mleku on Nostr: Tbilisi Central Train Station timetable sign. In mehedruli script, no less, proof of ...

Tbilisi Central Train Station timetable sign. In mehedruli script, no less, proof of georgia. Zugdidi is the one marked 08:15-13:36 where i will be for lunchtime today.



Tbilisi is aight, as far as cities go. It's kinda like a manic version of Sofia with a lot of influx of money to half build touristy shit that everyone can see is just touristy shit (like the fake old-district they threw together next to the newly constructed georgian orthodox church up on the hill. Yeah it's pretty but it's fake. so, yeah that's how i rate Tibilisi - it has good bones but all the people that came for the nice 1 year visa brought a lot of money that has been wasted on turning the city into a tourist attraction.

Zugdidi, by contrast, is a little town in an ethnically separate area, Mingrelian, called "margaluri" in the language itself. It's one of the 4 "kartvelian" (southern caucasian, Kartveli is the georgian word for georgian). Mingrelian is different enough to not be mutually intelligible with the Georgian that is spoken in Tbilisi and Batumi. And because this variant of kartveli (georgian) is the ethnic first language of the region, Russian is widely spoken there so it's the language to know as it is for everywhere east of the western coast of the black sea. georgian is only useful in this tiny little country as it is. well, the young people speak georgian and english, the old people georgian and russian. it is advisable to start with english in any case. some folk, particularly the middle aged (hah, my own age group, even if i don't act or look like it) are likely to get cranky if i speak russian with them so i start with english. if they are clearly 60+ age group russian is likely to work better but because of the recent history from the post-USSR collapse war my generation, growing up at that time, are sensitive about russian.

ah the fun of post soviet world. anyway, just good stuff to know. if you ever get the urge to visit georgia, and i recommend georgia, particularly the black sea coast region, just stick with english, you'll find enough people who understand it well enough or have a friend who they might call up to translate or these days just point google translate at you with voice on to get it in georgian for them.

the russian language isn't a hot button in west asia though, in fact in my generation and older (so, 40+) almost everyone speaks fluent russian and english is harder and in a substantial part, even younger 20+ kids like northern kazakhstan don't even speak kazakh well. but kyrgyz is different. in kyrgyzstan almost everyone understands kyrgyz and russian perfectly, english is the hard one.