Kutaisi
9/15/2025 - 10/01/2025
We flew from Vienna to Kutaisi and had an easy non-stop flight. When we arrived, we were accosted by pretty aggressive taxi drivers at the airport that weren’t very easy to shoo away. We queued up a Bolt and headed the 15ish miles into town. About a mile from the airport, the bolt driver pulled into a random parking lot where a couple other cars (Bolt drivers?) were hanging out. Our driver jumped out and ran over to another car to grab himself a beer. He jumped back into our car, cracked open his beer and off we went! Holy crap was I worried (and not about the beer our driver was drinking)!!! To be clear, putting Georgia on the itinerary was totally my idea… and we were driving through a total shithole! Communist era buildings that I thought were abandoned. They weren’t - it turns out that is how people here live! A portion of the drive was one huge non-stop junk yard that made my grandpa Schmitt’s yard look pristine. When we arrived in Kutaisi, we found a kind of cool little town. Some parts still very run down and definitely pretty poor, but there are also some very pretty parks, fountains, and monuments and some nice buildings.
I later described the drive (and my stress) to Kelly, and she offered such amazing and helpful perspective about the value of seeing how the people really live and not just the tourist spots. Soooo true. I have a much better appreciation of the real Georgia after thinking about it from that lens. Not to mention an appreciation for how fortunate we are just for having randomly been born in one of the richest countries in the world with all the freedoms and opportunities we can stand! I later learned that the average income here is about $10,000/year. It is a very poor country with a population that is very proud of their heritage.
Since pretty much no one knows where Georgia is (or they think it is a state north of Florida), let’s go ahead and get this out of the way… Georgia borders Russia on the North, Turkey and Armenia on the south, and the black sea on the west. It is considered the crossroads of Europe and Asia. And to answer the next question… yes, it’s safe. Crime is extremely low, particularly for tourists. The biggest threat would be an invasion from Russia, but they are so busy beating up on Ukraine right now that Georgia doesn’t need to worry (at the moment)
The town of Kutaisi and the history of Georgia are both so interesting. Georgia had been an independent country during various periods of time through history under a couple different rulers, but it was never long lasting. They were governed under the Empire of Russia by a Tsar through much of the 19th century, then had a brief period of independence from 1918-1921 before being gobbled up by the USSR. They regained their independence in 1991. They are a Christian nation with their own alphabet and their own distinct language in spite of having been part of the USSR for 70 years. Young people all speak pretty good English. Old people speak none!
We have been to several countries that gained their independence from communist rule at about this same time… and the rest are SO FAR ahead of Georgia in their government, progress, economy, and infrastructure! This place feels like it is 25 years behind all the others. There is literally no comparison!
Kutaisi is a relatively small city with a population of about 150,000. It has a very small city center that is nice and some buildings that are pretty, but much of it feels pretty 3rd worldy (yes, I made that word up). And the driving… lord have mercy! It is terrifying. There are literally no rules and no traffic lanes!
There are random homeless animals EVERYWHERE. Cows walking in the streets, a horse randomly standing next to a cathedral, cats, and so many dogs. On the bright side, none look like they are starving and they are all super chill and friendly. In fact, we offered part of a pretzel to a dog that had been following us around for about an hour and he turned it down! About 25% of the dogs are tagged which means they have been vaccinated and fixed. So I guess it could be worse.
The Green Market is where locals go to buy local products. It is kind of cross between a flea market and a farmers market. We bought our vegetables (for about $2.40), some local cheese (for about $2.60), and 2 wine glasses (for about $3.70). It is super cheap here! But again, it’s pretty 3rd worldy.
Motsameta Monastery is a little monastery complex just outside of Kutaisi high on a hill overlooking the river. The name means "martyr" and was named this for two brothers, Dawit and Constantine who were martyred here in the 8th century and are buried in the monastery. It is a functioning Orthodox church and services are still held here and a few monks still live here.
Orthodox churches are very strict, and had we known (or done our research), we would have dressed differently before visiting. Luckily they had baskets of scarves for us to wrap around our waists to cover our knees and for me to cover my hair (sorry, no photos of our fashion statements!). We felt a little intrusive visiting. One of the monks was saying morning prayers which takes a few hours. He was basically reading scripture out loud (in Georgian) while we stupid tourists were wandering around snapping pictures. It’s a pretty small church, so he was within 10-15 feet of us doing his thing. We at least had the good sense not to take pictures of him! And we were respectful enough to stay quiet - another monk came and shushed some other noisy tourists!
