This is our last installment in Tbilisi before we head out into the mountains. Whenever I come to a new major city, I’m always on the lookout for street art. I photograph every mural I see and spend probably way too much time taking detours to wander down alleyways to see if there’s any treasure to be found painted on the walls. At the end of my time in that city, I compile all the photos and see if there’s enough cool stuff to justify a street art post. So, for example, before landing in Georgia, I was traveling through Armenia. And while I loved Yerevan, I didn't have enough materials to do one of these showcases there. I was bummed.
But Tbilisi brought its A-game!
🇬🇪 Street Art in Tbilisi Georgia 🇬🇪
If you’ve missed my last two installments on Tbilisi, you should circle back and skim through! You can do that here. Georgia is a super interesting country and it takes some reading to really understand why it is the way it is today. The geo-political currents swirling around Georgia are quite complex and, at this moment at least, pretty defining to Georgia because they represent an existential threat.
Nevertheless, in spite of all the craziness happening around this country, it’s doing better than ever! Following the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, Georgia faced multiple concurrent civil wars and a total economic collapse. This was a dark chapter of Georgian history, but today, this is a country on the up-swing! In the past 15 years Georgia has become an economic success story, and only just now becoming a trendy tourist destination as well, which is well deserved. And with this economic resurgence is also coming a cultural resurgence. Lord knows pretty much all former Soviet Republics are experiencing similar cultural resurgences after getting out from under Moscow’s thumb.
If you look at the map, Tbilisi is shaped very strangely because of the mountains surrounding it. So before we get into this post, here’s a lil map that I made to give some context for what you’re about to see. Most of what you’re about to see exists in the area highlighted below in yellow.
Blue 💙 = Tbilisi Cityscape (a general representation of what would be considered urban or suburban)
Red ❤️ = Kura River (this river is the centrifuge of life and city planning in Tbilisi)
Yellow 💛 = Tbilisi City Center (if you need to book accommodations, try to do it here!)
Georgia’s cultural resurgence comes in many forms, but today we’re going to focus specifically on street art. Tbilisi is a treasure trove of interesting little alleyways, tastefully decrepit old buildings, and a unique form of urban decay that makes the whole city feel like some sort of massive antique shop. And in the spaces in between the city’s main cobblestone causeways and its many new restaurants and coffeeshops, there is quite a robust collection of murals that… well, I should probably just shut up and show you.
FEAST YOUR EYES!
Yeah, Tbilisi brought its A game with its street art.
Normally this is the part of the article where I try stalk down some of the artists responsible for the murals showcased in the article, but I had a uniquely difficult time of finding any of them. To be precise there are 3 I have managed to located based on the signatures on their murals. Those artists are Gagosh, L. Japaridze, and most prominently, Gosha. Unfortunately, Gosha’s Instagram handle is @goshaart, which might be one of the funniest and most unfortunate ESL/lost-in-translation mishaps I’ve seen in recent memory. I remember standing in an alley in Tbilisi with my camera staring at this tag like, “…is this real?”
Because—to my fellow Americans at least—we all know what “shart” means right? If not, let the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman educate you.
Maybe your mind wouldn’t have automatically jumped to this, but mine did and it’s my damn website so I get talk about sharts if I want to MOM! Haha anyway, if you’re interested in tuning into the world of Georgian street art, here’s a Facebook group that deals in just that: Street Art In Georgia. Lots of cool stuff on there!
This is the last article from Tbilisi! Up next we’re headed out into Georgian wine country, which is a world all its own. Honestly it felt more like Italy than Georgia. So I’ll see you there, friend!
Go shart! 🥂
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Peter was born & raised in Columbus, Ohio, and started this blog when he moved from Boston to Hanoi (Vietnam) in 2014. After years based in Nashville working on his band, The Great Palumbo, he now resides in London, UK.
