Tbilisi's swinging night life

Let’s start off with one simple fact:  I am not a bar hopper or late-night party guy.  My bedtime is usually around 9:00.  Now, occasionally I may burn the night oil and stay up all the way to 11, but I’m not worth a hoot the next day.  So that’s why it’s so amusing that I’m writing about the night life in Tbilisi. 

And what a night life it is.  Tbilisi has a population of about 1.3 million; that means over 30% of the entire country of Georgia’s population lives here.  (That would equate to a US city of over 90 million people.)  The locals typically go to bars, clubs, and late restaurants – just like anywhere else on Earth.  Tbilisi has two distinct types of bars and clubs – “traditional” Georgian and western.  The more traditional clubs are usually smoke-filled, subterranean rooms where Georgian men gather to drink, smoke, and solve the world’s problems.  In other words, dull. 

The western bars and clubs are also smoke-filled, usually subterranean rooms where a younger crowd gathers to drink, smoke, and forget about the world’s problems.  In our weekend travels this is where we usually end up.  My favorite of these is the Beatles Club opposite the Philharmonic Hall.  A Tbilisi institution, the Beatles Club is decorated to portray the Cavern Club where the Beatles got their start in England.  It is, like many clubs, underground so the ceilings are arched brick supported by thick, roughhewn beams.  Like everything else in the Land of Almost Right, it doesn’t quite get everything right.  The club, for example, is dedicated to “Sir John Winston Lennon” even though:  a) Lennon was never knighted (the only Beatle so honored is Sir Paul McCartney), and b) Lennon legally changed his middle name to Ono after his marriage to Yoko.  The décor consists of copied Beatles’ albums covers, usually in Russian, and photographs which are frequently mislabeled (George is identified as Paul, for instance). 

My favorite part of the Beatles Club is the band.  Consisting of four middle aged (40-45 year olds) local men, the band calls itself “Lennon’s Lovely Hearts Club Band,” an obvious play on Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, in my opinion the Beatles’ best album.  The band plays Beatles tunes, but with an ironic twist – none of the band speaks English.  They have obviously memorized the lyrics phonetically which leads to some – oh, let’s call it interesting – interpretations.  For instance, from “Twist and Shout:”  “…word is our out” instead of “..work it on out.”   “I’ll always be there” comes out “I always been there,” and my personal favorite “my heart went zoom when I crossed the womb” instead of “boom” and “room.”  Still, it’s great fun and the beer’s reasonably priced.

I’ve also enjoyed some time in the Elvis American Diner, which is exactly what you’d expect upon hearing the name.  It is an attempt to recreate a typical American diner, a la Happy Days, with Elvis memorabilia covering the walls.  There’s no live music here, but the background music is from the King’s albums, and the cheeseburger is the closest thing to an American burger you’ll find in town (except, of course, for the two McDonald’s that have managed to wedge their way into Old Town Tbilisi). 

A bar that is worth seeing if only for the amazing amount of Soviet kitsch is the KGB club with the slogan, “We’re still watching you” written in English above the door.  More a late restaurant than a bar or club, the bestselling dishes are Proletarian Pizza and Lenin’s Favorite pizza.  Right down the street from the KGB Club is the Buffalo Bill Bar, Tbilisi’s best effort to reconstruct a Wild West saloon.  Again, it is almost right.  One of the few places in town you can purchase an American beer – Miller’s Genuine Draft at $7 a bottle -- the walls are decorated with $1 bills signed by the customers.  There’s a live band playing American country and western music, and as long as you don’t pay too close attention to the lyrics they don’t sound half bad. 

Adding a German flair to Tbilisi is the Brauhaus Bar and Restaurant.  The Brauhaus is primarily a restaurant until around 9pm when the band tunes up and the kitchen switches to cold plates of sausages, cheese, and bread.  Authentic German beer flows into real German steins and liter mugs and the night’s fun begins.  A quick sidebar here – even though there are many couples and even lots of single men and women in these bars, you rarely see anyone dancing.  The customers mostly just sit and drink and listen to the bands.  Now maybe after we leave (usually before 10p), dancing starts, but it’s strange to sit in a bar with a live band and not see anyone dancing to the music. 

