DE S T INAT IONS


TBILISI TIPS


Accommodation options in the capital have improved hugely in recent years. The Iveria hotel, which once housed refugees, is now the impressive Radisson Blu Iveria Hotel, Tbilisi (radissonhotels.com), and offers great views from the upper floors (although try to ignore the eyesore that is the Biltmore hotel – a good example of the unrestrained construction of recent years). Also recommended are


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the hotels owned by Temur Ugulava, founder of Adjara Group. Rooms (roomshotels. com) and Stamba (stamba hotel.com) are co-located in a converted former Soviet-era newspaper printing house; the latter is higher-end but both have a lovely range of rooms and dining venues. From the same group, there’s


also Fabrika (fabrikatbilisi.com), which combines a hostel with a co-working space and a courtyard full of shops, cafés and a restaurant. The Wyndham Grand


has just opened in a central position just off Freedom Square (for a review visit


FROM TOP: Rooms; Stamba; Fabrika; Radisson Collection Tsinandali


businesstraveller.com/tried- and-tested), next to a huge new mixed-use development that will open gradually over the next year or so. Best of all is the Sheraton Grand Tbilisi Metechi Palace, the most well-known of all of the city’s hotels, which was originally built in 1989 and reopened earlier this year following an extensive four-year renovation. See our next issue for a review. Georgia’s cuisine is


world-renowned. While in Tbilisi, try Shavi Lomi (the Black Lion; facebook.com/ shavilomirestaurant) for its interesting twists on Georgian traditional cuisine and its authentic atmosphere – it is set in some renovated old houses. Outside the capital, you can


go to wineries and sample their natural wines – try to visit Iago winery in Mtskheta (iago.ge) and Okro’s in Sighnaghi in the Kakheti region (okrogvino.com). Stay at the Radisson Collection Tsinandali Estate Georgia (radissonhotels.com).


and office of Bidzina Ivanishvili, the country’s richest man (compare his net wealth of US$5 billion with Georgia’s GDP in 2017 of US$15 billion). Te symbolism of his house is obvious. He is widely considered to have a significant influence on all aspects of political life; a coalition of parties he had founded, called Georgian Dream, won the elections in 2012 and later that year he was appointed as prime minister by Georgia’s parliament, serving just over a year. Several people told me that nothing happens in the city without his knowledge and approval, and while that might be overstating it, for a man who is oſten said to enjoy keeping a low profile, it’s a rather elevated position from which to maintain it. Georgia’s future stability and prosperity depends on it navigating a careful course between its desire for the


NOV EMB E R 2 0 19


west and its relationship with Russia. Located in the South Caucasus, along with its westerly neighbours


Armenia and Azerbaijan, it has always been a crossing place. Lying between Europe and Asia, and between the Caspian and Black Seas, with a distance of only 700 miles between the two, makes it a natural transit point. It was once on the Silk Route, but with the discovery of


the oil fields around Baku in Azerbaijan, oil was transported by rail over to the Black Sea. Stalin made a name for himself organising strikes at the Rothschild refining factory in the coastal city of Batumi, and even today one of the major contributors to Georgia’s GDP (15 per cent in 2017) is transit – of goods transported by road and rail over its territory to the Black Sea ports of Poti and Batumi, and also oil and gas from the fields near Baku.


→ bus ine s s tr a v el ler .c om


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