Tbilisi at Night

The other day, I took a long walk along the main street of Tbilisi at night. I walk during the day, too, but mostly just to get to places like museums, shops, and restaurants. It's too hot just to be outside all the time. But at night, when it cools down, the walks are quite pleasant. Lots of people do the same, so you can do people gawking as well. This is my short photo report of the walk.

Main Street

The main street in Tbilisi runs through the entire city and has multiple names as many portions of it get intersected by other large streets, starting another name for it. I walked along the portion that lead to the Parliament and Liberty Square, one of the main attractions of the city. I stay at an AirB&B in Old Tbilisi, so the walk was about 30 minutes one way.

I reached the round Liberty Square with its symbol of freedom - the statue of St.George slaying the dragon created by the most famous (and notorious) Georgian sculptor Zurab Tsereteli. It replaced the Lenin's monument that was there during the Soviet rule. I must say that the dragon-slaying St.George is the most frequent representation of the saint patron of Georgia that you will see everywhere starting with icons in churches' altars and ending with fridge magnets.

Liberty Square is a circle framed by many historic buildings, several of which now are posh hotels, and radiating several streets in all directions. A couple of them lead to the pedestrian touristy area that I have yet to check out. Lots of things to see and do there, I was told.

Protests

Walking back to my street, I couldn't resist taking pictures of the protests near the Georgian Parliament. Georgians have been protesting the last year's rigged pro-Russian elections since they happened and never stopped. The protests are regulated now, however: they only happen in the evenings and the traffic in the street is cordoned off by police cars, allegedly to make the protests safe. They are not as massive now but people still show up.

A lot of protesters sit around, I would think discussing Georgian politics. Many of them are elderly and I wish I had at least some conversational Georgian to get the sense of what they talk about.

The most active protesters shout out their demands into the megaphone and wave American, Georgian, and Ukrainian flags. Solidarity with Ukraine here is palpable due to the historic reality of the Soviet rule: both Ukraine and Georgia declared independence from Russia in 1918 and both were brutally annexed in 1919-21.

My street

Walking back to my street, I took a note of the Funicular sign. Tbilisi has four cable lines that run up the hills, providing excellent view of the city. They also serve as public transportation. No kidding, you can use the same travel pass to ride them as the one for metro and busses. I have yet to take the cable ride, though, perhaps today (August 28, 2025).

My street is a short dead-end stone-paved street in Old Tbilisi that goes steeply up the hill. It only has 35 house numbers on it and it still preserved its charm of the old two or three-story buildings with courtyards. It's very quiet so I can sleep in if I want to or write without distractions.

Can you guess this photo's perspective: looking Up or Down the hill?

I'm not even sure how old the stone pavement on my street is. Must be at least a couple of hundred years. Tbilisi itself is estimated to have been populated by people for about 6,000 years.

The dead end of my street is not that remarkable except that it is freely roamed by stray and homed cats and dogs. Unfortunately, none of them got into my frame.

Where my street runs into the Main Street, there's a McDonald's. It took me a couple of days to register what it was because it is so well stylized for Georgian architecture. It even has the dome and a rotunda similar to those of Georgian churches. I'm not that nostalgic for American fast food yet as to go inside and see if the menu has been localized to include some traditional Georgian cuisine items like they do in many countries. One day, I'll do that too, for research if not for consumption.

Thank you for taking this walk with me! I'm publishing it in Photography because all pictures here are mine and some of them are quite artsy, if I may say so myself.