If you prefer your music Irish, I’ll take you to the Dublin.  An alleged Irish pub, the only thing Irish about it is the pint of Guinness they’ll pour you.  A big fan of Guinness, I have only found it here; thus, my repeat visits to scratch that itch. 

Finally, there are the ex-pat bars.  Tbilisi is home to many Americans and they mostly frequent one of two bars depending on their age.  The “younger” crowd (30-50 years old) can be found in the Anchor Bar, owned by an American woman who settled here over 15 years ago.  The Anchor Bar is more along the line of what we’d call a “sports bar.”  There are several TVs showing live sports and they offer free WiFi.  They also serve a Sunday morning brunch that is the closest thing you’ll find here to an American breakfast – scrambled eggs, pancakes, and gravy and biscuits.  On rare Sundays, they’ll even offer grits. 

The older Americans hang out in the Hotel Betsy, aka “east Florida.”  The atmosphere is, as you’d expect, quieter, the conversation more muted, and the nostalgia level painfully high.  The view from the barroom, however, is sensational and during Friday happy hours, you can get free American food – sliders or turkey sandwiches being my preferences. 

The opportunities for late night exploring in Tbilisi are endless.  There is, it seems, on every corner a restaurant, bar, or club.  None of them, however, can compare to my favorite evening hangout – at home with my wife.  That is especially poignant as we get closer to Christmas.  Tbilisi dresses up for Christmas – lights and Christmas trees are everywhere and this is one thing the Land of Almost Right does get right. 

You can get an example of Tbilisi at Christmas by clicking on the link below.  Have a happy holiday season, my friends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4Obg6gflzY&feature=related

How "bizarre" got its name

We moved into our new digs this week – we've taken over an entire hotel with the dubious name of The Iranians Hotel (google it if you don’t believe me).  It was a home for Persian guest workers and met our needs quite nicely.  It’s 12 rooms, along with the kitchen and dining room, had not been cleaned, refurnished, or modernized since the 1970s.  I live in the “penthouse,” the top floor consisting of a small bedroom with a wardrobe, a full bath (albeit a very cramped and crowded full bath), and a large sitting room with a balcony overlooking the western edge of Tbilisi.

What this exodus from the Marriott in downtown Tbilisi to the Iranians Hotel (what we have now renamed the Alamo) caused was a shopping rush.  I, for example, had to find sheets, towels, cleaning supplies (in industrial strength and quantity), nightstand lamps, clothes hangers, and laundry detergent.  In the good ol’ USA, one would simply pop down to Walmart, fill your cart, whip out some plastic, and go home, possibly stopping off at the local McDonald’s on the way.   Ah, to be so richly “blessed.”   

Here in Tbilisi, we do have a similarly equipped store to Walmart – it’s called, and I’m not making this up – the Goodwill Store.  Picture a Super Walmart, if you will – the Goodwill store has the same number of items – lightbulbs, clothing, garden supplies, etc. – but with a limited quantity of brands.  Take laundry detergent, for instance.  Your choice is simple:  take the brand on the shelf or don’t.  There is not the opportunity to say, “Hmm, this Tide is $2.99 for 16 ounces, while the generic brand is $4.99 for 48 ounces.”  There is only the opportunity to say, “Hmm.  Laundry detergent.  Do I want the little bag of Berta (the actual name of the most popular laundry detergent in country) or the big bag of Berta?”   Anyway, I did pick up some items there – clothes hangers, the aforementioned Berta laundry detergent, and some towels.  The other items were nowhere to be found.

That leads me to the topic of this essay – the Dinamo Bazaar.  (There should be a trumpet fanfare as you read those last two words.  That is the impact and impression of the Dinamo Bazaar.)  The Dinamo (pronounced Din-NAM-oh, and named after the stadium in whose shadow it resides – the Dinamo Stadium, home to the local football [soccer] club, the Tbilisi Dinamos) Bazaar is how the adjective “bizarre” gained its reputation.  Let me try to describe it to you, even though I know well in advance that my poor power to describe it in writing will do the Bazaar absolutely no justice.  The Dinamo Bazaar (known hereafter simply as “the bazaar”) is approximately 8-10 square city blocks.  That’s not a misprint.  Most of it is under a series of roofs that give the bazaar the initial impression of being in a series of large airplane hangars.  There is a lot of the bazaar that has spilled out of the protective roof and is open-air.  The bazaar is packed – booth after booth, stall after stall – of every item one could conceive.  The pathways are approximately two people wide if one is an anorexic supermodel.  The din is awe-inspiring – vendors hawking their wares, people shouting for suddenly lost children and loved ones, money changers shouting out the most up to date exchange rate (which, by the way, is GEL 1.65 for $1, GEL an abbreviation of GEorgian Lari), and customers shouting for directions from anyone who can help. 

