khinkali is Georgian dish also very delicious, the ones with cheese were my favorites. Also, I ate trout, my favorite fish!!! Khachapuri is another traditional food of bread and cheese, nothing complicated but some of them are very good. But the best things were the boiled and smoked fish (mackerel) and smoked cheese – they were truly delicious. The average price for a dinner in a restaurant – 10 GEL including tips without drinks.
- Development –I had the impression that Romania would have looked similar if we didn’t start re-developing our economy some 10 years ago. They started in 2004 so they are behind but the difference is much bigger than 5 years. Comparing to Turkey I can tell the difference is huge – in terms of infrastructure is easily noticeable, I didn’t see any factories and most of products in supermarkets are imported from Turkey, Ukraine mainly but also I’ve seen products from Belgium, France or olives from Italy …
- Wine – very very good especially after living in Poland and Turkey. They have hundreds of wines and they recognized as one the oldest producers of wine, they might even be the first ones to. The ones we tried and were very good: Khvanchkara, Tsinandali. Every day we bought a bottle of wine and poured it in our travelers bottle and were drinking from it the whole day, sip by sip J. You can easily find homemade wine at a fraction of the price in many stores or in the market – interesting ones to try. Prices for bottled wine vary from 5 to 20 GEL, domestic wine – 2,5 GEL for a 1l.
- People – amazingly warm, friendly and hospitable. True souls! It reminded me Rwandans somehow and their un-touched human goodness. Genuine characters! I wish I would interact more with them but language was a huge barrier. I could tell from the short conversations we had, their behavior and what was translated to me. There is also some sadness I could read – they weren’t smiling or laughing too much and they were wearing mainly grey or black. It is a country which had enough traumas just in the last 20 years and that I guess explains it.
- The food – loved it!! Shashlik which is fried marinated meat is delicious. Khinkali is Georgian dish also very delicious, the ones with cheese were my favorites. Also, I ate trout, my favorite fish!!! Khachapuri is another traditional food of bread and cheese, nothing complicated but some of them are very good. But the best things were the boiled and smoked fish (mackerel) and smoked cheese – they were truly delicious. The average price for a dinner in a restaurant – 10 GEL including tips without drinks.
- Development –I had the impression that Romania would have looked similar if we didn’t start re-developing our economy some 10 years ago. They started in 2004 so they are behind but the difference is much bigger than 5 years. Comparing to Turkey I can tell the difference is huge – in terms of infrastructure is easily noticeable, I didn’t see any factories and most of products in supermarkets are imported from Turkey, Ukraine mainly but also I’ve seen products from Belgium, France or olives from Italy …
- Wine – very very good especially after living in Poland and Turkey. They have hundreds of wines and they recognized as one the oldest producers of wine, they might even be the first ones to. The ones we tried and were very good: Khvanchkara, Tsinandali. Every day we bought a bottle of wine and poured it in our travelers bottle and were drinking from it the whole day, sip by sip J. You can easily find homemade wine at a fraction of the price in many stores or in the market – interesting ones to try. Prices for bottled wine vary from 5 to 20 GEL, domestic wine – 2,5 GEL for a 1l.
I feel this place has a fantastic potential for tourism first of all. It has so much to offer. I haven’t even been to Tbilisi, the mountains or the wine yards. They will need to improve infrastructure, services and their English. I will go back for sure and wonder around the country, it is a joy to be there.
Some useful things in case you are planning to go to Georgia and especially to Batumi:
- Transportation – you can get cheap flight from Pegasus, Onur Air or Sunexpress to Trabzon, from there take a bus to Hopa and then 1 or 2 dolmus to the border at Sarpi. You cross the border on foot and from the Georgian side take bus 101 to Batumi. In Batumi if you want to go to the church on the hill take marshrutka 140 or 155 and point to them that you want to go to church
- Accommodation – there are many places to stay in Batumi as it is a very popular touristic destination. We stayed at Hotel “Prestige” and we negotiated the price. If we would have told from the beginning that we will stay 5 days we would get an even bigger discount, like 30% off. This hotel is new and is very decent – would recommend it and is on the street on which bus 101 comes and goes to the border. The address is 26 May str., 62 (+995 222 7 71 19). It is 10-15 walk from the center. Average prices for hotels 40-70 GEL per night. I heard there is the option to stay with families which host tourists and is very cheap and you get to experience better the culture - next time I will try it but don’t know exactly how to look it up. I think they call them guest houses. Generally Batumi is full with hotels.
- Language – strongly preferred that you have a Russian speaker with you J
- Currency – called Lari and division called tetra. At the time I traveled 1 EUR = 2 GEL. There are exchange offices all over the city
Some useful websites
World Bank country brief
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/
photos on facebook Batumi Botanical Garden & Batumi, Georgia
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