5 things that surprise me in Georgia still, even after 17 years? First time I went to Georgia in January 2008, last time as we are recording today’s podcast I came back from Georgia 2 months ago. After all these years, when I was living in Georgia, working, studying at university, still there are several things that surprise me.
As you’re often asking how the life in Georgia looks like, let me share with you today 5 things that even after 17 years I haven’t just got used to.
You can listen The Caucasus podcast also in main podcasting platforms, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Today we’ll talk about my personal perspective – 5 things that surprise me in Georgia, so maybe for you there will be differet 5 things. This time I won’t be sharing any studies, research etc. I’ll be talking from the perspective of someone who has studied in Georgia, I also worked there for some time in different areas of business, I did workations and trainings in Georgia and have Georgian friends and co-workers.
First out of 5 things that surprise me in Georgia – Food!
When I arrived in November last year in Georgia for a business-related trip (I was staying in Georgia for several weeks), the first thing I did just after exchanging money was to buy fruits. I am vegetarian, I was talking about being vegan and vegetarian in Episode 13. of our podcast, so I won’t tell you anything about the meat based dishes, my teammates are more of experts in it.
The first thing out of these 5 things that surprise me in Georgia always is how tasty and juicy the fruits and vegetables are in Georgia. Just one thing – you need to buy them form local grocery or from a person selling it on the street. From shops and supermarkets they often taste differently.
So, no matter if it’s November, March or August, my diet mostly consists of local, seasonal fruits and vegetables. I do hope it will stay like this in Georgia and that the local grocery shops will survive and win the battle with international supermarkets brands. By the way it’s also a great way to practice your Georgian and to have some nice interactions with Georgians.
When I was studying and living in Tbilisi I was always buying the grocery from a man just next to the building I lived in. Each week he was witnessing my Georgian getting better, I was asking him questions on Georgian names for fruits etc. and I remember when my parents visited me, we became friends to some extend so that he was telling my parents how good I am with my Georgian, living and studying. This was part of my community. I’m curious whether food would be one on your list of “5 things that surprise me in Georgia”.
Next surprising thing in Georgia are buildings
As we’re talking about buildings the next thing that I cannot somehow get used to is the Georgian buildings and the construction ideas.
It’s not that I consider it bad or good, it’s just something I consider intriguing and all the time something new surprises me so it made quite high on the list of 5 things that surprise me in Georgia. The first thing is the elevators. When I was living in Georgia I had a rule that I don’t live on higher floors so that I have no problems with change to pay for elevators. Because in many Georgian buildings you need to pay each time a very small fee for the elevator to start working.
I have noticed that even in many new buildings the people living there have e.g. a dedicated code to use the elevator, you no longer have to keep the pocket money with you. However still as you pay for parking spot, you have an additional fee for using elevator.
Why? You may ask. So what I have heard it’s the money for the elevator renovations, maintenance etc. Why it’s not included in the standard rent? That’s a very good question and one day we will do a bigger investigation on when it all started. Now, I only have my hipotheses and prefer to share the facts with you.
But the elevators are not the only thing in the list of 5 things that surprise me in Georgia in the buildings’ category. The construction business in general and especially the superstructure, so when you add several storeys , floors to the existing building which is very common in Georgia, especially in Tbilisi and other big cities. The other option is the expansion of the building. Imagine this, you have a flat, apartment on the second floor, in a block of flats.
It’s with balcony and you need an extra space. So you build walls around the balcony and now it becomes an additional room. Some go even further and build the additional balcony and add the pillars under it so it will be more a less safe. So then your flat, apartment becomes twice the size.
The creativity of Georgians in this matter is what surprises me. The fact that no one comes and puts fine and demands it demolision and being a danger to the building is what always surprises me. I did a bit of research on it and I know how and why it happens – let me know if you want to have a separate episode about it so we’ll share with you how it started and what the law was saying and says now about it.
Do you like the episode about 5 things that surprise me in Georgia?
