Wandering Woodwards: Tbilisi Georgia

On August 15th Roy left Houston to begin working on a project in Tbilisi, the capital city of the Republic of Georgia. Georgia is a small country; roughly the size of South Carolina and is sandwiched between the Russian Federation to the North (the border roughly being the Caucasus Mountains), the Black Sea and Turkey to the West, and Armenia and Azerbaijan to the South and East. It gained independence from Russia in 1991 after nearly 2 centuries of Russian (later Soviet) occupation.

British Petroleum is the the client for this natural gas project and Roy will be the HSSE - Health, Safety, Social and Environmental - manager.
Project announcement:

ISTANBUL (Turkey), March 20, 2014 – A joint venture (JV) between Turkish builder Enka Insaat and U.S. peer Bechtel International has won a $528 million (383 million euro) deal for the construction and commissioning support of the South Caucasus Pipeline Expansion (SCPX) project facilities in Georgia, BP said.

Under the contract, the Bechtel Enka JV will build a 16 kilometre access road, two 120 megawatt compressor stations and a pressure reduction and metering station in Georgia. The works are expected to be completed in 2018.

I arrived on September 7th:

at the Tbilisi airport

and we have been staying in the Holiday Inn, which is a nice 20 story hotel.

I've enjoyed their 30m pool

when I saw this in our bathroom, I asked myself, "wait, am I at Camp"?

It's been a busy two weeks. After I got over jet lag, and after a brief intense afternoon of inspecting apartments, we found one we liked and will move in tomorrow - Sept. 22nd. We also set up a bank account, and I got my Turkish IPhone a Georgian SIM card and now have a working phone! yeah!

The weather has been warm but we have had some rain and the temps are cooling down every day; unlike Houston there is no humidity here. Fall is definitely on the way. We expect snow in the winter.

Tbilisi

Georgia is an interesting place in a post-Soviet worn-down, almost no maintenance ever occurs on any road or structure,

an apartment building not too far from our hotel

and nobody wants to work very hard, sort of way, but the people are nice (a surprising number speak some English), the food is great, less spicy than Turkey, which is good. The drivers are crazier than the Turks and I didn't think that was possible! Pedestrians are an annoyance and lane lines mean nothing. As in Turkey, lots of horn honking. Passing over a double line in the city is common, even driving down a one-way street the wrong way, if they can get away it. Parking is a nightmare, as there are 3 times as many cars as spaces, so cars jam in every which way, even on the sidewalk is not uncommon. Needless to say, we will not be getting a car. Taxis are normal cars with no meters so the drivers can charge anything they want. Apparently one is supposed to bargain with the driver on a fare before you get in, but since we don't speak Georgian, this can be a problem.

We attended Church last Sunday and found a friendly Branch - bigger than Ankara but smaller than Darwin - that has warmly welcomed us. We will be the ones wearing headphones with the missionaries translating as the meetings are in Georgian or Russian.

would you like to sing out of the Russian, Georgian or English hymnal?

Tbilisi is a beautiful city at night.

Nariqala Fortress - dating back to the 4th century

The big building in the distant-center is the large Tsminda Sameba Cathedral, consecrated in 2004. Over 90% of the population are Christians (Georgian Orthodox).

The city's pride and joy: the Peace Bridge (with fortress behind), an elegant glass and steel footbridge crossing the Mtkvari River, finished in 2010 - it was fun to walk across.

Out and about: