My Tbilisi neighbors

In the Czech Republic, most places in the old town are flats, and I imagine most homes throughout the country are flats as well. For each building, the owners of the flats are grouped together in a kind of cooperative, and they discuss things like shared heating, building maintenance, upgrading the building, repairs, landscaping, and so on, something like an HOA in the US. They agree on the monthly prices to charge and someone takes the responsibility to carry it all out. When you rent an apartment, you usually have to pay the rent plus those building fees, which Czechs call “poplatky”. I personally think it’s a remarkable system, and at the core reveals the socialist model of living – it’s democratic and it’s about a shared responsibility for shared benefits. Maybe you don’t want one benefit, but want another, and so you have to make tradeoffs and compromises to get what you want, but in the end, theoretically everybody benefits from the synchronicity.

a street of flats in Prague

In Georgia, it seems they work in a similar method. But on one hand where the cooperatives in Czech Republic seem to do an amazing job at their self-governance and updating, the Georgian system doesn’t seem to have that sort of benefit. Take elevators. Lifts in Prague are maintained by a monthly building fee. In Georgia, they’re usually coin operated (I’ve noticed the same profound system in Italy as well, so it’s not unique to this country). The lift in our building requires a 5 tetri coin (3 cents), and only a 5 tetri coin, to go up and down. That ends up being a ton of coins, but in the long run, not much money. Living on a way up floor, we probably spend a maximum of 10 lari (5 dollars) a month. Now, for the life of me, I don’t understand why we just don’t pay the lift maintenance guy that money directly, and not worry about keeping a stock of 5 tetri coins.

Georgian neighbors

I’ve often heard from Georgians about how they have good neighbors. They’re friends with their neighbors. Unlike in America where we don’t know or don’t care about our neighbors. What they really mean is that neighbors are all up in your business, questioning all your guests like their suspected killers and thieves. There's usually one person in the building that acts as the local sheriff, and that person is usually an older lady who sits on a bench outside all day...

lots o neighbors up there

Water problems

Knock on our door one morning.

The lady from right under us barges in. She’s old, she’s wearing some very loose shirt where you can see her sagging essentials from the side. She waves her arms a lot while she talks, which of course exaggerates the issue with her shirt. She speaks in Russian, but understands Georgian. As I speak decent Russian, this is no big deal. “Our apartment is flooded with water and it’s coming from our sink, so it must be from your flat! Did you pour a lot of water down the sink?”

“But that doesn’t really make sense,” I said. “How would our sink water get into your kitchen? It goes down the drain, to the central pipes. Maybe something is blocked there?”

you try to work out how our water is going up into her sink...

“No, we all got together and fixed the central pipes last year,” she said. “It has to be coming from here. It’s clean water. If it was coming from the central pipes, it would be dirty.”

“Of course, if it’s coming from here, then we’ll pay for it. Just talk to a plumber and then send him to us.”

And then she went into our awesomely painted bathroom, complete with a mural that reminds me of either Hawaii or Egypt.

“And water is flooding down on top of me. It’s like it’s raining in our bathroom! It used to happen all the time. But now it’s not. But I think I was going crazy!”

Yes, I thought, I can verify that.

Then she welcomed herself to a tour of the apartment. “Ah, it’s very interesting what you did here, and there. You know, the last owner was going to take that piece of furniture, and that one too. And that one that was built in was done by the owner before her, and she was going to take that too!”

“Good thing we changed the locks,” I said to my wife. The previous owner had already taken enough of the furniture we had agreed she'd leave.

She left. A week passed and she came back because she was locked out and needed to use our phone. She then told us, “Water hasn’t been pouring down.”

That’s good. Part of me wonders if there was ever water pouring down in the first place.

The government

Then there was another lady. This one wears thick makeup and in general looks like an American Southern lady whose always ready to go to her Baptist church. I'd half expect her to say "Lordy" if she spoke English, and I imagine she wears big hats to church rather than a scarf. She’s apparently the head of the building government.

She tells us about a petition. There apparently has to be so many signatures in order to be brought up in the building government meeting. And then if there’s something to be done by the neighborhood government, there has to be a percentage of signatures on top of that.