We then visited Mtsvanekvavila Church which is commonly known as the "green church". Its name literally means "Green Flower" in Georgian, which refers to the plants that grow around the church and are used for medicinal purposes. This time our guide only had me cover my hair (our knees were still exposed) and we are pretty sure he got in trouble for it! The priest (or whatever he was) was giving our guide a bit of a tongue lashing and kept looking right at us! Ugh! Our guide was nice enough to pretend it wasn’t about us, but it was pretty obvious! I only snapped one photo inside because I was afraid of getting yelled at again!
The most famous landmark in Kutaisi is the Bagrati Cathedral which you can see from miles around. It was originally built in 1003 by King Bagrat III to mark the unification of Georgia. Devastated in 1692 by a Turkish invasion, the cathedral was heavily ruined for centuries before extensive reconstruction began in the 2000s. There are some castle ruins and fortifications dating back to the 6th century and the views are fantastic.
Inside the cathedral there is one seat – for the bishop. Everyone else must stand. And, of course, like all good cathedrals, there is a lovely display of bones and body parts from various saints.
This little building is from the 6th century and has no roof. It is a church and they still hold services in it weekly!
They do some weird stuff here… they are blessing a car! When we asked the guide about it, he acted like it was the most normal thing ever! Personally, I think they should just consider driving a little safer!
We had a pretty awesome dinner at a place called Toma’s Wine Cellar that is worthy of making the blog! When we arrived, Toma was right there at the door to greet us. The restaurant had about 8 tables and is in the bottom floor of the family home. Toma’s mom is upstairs in the kitchen cooking her little heart out. There is no menu and no selecting what you want. It is a set price (approximately $20 each) and you get whatever mama is cooking up! They start you with a shot of chacha (similar to grappa) and a pitcher of their wine (which was really good!). Next came traditional Georgian bread and a spread of cold appetizers (about 7 different things), followed by hot food – 3 more dishes. It was probably enough food to feed 5-6 people! It was amazing! We were so stuffed when we left and brought home enough leftovers to feed a small village!
We had a really rainy day and Grady found a winery that does cooking classes that he signed us up for. It was fantastic! We arrived and this place was so cute with vinyl records playing, a fireplace (that it turned out we were cooking in!) and a table all set up for our class. It was a private class, just us. Followed by a wine tasting with the lunch we had just made. And we ended with a tour of the wine production area.
It was a perfect way to spend a rainy day! It was pouring outside and we were cozy inside enjoying the fire, music, eating delicious food and drinking really good wine. It was definitely a highlight! And we learned to make some traditional Georgian recipes that Grady can fix for me when we get home! 😊
Grady hired a driver to take us to a couple wineries about 30 minutes south of Kutaisi in Baghdati. It was interesting! I seriously wished I had taken a few more photos of the first one. It’s kind of hard to describe. We were basically in the middle of no where at someone’s run down family home. The owner, who spoke virtually no English, greeted us and led us into a building (shed?) that was actually decently renovated with a really nice view. Grady thought we were just doing a tasting… they thought we were doing lunch. So we did lunch! It was so weird! They had a table set for 3 – we sat down and were trying to figure out who the 3rd setting was for. At some point our driver joined us (which actually turned out to be a good thing since he spoke some English – just totally unexpected), and then the owner set himself up with a plate and sat down. They brought out a CRAP TON of food and the four of us sat there and ate – mostly in silence! It was super awkward!
The second winery (Baia’s) was better set up for visitors. They even export to the US! We toured the “production” area, saw the qvevri pots buried in the ground where they ferment the wine and did a tasting. The sweet lady asked us if we wanted lunch to which we replied “NO… we were stuffed from our last stop and couldn’t eat another bite”. When we were taken to our table there was food already set up, we asked our driver to remind them that we didn’t want lunch, to which they replied that this wasn’t lunch – it was just snacks for with the wine tasting… Below is a photo of what it looks like when Georgian’s don’t feed you! 😊
There is a run down old amusement park across the river on the hill above town. You can walk the long way around to get to it, or take a rickety old cable car up. We took the rickety old cable car. When we arrived at the top, we found an almost abandon Soviet era amusement park (Besik Gabashvili Park) that has its origins in the mid-20th century and was renovated in 1961 (and clearly no updates since!). It was actually kind of cool. There were a handful of people up there and a few rides actually open. We walked around a bit and rode the rusty old ferris wheel death trap for about $1.00 each. The views were great.
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