Tbilisi sightseeing tour by Kosteniuk

Hello everybody!

Today I had a wonderful day in Tbilisi. I decided to do a little sightseeing since from tomorrow on I will be very busy with the tournament. In this post I will show you lots of photos of Tbilisi, it is so beautiful! So follow me on my journey! I started my visit by
going to the nearest to the hotel metro station which is the Samasi Aragveli station and got out from the subway in 2 stations on the Tavisupleba station.

 

 

 

Since I had no idea where to go I let myself go aimlessly.
Close to the subway station I noticed a nice square with a golden monument on it.

 

When I got closer I found out that this is the Freedom Square with the Saint George Monument. Behind the Monument one can see the Tbilisi sakrebulo (city assembly), a former town council, built in 1880s according to the project of P. Shtern.

 

On the hill behind the city hall I saw a Monument of the woman so I decided to get closer in order to take better pictures of it. While walking towards the Monument I saw many nice but old buildings such as this one:

 

After some walking I saw stairs that seemed to be leading to the Monument.

 

As I found out later it is a street-staircase, which Tbilisi citizens call Petkhain. The project of this staircase was designed by a province architect T. Beloy in 1850. These stairs led me to the Bethlehem church which was founded in the 5th century.

 

 

 

 

The church has been reconstructed numerous times, which basically changed its original aspects. After visiting the church I continued my way to the top and after some photo scenery stops

 

 

reached the Statue of Mother Georgia Monument,

 

symbol of the nation’s legendary spirit which was designed as a symbol of the nation and put up in 1958 by Elguja Amashukeli. High on a pine covered hill above Tbilisi, the 65-foot woman holds a bowl of wine in one hand and a sword in the other. Centuries of invasions and foreign occupation have taught Georgians that the best defense is treating all outsiders as guests, feeding them and flattering them with toasts until everyone gets along like friends. The cup in her left hand is filled with Georgian wine for friends, but the sword in the right is a warning to enemies.

After taking some wonderful photos from this hill where one can view the whole Tbilisi

 

 

I went down and found myself in the Old Tbilisi area.

 

 

Close to the Konka monument, in a cafe, I stumbled upon a famous GM, annotator and chess author Gennady Sosonko and his wife and was invited for a cup of coffee.

 

It was an unforgettable expirience, enjoying chess stories by Gennady and friendly sun rays in the Old Tbilisi. After this encounter I continued exploring the Old Tbilisi and found many nice buldings and souvenir shops.

 

 

 

I bought a freshly baked georgian bread,

 

had famous georgian khachapuri for lunch

 

and took dozens of great photos.

The opening ceremony of the women’s European chess championship-2011 is already in one hour. Tomorrow I will start playing but I’m happy to already have some great memories from Tbilisi.

Best wishes!
Alexandra Kosteniuk

Tags: kosteniuk photos
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