The petition is for helping the other halls. You see, a Soviet block apartment doesn’t waste square footage on interior hallways. Instead there’s just about ten separate entrances around the base, and each entrance has its own staircase and lift, the entrance, area and lift together are called in Georgian a “sadarbazo”, and each has their own governing structure. So in all we’ve got the sadarbazo government, the building government, and the neighborhood government. The darbazi government doesn’t have meetings, but does do petitions and basic agreements with the neighbors. For instance, the water pipes were done by agreement of the sadarbazo.

our beautiful sadarbazo

This petition was asking for money. The other sadarbazos were needing to do maintenance and repairs, and they didn’t have enough money, so they were asking for a grant from the neighborhood government, along with a very small amount of monthly aid from the neighboring sadarbazos. That sounded okay to me.

Save the tree!

While she was telling us all of this, another shorter lady who dressed something more akin to a Canadian lumberjack came up and started yelling at her. “You swindler! You cheat!” she was yelling. “Don’t give these people your petitions, you liar!”

After her tirade, the building president left, nearly in tears. The short lady turned to us and said, “I’m sorry she was harassing you. Anyways, I have a petition here…”

When this lady speaks to my wife, she goes at a kilometer a minute, but with me she’d switch to English, raise her voice, and speak very slowly. “HELLO! HOW ARE YOU?" she says, every time I run into her. I speak back to her in Georgian, but it never seems to occur to her that this American guy speaks some Georgian. Or maybe she just wants to practice shouting English at me. There’s no way to be sure.

Next time I should do the same. "GAMARJOBA! ROGORA KHAR?"

Her petition was for this: this one family in our building wants to take over some public space and turn it into their private yard. I don’t care about that, why not let them. But then they also want to cut down a tree. Nobody wants the tree cut down. She has to petition both the building government and the neighborhood government, both of which have rejected her trying to do so. This lady was making a petition to save the tree as a just in case measure.

without the trees, we only have concrete

This all was of course a lot to grasp in our first couple of weeks living here. But it was a fascinating lesson on local living in Georgia. And it made the whole matter of why I’ve got to pay 5 tetri for my lift even more of a mystery.

#life #Tbilisi

Finding a Flat in Tbilisi

For most of my life, I’ve been renting apartments. And I tell you, I get the overwhelming feeling that I’m just peeing into the wind. Wouldn’t buying be so much better? Outside of the bank's cut, you can probably make the majority of the money that you spend back, even after the maintenance and other unexpected costs that crop up. With renting, you get nothing back. And depending on what kind of landlords you get, you might still be paying for all that maintenance anyway. And also, as we’re not even going to be living in Tbilisi for a long period of time, it means we can rent out the place, and then come back and move back into our own house. So many points on the list that make buying such a better option. So we decided to buy.

But man, are there some issues when buying in another country, especially one like Georgia, where on the cultural spectrum of preferences towards organization, it tends to be on the extreme side of preferring to blow up in a wildfire of craziness against anything that might be considered to be a “plan”. The word itself is anathema in Georgian culture, likely to get you thrown out and fed to the jackals.

view from our balcony

We decided to come about three months before moving to Georgia to find a place. So we looked online and made a huge list of houses we’d like to see. Some helpful sites to those thinking of the move: www.saxli.ge, www.myhome.ge.

Of course, they’re not entirely that helpful, as we found out. Many of the current listings had been sold long before, and many of the realtors of listings that weren’t sold simply weren’t interested in working. We’d try to make appointments for when we were in town, and most of the time we’d just get the response, “Just call me on the day you can see the place and we’ll meet.” Then we’d call and they’d be busy, or simply not answer the phone, or always my favorite, the place would have already been sold.

It wasn’t going well.

