Tbilisi metro

For those who are used to Italian metro system, especially Milan or Rome, former Soviet countries metro systems are definitely uncommon. First thing that one realises is their depth, as they are usually three times deeper than Italian ones, with extremely LONG escalators and basically no regular staircase. To make a comparison, Milan's Duomo yellow track is 25 mts. The deepest here, Rustaveli station, is 60 mts. deep.

I never checked how long does it take for an escalator in Milan to reach one end, but can we guess around 10-15 seconds max? Good, because here...

Two minutes and counting. It is not uncommon to see people sitting on escalators, here.

It is really a lot, but that's not the only thing that puts the Tbilisi metro apart. Unlike Milan and Rome, each station is different. Sure, it doesn't reach the opulence of Moscow metro, but in each there is something connected to the name and purpose of the station. I will take some pics of the metro station as I use them. In the meantime, here is Technical University station.

Fabrika - Place to be

I already mentioned Fabrika, the multifunctional space located a brief walk from Marjanishvili metro station. Since a few days, I moved here, as there is air conditioning, which is essential in this heat, but I had no idea how awesome this place is.

 

 

The place is an old Soviet sewing factory (hence the name, Fabrika), transformed in such a way that it brims with pop culture and urban mood (graffiti and wall art), but keeping the old style alive (concrete, pipes and industrial furniture).

 

 

 

 

 

The rooms are amazing, spacious, clean and cool. The toilets and the showers are directly out of a 80's American teen movie and the breakfast just amazing. If I wasn't going to rent an apartment, I'd probably try to bargain a long-term private room for my entire stay, beat style.

 

 

 

 

 

To this you have to add the yard, where anyone can gather, where you can drink, eat and socialise. And attend gigs to, like the Tbilisi-based Iranian duo NUM, who will play here tonight. 

 

First week

The first week of Georgian lessons are over. I am enjoying them very much, although they are difficult, but the teacher is also very patient!

Maybe the biggest nightmare I faced until now are numbers. From 1 to 10 they are OK, and also from 11 to 29 they are relatively OK. It's from 30 that the folly begins. Like in French, some numbers are obtained by sum or multiplication, or both. So, for 30 we have 20+10. 20 is ოცი (otsi), 10 is ათი (ati), 30 is ოცდაათი (otsdaati).

It gets worse of course especially if you think about their inordinate love for consonant orgies. 76? სამოცდათექვსმეტი (samotsdatekvsmet'i), which literally means "sixty and sixteen" (60+16=76). You must do bloody math! 159?. ას ორმოცდაცხრამეტი, transliterated is "as ormotsdatskhramet'i", which is a wonderful [100+(2x20)+19]=159.

After this, the ergative case and the aorist tense are a breeze...

 

Am I doing any progress, anyway? Yes, I am. My biggest personal task is to strenghten and expand my vocabulary. I am able to buy things in shops, answer to some (very) basic questions but real conversations are yet a thing to come. I am slightly faster in reading Georgian characters, although when words start to be a bit long, I slow down considerably.

 

But I am not in any hurry...

 

Georgian lessons - 1

პირვეი ქართული გაყვეთლი, დღეს! (First Georgian lesson, today!)

We didn't start from the very beginning, as I'm already OK with alphabet, pronunciation and some other basics, but we didn't entirely skip those. I got some long-standing questions answered, learned new words (გუშინწინ, "the day before yesterday", აღარ, "not anymore"). Nino, the teacher is really good, she also explained me that I will hear a lot of mistakes in everyday spoken Georgian, but I should strive to avoid them. I was about to explain her about congiuntivo, but I passed...

And I got homework! It's really back to school!

 

 

 

Sioni Lake

A wonderful day of nature, food and fun at the Sioni lake, a water reservoir north-east of Tbilisi, with Mariam and Levan (two previous CouchSurfing guests), their two Austrian friends and three more Georgian guys.

I have to say that despite the scenery, I am not a big fan of freshwater swimming, but the relief it brought was undeniable, as the heat is still quite intense.

After the swimming we had a pleasant time with equal amounts of food, drinks and political discussion. No blood was spilled.

 

 

 

The way back showed us other beauties, like the abandoned Ujarma fortress (უჯარმა ციხე), some endless sunflower fields and some beautiful electrical pylon-laden landscape. Oh, Georgia, this is going to be a wonderful period.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Learning Georgian

As far as I remember, this is why I am here. Learning Georgian. So today I had my first contact with my future teachers, at the Tbilisi Technical University. I had a very good impression of them, they asked me a lot of questions about what I aim to achieve, what were my studies, etc.

The director was particularly pleased to know I studied Latin, as it's surely closer to Georgian in structure (case-based grammar, lack of articles, etc) than Italian. They also seemed surprised I could already pronounce ყ, but they can't know my past struggles... 

Anyway, the plan is to do a semi-intensive private course. Five days per week, two hours per day, from 09:00 to 11:00, so to be free afterwards to work (11:00 in Georgia is 09:00 in Italy). Two days with a teacher and three with another, with different tasks. It starts next Monday.

I am ready!

Tbilisi's pay boxes

Of the many things that amaze me of this little country, one is pay boxes.

You see them all over the city. With different colour coding, according to which bank they relate to, these small terminals are available in Georgian, Russian and English. With those you can do a lot of things. Pay services (electricity, gas, etc) and taxes, top-up your mobile or your transport card, even pay Steam! Yes, THAT Steam!

According to this article, the vast majority of residents of Tbilisi use these tools.

"As the result of ACT research show, residents of Tbilisi are avid users of Pay Boxes – nine of ten (90%) citizens have used this method to pay/transfer money in the last 3 months. In this context, men are more active than women (94% and 88% respectively). 

According to the research, absolute majority (97-98%) of the younger citizens (18-34-years old) uses Pay Box services and as the age rises the consumption tendency decreases. However, it should be mentioned that even in older people, the consumption rate is still high– as it turns out, in 65-years old and older people, seven out of ten (72%) make use of Pay Boxes for payments and other kinds of money transfers."

I was thinking, wouldn't be awesome if we had these in Milano? Being so many, they would virtually eliminate queues at ticket machines, post offices and the like. Then I started thinking. Even not considering the initial distrust of our senior (and even not so senior) citizens, the scenario would be the following: some of the pay boxes would be vandalised after one week. Other would simply stop working due to lack of maintenance. The remaining would work, but poor connection would make them unusable, and the few survivors, maybe two or three in Duomo, Centrale and Garibaldi, would be deemed too complicated or cold ("but what will happen to human contact?").

All in all, we are simply not ready for them.