Georgia, Day Seven

In Kutaissi

Today was a walking day in the city. Our hotel is on a hill above the river. The city is situated in a bend of the river below. We walked down the winding cobblestone streets, and across the red metal bridge (French built in Soviet times). This is another bridge.

Some of the buildings are unique.

And this little fellow appeared.

We spent some time in a huge market hall. The arrays of produce were  beautiful and local.

Candied fruits.

We saw people walking past us on the sidewalk with such birds in their bags, feet sticking out. I guess you make soup with those feet. No waste. 

The city has quite a collection of monumental sculptures.

Actors

Historian. And many others.

A school of art

Opera house

No idea….

Support for Ukraine 

A new church and bell tower

City fountain, relatively new

Note the back building: fancy front, plain brick back.

War Museum, 1941 - 1945. Very sad. Some 22% of the population involved, of which 300,000 didn’t survive. We saw war memorials in villages with thirty-some names on it of a population of 150. They were still using horses then, when the western countries were all mechanized. But those horses served them well, in this mountainous terrain, and the trucks of others did not. 

We went to two museums. They are not much visited. The staff had to bustle about turning on lights, getting into position, and unlocking things. We went to the small art museum. It had a wide variety of styles.

Classic

Somewhat impressionistic 





Modern


And detail. Painted with palette knife. 

Pointillism 

Detail

And several sculptures, including in courtyard.

Note the sign post

Then, after drinks along the river, we looked into the very old former royal residence on the river shore. 

How it used to look

It is built on three stone arches.

Outside were these old things

Then we trudged back through town and uphill to the hotel via an amusement park. There is a little cable car, Soviet era, that runs across the river up to the park. Two of us went up on it, and two did not. 

And back for showers. It is was hot again.