An impression of our favorite city
Snowflakes dance diagonally in the January light. Freezing weather is undecided: “Sleet showers, on the higher elevations of the city – Black ice in the New Year!”
During these times the Tbiliselebi sleep like Kakhetian dormouse well into the early morning, gladly until 12 or two. Nobody wants to catch a careless cold by getting up early on the holidays.
The women roll up like Nefertiti in woolen blankets on their way to the ice-cold kitchens.
Chashi Bone Broth is the miracle cure for Pakhmelia…
A lonely soul stands clammy in front of an ATM. Another has to pay his gas bill cash in Lari. A young man darts down Lortkipanidze Street. A bus speeds up the steep ice roads towards Kodjori.
Vegetables and flowers are also sold in the slush.
But the city now belongs to all those strange bronze or tin sculptures that seem to be performing a living theatre. The wet sparrows and the plucked pigeons applaud in the mud.
An Equadorian, an Afghan and a drunken Serbian couple got lost in the alleys. They giggle and snort and human feelings sway because of the troll dance of the Caucasian dolls.
In the small apartments with the crooked, thin walls and the tin roofs, people sit close together. Some drink tea, someone calls, card game. Roll others.
In the cannon furnace someone burns unsuccessful oil paintings made of plywood. The dried oil paint catches fire, the glued wood rattles.
Kala, Sololaki and Mtatsminda are the districts. People have lived here for generations, but newcomers have also become neighbors.
A grandmother bought two eggs, a feast. Other people can afford corn-yellow chicken soup with rice and garlic. Packs of cats pad across the battered car roofs and balance on containers.
It is heated electrically or with gas from randomly laid pipes. Dreams warm hearts.
The snow thaws, smack, smack, smack.
Someone is experiencing their final moments.
Flowers will soon be necessary for a funeral. A relative is now offering his old car for sale. A lonely neighbor writes a letter.
The croupier in the casino says: “Nothing counts anymore. Only the risk counts.”
You thought something completely wrong. We didn’t mean it like that at all. The bill didn’t work out and was made without you.
People today are simply existences.
A small kingdom for a big vodka. The old Mercedes starts, smokes. Sparks fly from the radiator. The exhaust spews clouds of water vapor.
I feel bad sneaking past the freezing beggars of Sioni.
In January, after the eternal holidays from two calendar worlds, there is a hangover mood. Only the playing children’s souls are not alone.
10.1.2023
Hans Heiner Buhr
You can see the complete series of my photo foray here
https://en.kaukasus-reisen.de/impressionen/winter-in-tbilisi/