Join me then on our webinar
Third of the 5 things that surprise me in Georgia are people
And to be more precise their ways to help others.
Imagine situation like this – you need some help, e.g. finding a hotel, you got into some health issue or something happened on the road.
Very often in Georgia people will just start helping you and will start discussing it, debating, lamenting if it’s something severe – not everyone, not always but in a way that I keep it on the list of things that surprise me in Georgia.
I’ll give you an example – maybe a strong one but it shows the situation quite nicely. I was buying vegetables next to the big crossroad in Tbilisi when the car accident happened – a car hit the bus. Everyone, I don’t exaggerate – everyone immediately run to see what happened asking each other the details, helping the driver. All the people who were in the vicinity of min. 400 meters just went on the street, asking, shouting, lamenting.
Even people from the buildings went outside to see. I’m not saying it’s good or bad. I’m just saying that in other countries I lived in and also in Poland where I am from, some people would help of course but some would just see that the situation is taken care of and would move on with their activities.
I had to wait min. 5-10 minutes to finish my shopping because the elder lady I was buying from just left her stand and run on the street lamenting “Oh gosh, oh what happened etc.”. For all these years it’s top of the list of 5 things that surprise me in Georgia and will be there for long – I’m sure about that.
What surprises me is that in these situations everything stops and people just run to deal with the situation no matter if they are able to help or if someone is already taking care of it. From my many discussions with Georgian friends comes that they often just want to be a part of it as a group.
The fourth out of 5 surprising thing is…
… the cars.
Although it has slightly been changing also with Georgians having more money and more cars being imported to Georgia from US and Europe for example, the Georgian cars you can find on the streets it’s a fascinating subject for me.
There can be cars with no bumpers, no lights working and still people drive it and don’t fix it. There can be cars imported from Japan or UK for example, still with the steeting wheel on the “other side” so right. In Georgia there is as in majority of countries in the world the righ-hand traffic, so the steering wheel is on the left hand side in the car.
But there are some cars that are imported from left-hand traffic countries and are not converted, so the steeting wheel may be still on the right hand side. From what I know it’s changing and there have been and will be in future additional regulations regarding cars safety implemented and executed. However, here as well the creativity of Georgians is what surprises me. Once I was a passanger in a taxi – we were 5 people plus a driver and
I was siting … in a trunk.
Yes, the trunk of the car was converted into the additional 2 seats so that this person can take more passengers. The safety of such solutions is a separate topic.
The last and final on the surprising things in Georgia are…
The last out of 5 things that surprise me in Georgia still
Is the walking, strolling and wandering or the lack of it if you prefer.
This may be my, Polish thing or Central European – you tell me. But I will start with another story. I was once on the airport flying to Armenia from Tbilisi and my Georgian friend who was seeing me off said – look I bet they are Polish or at least from central Europe, maybe Czech. Why do your always wander? He said? They were having big backpacks, sweaty cause it was early summer, and they were just wandering here and there with the luggage on their backs not on the trolley etc. By the way they were Polish.
I quite rarely see Georgians just carrying backpacks, bags or just walking across the city if you can drive somewhere. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen I just say I see it much less and when I do it in Georgia I see the look of surprise on their faces.
Once I was meeting my friend who lives in other city so I went there with a mini bus called marshrutka and from the bus station I just walked to the café we were meeting instead of taking the Bolt, taxi, bus etc. It was Sunday, I planned some time and just wanted to walk across the city.
She was so surprised I decided to do it, the people and stray dogs were surprised I was walking in these neighbourhoods and the taxi drivers as well, that I don’t want to use their services. I even planend my route and had to change it because there was just street and no pavement in a quality that I could walk safely.
In some parts of cities there may be no good pavements or they will be using as parking spots or may be narrowed to several centimeters due to expansions of buildings I told you about. To some extend I got used to walking on the street if there is no pavement but still it surprises me from time to time as I am very much connected to my core with the culture of walking.