This being the Republic of Georgia, there is no organized floor plan to the bazaar.  Paths meander like trails in a rabbit warren.  It’s not uncommon to walk down a path only to find yourself either back where you started or out on the street outside the bazaar, looking for a way back in.  Nevertheless, there is some organization to the bazaar, and that is by like items.  Looking for a jacket?  All the jacket vendors are in the same place.  Want some brand new “Nike’s” (and, yes, the use of quotation marks around Nike are deliberate; draw your own conclusions) to go with that new jacket?  All the shoe stalls are down this path – take a left, then a right, then a left down the stairs, and go around the kitchen appliances.  Just a short walk into the bazaar will take you past the hats, gloves, and scarf sector; the video games and computer software stalls; kitchen wares; school supplies; books, magazines, and DVDs; religious icons; playing cards, toys, and diapers; linens; electronics; power tools, to include chainsaws; auto parts; to whatever else you could ever want.  In short, if it isn’t in the bazaar, you don’t need it and won’t find it in country.

Outside the bazaar, in the open air portion, is where you’ll find the Tbilisi equivalent of the West Chester Grower’s Market – fruits, vegetables, meat and fish (usually just hanging from a clothesline or sitting on a makeshift wooden table), and assorted grains, spices, and condiments.  This is also where you’ll find large, bulkier items like carpets, TV sets, and used cars.  It makes you shake your head to wonder what kind of family needs to purchase 50kg bags of coffee beans, rice, and angel hair pasta (that’s 110 pounds!), but that’s a typical packaging.  Salt, for example, comes in 10kg bags – 22 pounds.  Sugar, unprocessed and in large crystals, can be bought in 5, 10, or 20 kg bags.  You don’t really see the smaller quantities available in the US and Europe.  No two-pound box of oatmeal or 8 oz. containers of curry here; the motto is definitely “go big or go home” when it comes to shopping.

OK, you’re found your items and you’re ready to buy.  Unlike the rest of the country (to include bakeries and supermarkets), prices in the bazaar are non-negotiable.  They’re the same in every stall – the 10 Lari jacket you like in this stall is 10 Lari in the next stall and the next stall and the one after that.  It is strictly a binary option – take it or leave it.  While denying the sport of haggling, it really isn’t necessary in the bazaar.  Prices are pretty reasonable; one might even say cheap.  Let me give you the rundown of my purchases yesterday as evidence.  I bought:  12 wooden pants hangers and 12 wooden shirt hangers; two towels; a bottle of glass cleaner and a bottle of bathroom cleaner; a bucket to carry them in; a set of sheets (consisting of a sheet – for some reason, the idea of fitted sheets hasn’t seem to have caught on here – a pillowcase, and a duvet cover); a small lamp for my nightstand; and a plastic trashcan.  The total cost for all these items was less than 50Lari – about $30. 

So you’ve purchased a couple of 50kg bags to complete your shopping trip.  How do you get them home?  There are men and boys who walk around with flatbeds like you’d see at Home Depot or a large nursery.  For a tip (usually 1 Lari, about 60 cents, 2 Lari if you’re parked far away or you have a lot of stuff), these porters will load your purchases on their flatbeds and follow you around until you’re ready to load your car.  This obviously doesn’t help the traffic flow through the narrow aisles.

Remember that stop at McDonald’s you’d make on your way home?  Here, we make a beeline to the world’s greatest shwarma shop.  You’ve seen them – meat carved into the shape of a pyramid spinning on a vertical skewer shaved into a tortilla, covered with yogurt or mayo or ketchup, and garnished with onions, cilantro, hot peppers, or tomatoes.  That’s fast food here, and I can’t get enough of them.  So at the end of a day’s travels (and travails), here are four Americans, laden with bags and shwarmas, piling into a cab for the drive back to the Alamo.  Life as we know it, and not a bad one.  Not bad at all.

Thanks for reading.