Christmas in much of the world may be over, but here in Georgia and its surrounding nations, it's a holiday that's still really only just starting. With New Year's being the main event, and the Christmas day aligning more with the Orthodox date. For me it has been an interesting experience to celebrate Christmas a little more before everyone else, but also having a reason to continue that celebration for another two weeks. That festivity being kept alive and pushed a bit further has been great fun, especially when my festivity this year was definitely decreased a bit with how Tbilisi has been recently. These early celebrations were met with markets, where individuals would meet and share their artistic creations and offer them up for sale, encouraging people to come together and hang out in unique spaces that are culturally fascinating and historic. The first location this evening didn't result in many photographs: a mostly dense area that was within an old building in the district of Old Tbilisi. Each room of a former house was riddled with stands for various items, ranging from soaps, candles, knitted items, and various forms of jewellery. At the top of the building was an outdoor area that served as a bar and seating area, but unfortunately there was no coffee and only alcoholic options, leading to us choosing to leave and pursue our next location: the Christmas market.
Located on Orbeliani Street, it was a market that we had known about for a few days but were generally cautious of due to its incredibly close proximity to the city's most dramatic environment as of late: Rustavli Avenue. This is the heart of the city's current protests, and a location we were avoiding due to its unpredictable nature. But we hopped into a taxi and got dropped off right at the entrance, and at first it looked miserable. With a large music stand booming a strange variation of EDM and techno for some odd reason. Not a particularly festive environment and it felt more like we had arrived at an empty techno goth concert. The first set of stalls were a bit disappointing, and the market felt empty at first. Not a lot of life, especially in front of the stage where it seemed like it was a performance to an audience of none. We grabbed a hot dog - the first actual one we've had since we arrived back in spring. It was a bit overpriced coming in at about 9 GBP for us both, but it was a nice addition to the market, though we soon realised the market was riddled with much better options from other stalls. We were just a bit more used to Tbilisi's more underwhelming nature, thinking the emptiness of that area was the whole thing. Expecting the worst. Though more people began to arrive and that space filled with more people suddenly: a lot of the city's younger Indian students experiencing some attempt at Christmas celebrations. People running around taking pictures of everything.
Many of the stalls were selling a bit of the same thing: mulled wine, regular wine, coffee, vodka, and some various snacks. Some looked better than others, but the main thing to notice was the competition for noise with each stall playing a ton of music form their own speakers. I didn't enjoy that aspect of things, and I do think it would've been better had the music been one playlist surrounding the space, the same with the stages. The atmosphere was pretty good in terms of visuals. Beautiful festive buildings and lights covering them. Lots of little decorations in terms of the stalls and various statues. But yeah, that techno music booming from different places did seem a bit too loud and a bit too distracting. We walked around the whole market which was actually quite massive, from the streets which had been blocked off from cars to the Dry Bridge where the usual weekend markets take place, leading down into the park below. It was an impressive scale for a Christmas market, which then did actually reveal the sheer number in people in it. It was interesting to see so many foreigners there, more than the general Georgian population. But I guess Georgians don't care too much for such things, and for some nationalities the festivities were more unique to them due to their cultures. We grabbed coffee from a stand which was more reasonably priced, but didn't taste the best without dumping a bit of sugar into it. What is it with Christmas markets and poor quality coffee? You know what I'm talking about!
But it warmed us up as the wind picked up and blew through the streets. Wrapped up in Christmas jumpers and coats with scarves and hats. We sat down at the open cinema and watched a dubbed version of Elf in Georgian for a few minutes as we sipped on the coffee. I wish the city had more things like this throughout the year, areas where the cars wouldn't dominate the space and more inviting areas would open up to both locals and tourists. It's something the city is really missing, but it was nice to see it finally take place. Especially considering they're starting to open up some ice rinks which will be nice. These areas of life almost feel strange here. Tbilisi is generally unwelcoming and often chaotic, but to have a space that felt a bit more joyful where you could actually walk around and admire the atmosphere gave it such a different feeling: stopping to appreciate the architecture and the lighting. Paying more attention to the surroundings instead of just being stuck on the paths. It was a lot of fun, and fortunately the heavy police presence in the area didn't lead to any annoyances on the protesting side of things.
A fun time, good for spending an hour or two with lots of little options for food and drink. Music could've been more festive and a little quieter. But it was great fun to see something like this in the city finally. Though we probably should've wrapped up a bit more.