Then finally, my wife’s mom knew a guy who was a realtor (most thing's in Georgia operate on the "I know a guy" basis). Let’s call him Aveji. Aveji showed us to this pretty nice place that was near a metro only a few stops from the Old Town. That sounded great. The place looked great, and perched up on the 9th floor as it was gave an amazing view of the surrounding cityscape. The apartment also came fully furnished, minus the dining room table and refrigerator, so it would be pretty easy to move in and we could make adjustments over time.

a view from our living room, Sameba on the left

We went for it. It wasn’t in the middle of the city, which I love to be in, but it was close enough, no big deal. Later when we are rich from my extravagant book sales (mom is going to have to buy a lot of my books) we can get something in the middle of the city (why we didn’t choose the center was fairly simple: most places are in various states of disrepair, and would take a lot of TLC to revive, and that consisted of both time and money we didn’t really have, and on top of that there's a whole slate of property speculation going on right now, with the in-flux of tourists, Airbnb, and so on).

There's also the huge privilege you get with being an American. As soon as they find out, they smell money. "I give you apartment for 30k, oh you American? I make good deal for you, 50k! No? 60k? It is best deal in city!" And folks, I'm po, so the whole American privilege thing really means nothing.

50k? In there? No thanks.

As for new buildings in the city... that is an option and we looked at them. But for the most part, new buildings look unfinished, unlandscaped, and already on the edge of falling apart before they're even completed. Soviet blocks, in many instances, are still in far better condition then these scam throw-ups. There are a few exceptions to this, as we found m2, Archi, and Maqro all offering good projects. They're just expensive. Like America prices. And frankly, I'm not sure how locals are affording those places.

The process in Georgia is that the bank then goes in and looks at the house, assesses the value, and then you can make an offer. So we made an offer, which was pretty generous, and they accepted it. But as we were in town for only a couple of weeks, that meant the wife’s family had to deal with the closing details. The previous owners then mentioned that they were going to take the washing machine too. Whatever.

looking another direction from the living room

After everything was said and signed, my wife’s brother went to the apartment to check on their progress moving out. Of all the things they said they’d leave, here were some of the things missing:

1. Oven/stove

2. Piano

3. 2 couches

4. A wardrobe

And then the previous owner was saying that she was going to come and take the washing machine and a built-in wardrobe.

That was enough. We called her brother, “Change the locks. She’s had enough time.” Then with my wife’s help, I sent a stern message to the lady, telling her that we were going to keep those last two items, as she broke our trust taking some of the items that she said she was leaving.

She replied, “But that stove was a gift! It had sentimental value! Same with the couches!”

Sentimental value? A stove?!

In which, we basically but more politely responded, “Look lady, you should have mentioned that before. The reason we gave you the generous offer was that Aveji told us there’d be furniture in the place, and even at the signing you agreed to it.”

Then she texted my wife, “Tell your American husband how things work in Georgia. People let others take their things from their apartment.”

To which my wife replied, “He knows how things work, and that you’re trying to steal the things we agreed on. He likes and trusts Georgians, and we trusted you to keep your word.”

Though perhaps that lady meant that I shouldn’t be so trusting of Georgians, I’m not precisely sure. My brother-in-law swapped the locks, so at least we’ve got a working washing machine. That was one less thing we had to buy.

But dang, it would have been nice to have that piano.

Here's a quick tour of the place, if anything it gives you a nice feel what those Soviet block apartments look like on the inside:

our living room

the bench is pretty typical of Soviet kitchens

the kitchen has a nice view too

the balcony has an unexplainable, unopenable window installed

the creation station

the crown jewel of the apartment: the shower mural

#life #Tbilisi

From Prague to Tbilisi

I know I’ve been a bit silent with my blogs lately, but I’ve got a few good reasons.

A Facetious Guide to Prague

Firstly, I had to focus on writing my latest book, A Facetious Guide to Prague. I wanted to get it done before I left Prague, so I could double up my last party to work alongside a book release. A lot goes into writing a book by yourself, especially when you compound it with the tons of pictures and managing the layout. I was up day and night writing and writing, and up even longer trying to edit everything and put in the pictures, enlisting a team of my close family to help out.

Done in a rush like that, it’s impossible to get the editing done properly. I had to accept a margin of error. When the end product came, I saw that it was a larger than acceptable margin of error, but I had to run with it anyway. I’d sell the books for cost, so it wasn’t like it was a big cost anyway.

stacked up at the book release party

Don’t worry, on my latest editions, I’ve cleaned up all that editing. The pictures and layout look great now on the print edition, and on the Kindle edition, I’ve got it packed full of really useful (links to) maps.

I also learned two things about CreateSpace. When you’re in America, it might be good to go through CreateSpace to get your additional copies for sale. But if you’re in Europe, and if you’re a member of Amazon Prime, then it might just be better to order through Amazon and take advantage of the free shipping. Depending on what you’re planning on reselling it for, you could get a huge cost advantage.

The books looked good. The cover was great, and the pictures all came out well. So we were ready for the party.

It went well, I’d have to say, though also a bit bittersweet.

We held the party at Brix Hostel and Bar in Zizkov. It was a bit of a strategic decision, both since being a hostel bar, it tends to be emptier than regular places and thus more easily fit my guests, but also being a hostel meant that it would have access to a lot of tourists. The idea definitely worked on the tourist part, and I sold most of the books I had ordered in advance. The part that failed was that a lot of the people who I was hoping to come, to see one last time, didn’t.

talking about the book

I used my typical format for a book release. I’d start doing a solo set, then do some reading (though not really this time, as I didn’t want it too over-the-top being a book release, as it was also a going away party and I’m sure the Prague residents couldn’t give a damn about a Prague guide book), then full band with Prague's best Irish band, Cupla Focal, then talk more about the book, then full band, then close. Naturally, I’d break in between the sets and sell and sign books. Ideally if you had a willing volunteer, you’d have someone manning the sales desk, and then you’d just have to sign and not worry about cash, but I’m always short that willing volunteer, so I just do it myself. Not a big deal when dealing with the measly quantities of books that I can ever hope to sell.

Prague's best Irish band, Cupla Focal

But whatever. I enjoy being asked for a book to purchase, then to sign it. It makes me feel like a real writer, and not the hack that I actually am. And even more, it was great playing one last time with my friends. I'll miss those lads!

The Going Away

No more beautiful Prague. It was time to move back to Tbilisi.

a view of Ryke Park and Avlabari

Though I’m American, I have a long history with Tbilisi and Georgia, one that started almost ten years ago with Peace Corps, and then I fell into the trap of loving the country and traveling and having a weird Bohemian lifestyle and not really wanting to go back to the quaint and boring American life (don’t get me wrong, that life isn’t necessarily bad, and the more I suffer 100 degrees without air conditioning I’ve got to wonder about my life choices, but really, it’s not a life for me, at least not yet). I met my wife in a smokey little “art bar” in Tbilisi, where I used to play accordion, and as she’s Georgian as well, we’re kind of eternally connected to the place, for better or worse. I hope for the better, but the city seems to have a giant case of entropy, and no matter what improves, one wonders if it can keep up with the forces of chaos that seem to be tearing the city apart at its seams. A fun place, and definitely an interesting place. It is what it is and here we are.

it's not a bad place to end up

All that moving took some effort though. As we bought the place, it meant that we had to sort out the furniture, the random repairs, the unexpected surprises (no hot water in the kitchen?! And why is the balcony all glassed in? and the last owner made some weird color themes, red walls with red light fixtures, green walls with green light fixture, and so on, weird stuff). We painted the walls, figured out how to paint the walls (plaster isn’t quite as easy to roll as drywall, folks), found that we had to mix the colors and that mixing them again for a new bucket after running out of paint in one room was harder than it seemed. It’s all a bit slapdash, but it looks cool, and definitely better, cleaner, and fresher than before.

The Blog

Finally, I had to wonder what to do with my blog. Did I want to continue it? Was it really serving as a conduit to selling my books? I guess now that I have an actual travel book, and not some psychological horrors like Hunger and How It Ends, then maybe it will generate some leads to that. Or maybe if I unfocus this blog, write again more about personal things and observations (while still having travel), then it will do better. It will certainly be more entertaining to write.

I don’t know. What do you, possibly the only person reading this post, think?

#book #life #Tbilisi #Prague