Kutaisi - part 2: The city

The city of Kutaisi has a nicely renovated inner city, a relatively large old town with small houses and larger areas with plattenbau buildings from the Soviet times. South of the city is a large industrial area with the former KAZ truck manufacturing plant.

Kutaisi is also a student's town and every evening they stream into the bars to have some fun. This lead me to this old party classic: Snap! - Power

First have a look at the center:

The main park.

In the renovated streets.

 

 

The main square. The building at the left is the theater.

I don't know what it was. It is now a shopping mall.

Houses opposed to the shopping mall.

There are still some buildings
in the inner city that need reconstruction.

The opera.

Public school no. 1.

Close to the Rioni river is a block with a nice and large market.

The market is a bit hidden behind the facade of this building.

In the market.

 

An interesting relief in the market area.

Along the Rioni are some nice old houses and nice restaurants and bars.

The Rioni. Image taken from the red bridge.

Along the Rioni. Image taken from the chain bridge.

 Of course most of the inhabitants live in the plattenbau buildings.

 

Looks exactly as in plattenbau areas in eastern Germany.

A fancy extra balcony.

In the west of the center is the impressive building of the Georgian parliament. Close but outside the city is the Geguti palace. There are many more things and sites to visit but without a car it is a problem to get there. I therefore only visited Gelati, Tsqaltubo and the Prometheus cave, see the following blog posts.

All in all Kutaisi is a nice city. It is not too large and also not too small. There are many nice sights and a lot of culture and life. It is worth to stay here at least 2 days and use it as base to discover the surrounding.