Wine, mountain, sea
And before, no one interfered with bathing and drinking chacha in Batumi, Kobuleti, Ureki, etc. But now Tbilisi and Moscow have connected direct flights (it did not become cheaper – it became faster). Red Wings promises to establish communication between Sochi and Tbilisi from June 15. The situation is interesting: you can fly from one tourist attraction to another, in competition.
Sochi, where the summer season has just started, expects at least 4.5 million tourists. Batumi recently announced that Adjara resorts will welcome more than 4 million guests in 2023. Wow, will there be competition?
…”Won’t they fine us?” Got off the Tbilisi – Batumi train (5 hour ride), wanted a beer. I was welcomed by Sandro, the son of friends. And here we are walking along the embankment with cans of beer in hand. Is this allowed? My question makes people laugh: “Yes, even with a bottle of wine!”
The wine here flows like a bucket, and it’s not a figure of speech. Full of shops, stores and wineries. Signs in Russian caught my eye: “Homemade wine” (Russian was forgotten in Tbilisi). You can go to marani (these are wine cellars), but they are out of town. Wine tours are financially tolerant. Example: a wine route with a stop at the arched bridge of Queen Tamara and a waterfall in the village of Matsuntseti. You can take a ride, but you can do it yourself: from Batumi station by minibus for two lari (64 rubles). If the budget allows – a taxi: from 50 to 70 GEL.
A room in a rural family hotel – 50-60 GEL with three meals a day. They will offer you tours of the villages, reading – still drinking wine and chacha. In season, they will be called upon to pick nuts and grapes.
The author of these lines spent his childhood in Moldova, and there is only one way to make me work in the vineyard: if you put Kalashnikovs in your back. But here it was called “ecotourism”, and everything immediately changed. Now you are not paid for your work, but you. It’s funny.
Yes, a scholarly question: what is the main item of Georgian food exports? Wine? I didn’t guess. Hazelnut!
And here in Adjara there is a place where you can admire the flight of birds of prey. In the autumn invasion: up to a million eagles, harriers and others fly to Africa. Do you need it? If you can say “I love birdwatching”, that’s up to you. Otherwise, don’t make the crows laugh (eagles, etc.), do what you came for: eat churchkhela and khachapuri, drink chacha. Well, swimming, of course. But the beaches are pebble, that’s a minus.
If you drink it all, then I’ll give you advice. From Batumi to the Turkish border is 17 km. On weekends, residents of Batumi flock to Turkey by car or minibus. There are crazy races, the prices are half as expensive.
“Listen, what’s doubled?! – Georgy, a resident of Batumi, gets angry. – Do not read the Internet. Four times for some things!” According to him, pasta, washing powder, children’s things only cost a few cents in Turkey.
Yes, you can still earn money in Türkiye. Turks call tea pickers. Now the Afghans have come to them, but “they are slow”. And the best collectors are Georgians. Special rates for them: 3,000 lira per ton (11,700 rubles). Last year they only paid 2,000.
Without wanting to offend you
The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia announced that in 2022, 1.5 million citizens of the Russian Federation will have entered it. But many have moved on. Today, according to the National Statistics Service, there are 180,000 migrants in the country. Russians – 62.3 thousand, Ukrainians – 20.7 thousand.
A frontal question: is it comfortable for a Russian to relax on neighboring deckchairs with a Ukrainian?
The Russian language returns to Georgia. Now it is taught voluntarily
“At the beginning, there were misunderstandings, recalls Sandro, the owner of the chain of stores. They hung Ukrainian flags in the city, they sympathized with the “refugees”. But the idyll quickly ended Ukrainians came to our stores, demanded a 50% discount. On what basis?!”
It did not work. The boys realized that this is not Europe, there is no need to download right. In these regions, it is not important where you come from, but what kind of person you are. Crossroads of worlds, cultures and faiths.
… I wake up now to the sound of bells, then to the call to prayer from Allah. My wonderful mini-hotel (90 GEL per day) with a huge balcony stands between the Orthodox Church and the Mosque. Three minute walk to the wharf, where I drink Turkish coffee in a Yemeni restaurant, trying to figure out the difference between Arabic chicken mendi and chicken masbi. There are two seas nearby: the sea of Georgian and Turkish coffees and just the sea.
“Sorry, I just started learning Russian,” apologizes a waitress at a restaurant.
12 years ago, the study of the Russian language was canceled in Georgian schools. Therefore, young people do not know him. But everything seems to be changing.
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