Tbilisi - in and around Vake park and the ethnographic museum

After a long break I can continue the travel blog posts from this year's small Caucasus tour.

Despite that the trip was in early spring it is time for summer music: Else - Ariane

Tbilisi has many nice corners to see and to enjoy. One of my favorite is the Vake park and its neighborhood. Many told me that it is one of the most preferred neighborhoods for living and I would also live there if I would have the chance. The rents for a flat are quite expensive compared to other neighborhoods but one gets a nice urban feeling: Lots of bars and restaurants, small shops selling designer fashion as well as special stores like the one where I rented my bike.
The guys in the shop gave me the advice to test our their self-made tracks in the upper Vake park. Unfortunately I did not have time to join them for a tour but I found time to explore the park on a rainy day by feet:

View from the main entrance to the world war memorial.
The tower up to the right is a Svanetian defence tower in
the area of the ethnographic museum.

The memorial.

 

Looking back from the memorial.

Looks interesting - the memorial statue from behind.

If one climbs up the hill on the trails behind the memorial statue one crosses the bike trails. They are quite impressive and riding them must be a joy. OK, on some places the bikes already destroyed parts of the vegetation and it would be an improvement to "fortify" the tracks somehow.

On top of the hill is the turtle lake with some nice bars. The lake is used in summer as recreation and concert area:

The turtle lake with its stage.

 

The Intelligentsia Bar - one of my favorite locations since
the food is good and there are comfortable couches to sit, relax and
to read a good book.

Once there was a ropeway from the city up to the lake. It was closed in 2010 and its buildings were not touched since then. This makes them an interesting location to take images with the city in the background.

A cabin of the closed ropeway. The houses in the
background are in the Saburtalo neighborhood.
 

View at the Vake neighborhood. It might not look nice from this
position but you can imagine that one would not build so many new houses there if it would not be an attractive place to live.

Another view down. To the left is the Mikheil Meskhi stadium.
Unfortunately I missed to see there the match between
the Georgian and the Russian rugby team - the Georgians won 33 - 0
and therefore the made a spontaneous party in the city.

If one goes down the road from the turtle lake to the city one crosses the entrance to the huge area of the ethnographic museum. If you start your trip through Georgia in Tbilisi you should consider to visit this museum at first. It gives you a good impression of the culture of the country.
Due to lack of funding only about 10 houses are currently opened for visitors but the museum consists of about 40. The opened houses are nevertheless sufficient to give an impression how different the living was in the different parts of Georgia. Georgia is not large but the mountains isolated the different valleys from each others considerably. One result is the very versatile Georgian cusine. As I once wrote there are so many different dishes to try out that you would need a month until you know every type.

Now it is time for a short break with Else - Fangs.

Here are some impressions from the museum:

The building at the entrance

A very interesting house. Note its cupola-like chimney.

The chimney is made out of wood.

The interior of the house.

Dito.

I asked a bored security person something and it turned out that he used
his time there to study the exhibition in every detail.  Therefore I got a very detailed tour.

Some of the enormous Kvevri.

This structure seems once to be used to store wine as well.

Some interesting tombstones. (I forgot the history behind the left one.)

 

Special Armenian Khachkars.
Strict borders are quite new in the Caucasus.
Therefore one finds Armenian culture in Georgian and Georgian culture in Armenia.

My guide was only interested in Georgian history and this is Armenian.
Therefore he could not tell me what this is.

Another opened house.
 

Inside the house. Every house has a guide wearing the
traditional clothes from the time and the area of the house.

A bassinet. Note the piece of wood to catch up the urine
of the baby. The baby was fixed onto the bassinet and there
were of course two types of urine catchers, one for boys and
one for girls.

Inside the same house.

The spring was coming.

Another house. At its veranda...

...is this construction. The baby was put into the round part. It could this way
move around but not away so that the parents could do something
without the need to take care on the baby every second.

Storage buildings. They are on stilts to protect the goods from bears etc..
 

In summer there are many workshops for kids. For example they can try out to make pottery.

View from the museum to Saburtalo.

Although all houses in the upper part of the museum
are closed one can walk there.

I know the song was too short, so here is another one: Else - Northway.

I wrote about the urban feeling in Vake and this is the reason why I have only a few images from there. I was just relaxing in bars and simply forgot to shoot photos ;-). However, as the whole city has contrasts also Vake has:

Some new upper class buildings.
 

A gloomy place between average class apartment
houses from the Soviet era but in front of them...

...luxury apartments are built.

Closeup of the hoarding from the previous image.

A typical street. Note the expensive cars.

I even found a Tesla. (I haven't yet seen a Tesla in Germany.)

This is one of the main roads through the Vake park neighborhood - the Abashidze street.