Tbilisi with kids

(From January 2018)

The best part of traveling with kids is that you get to be once more amazed at the simple things through their eyes. And the challenging part is to not get exhausted by all the questioning non-stop, the never-ending energy to try everything, touch everything and take risks. 

I am becoming more and more exhausted with the years and it seems with the forth child sometimes my energy level is down to minus 5. Of course having to balance the day and adventures with 2 teenage kids and a third who is almost 13 plays a major role on how much energy is left for the 4th child, a 6-yr old very active one. But overall it is going well and between two parents, we are managing to keep it together and enjoy the journey. 

So yesterday was quite a full day. We started first with a stop to “the” favorite donuts place for coffee and sweets then headed to the museum of soviet occupation on Rustaveli, which is situated in the same building as the Georgian National Museum. It was quite impressive but selectively presented. Almost no mention of Stalin(or just a shallow overview), who played an important role in the process. When I asked the woman sitting near the entrance and guarding the place, about it, her answer was very evasive. Instead, she showed me a map of historical Georgia going from the Black Sea to the Caspian sea...funny, my 8th grade teacher in the Armenian school used to show us an exact map but instead of Georgia, mentioning Greater Armenia, and still remembering her words “dzovits dzov Hayasdan” (Armenia from sea to sea). The Georgian lady was feeling uncomfortable with my questions and smiling, trying to show me other things to divert the attention, and then she ended up saying “ no, you know we couldn’t allocate a specific space for Staline, this is more about Russia, you know, you understand me, it is very political...” Sad, the museum and the Soviet occupation collection would have been really a good one and an important contribution to the history of humanity if it had a more critical review of the past and wasn’t presented in such a biased way, with nationalistic sentiments taking over. Weirdly enough, Georgians are very critical about everything Russian and Soviet, but in almost all souvenirs shops and some restaurants you find many memorabilia of Stalin, proudly exposed. But nationalists are the same everywhere, be it Georgian or Armenian. 

My 6 yr old was very much impressed with the Georgian traditional costumes and the archeological exhibition on the other floors of the museum. He kept asking questions about the evolution of humans, guns and wars, making interesting remarks like “better keep guns in museums than outside where it can hurt people...” or “Georgian men are wearing large robes so their legs are free to run faster...” and many other comments and questions that 5 of us were  taking turns to address.

We ended the day with a stroll in the Dedaenis park which was transformed to a Christmas market and winter entertainment place for the holiday season. We had nice warm coffee at the cute little cafe called Bookcorner, overlooking the river. 

Tbilisi is a beautiful city, with very old historical buildings, soviet monuments and little streets taking you through surprising houses and constructions dating from different eras. It is a good place to travel with kids, with its many parks and green areas to rest, play, run around freely. The food is excellent as well but service not so good. People working in most of the touristic areas still lack different language skills. You need to know Georgian or basic Russian to be able to communicate with waiters or tour officers in the city center. 

A vibrant city, so interesting to explore with very young ones as well as older kids!