It is always now!: Batumi - a surreal city

The Marshrutka ride from Kutaisi to Batumi was like a ride back to winter. Starting at more than 20 °C and sun it ended at 9 °C and fog. The next days it even got worse with only 4 °C, rain and wind. However, it is March and it was clear that such days will come.

Batumi is a surreal city because it consists of 2 parts which doesn't fit together. The eastern part is the harbor area. The living houses there are ugly. The other side of the city is the beach, party and casino area with skyscrapers buildings. Countless hotels, expensive bars and restaurants, party hostels and a wide beach promenade with cycling lanes and a large and nice park.

I know that people from Batumi are reading this, please forgive me. The thing is that I in general don't like cities with an industrial harbor and I also don't like places with mass tourism. Unfortunately Batumi is both. But of course there are many people all over the world who like it and come here every summer to relax and to party. So please get your own opinion and imagine that the weather is of course perfect in summer.

Typical road in the center.

A street with nicely refurbished old houses.

A former cinema.

The nice side of this square.

The opposite side with houses from the soviet era.

A crazy building with a ferris wheel in it.

When I entered the tourist information office the lady there was a bit surprised to see a tourist and gave me the advice not to come to Batumi before mid of April because this bad weather is typical before. I went down the streets and noticed that the whole beach city is waiting for tourists but there aren't any. I was the first one in my hotel for weeks and therefore the whole building was completely cold. Also 2 days with the heating at maximum couldn't change much. This was no problem since I had my sleeping bag with me. I could also use the kitchen to cook some of the nice frozen pasta they sell in the supermarkets.

The Batumi cathedral. So I was wrong when I once
wrote that churches all have the same basic design.

An interesting solution.

At the beach.

The beach promenade.

Many roads have cycling lanes but nobody is cycling.

Batumi is much more expensive than the rest of Georgia. I understand this but I don't understand the lower service quality. For example in Tbilisi I can rent an excellent mountain bike for 15 Lari a day. Here in Batumi they wanted to have 20 Lari for rusty bikes without fully functional brakes: "No problem, brake with feet". There is also a public cycle renting system with good bikes (the green ones) but one could only rent them for 3 hours. The idea was to cycle to the botanical garden which is 9 km away from the center and including the visit one needs more time. But renting the full day is only possible in the season.
In Georgia on can currently rent a taxi with driver for the whole day for about 50 - 60 Lari. In Batumi however, they wanted to have 100 Lari just for an half an hour drive to the Mtirala national park (just one direction).

Cycling lane along the promenade and city bikes.

Illuminated palms.

One of the huge hotels with a casino.

Just modern architecture.

This tower is part of complex called "Circus" which should represent Venice.

I noticed that many people in Batumi spoke Russian with each other. One reason might be that Russian is still the lingua franca in all former soviet union countries. The personnel of the hotels, shops and restaurants comes from different places like Armenia and they therefore most probably don't know Georgian.

I wrote some about the beach part. The harbor part is not very nice since there is a lot of industry. The most disgusting place I have ever been is the central bus station of Batumi which is in this part. The smell of urine is not the problem but the smell of the people. I would say that every second there did not was himself for weeks. One restaurant was packed with man in old clothes. I entered it since I was hungry and I had some time before my bus left. I was never disgusted that much before because everybody smelled heavily and different. The roof of the bus station building is partly collapsed and at the upper floor there are people living. Others sell furniture there and also smelled. It seems that they have to sleep besides the furniture.
I write this to illustrate the extremes of Batumi.On one hand clean and chic sites but also ugly places. I hope that the municipality will soon take a bit of they money they make with tourists to improve the situation in the harbor area. I mean all the cycling lanes in the beach part were not cheap an in the harbor area not even the sidewalks are paved and one has to jump over large puddles.