We then went to visit some friends that we made from our previous days in Tbilisi. When we started exploring Tbilisi, several days ago, we met Bruno as our tour guide. He invited us to his house to look at his paintings and there we met his wonderful parents. Apparently he was the fourth in a generation of painters. It was so wonderful seeing their house full of beautiful paintings from across the generations. His father, Giovanni, turned out to be the famous author Giovanni Vepkhvadze. As we had tea with them, Giovanni started telling us all about his life and we found out that he very casually knew some incredibly famous artists such as Sergey Paradzhanov, Mastroiani, and Rezo Gabriadze. It must be so wonderful to live in a country where everyone knows each other.
After that we went to have lunch at a very authentic Georgian restaurant. I ordered Lula kebab, which was fantastic. The meat was perfectly crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. The waiters spoke decent English and we didn't have to wait terribly long.
We then walked to the Pantheon at the top of mountain Tazminda, where Griboedov and his wife, Nina, were buried. It was a long walk, but surprisingly interesting. We passed by graffiti urging Georgians to become vegan, which I suppose is like urging lions to become ballerinas.
We passed buildings that were beautiful once, but had fallen into disrepair.
I feel like a lot of Georgian buildings are like that. People don't seem to want to fix buildings. We even passed one that had giant cracks running up and down its length. The Georgian people don't seem to be bothered by the disrepair though. They seem free from the troubles of their economy. I'm still amazed by how friendly everyone is. We asked one man for directions and a whole flock appeared, explaining and gesturing in all the English they could summon.
The view from the top of Tazminda is extraordinary. It's especially lovely looking from above at some place you already know. We could recognize the bridge and the buildings near our hotel, the churches and monasteries we visited, and so much more that we wanted to go to in the future.
The ending to our beautiful day was a marionette show by Rezo Gabriadze about the Battle of Stalingrad. I cried so hard that I couldn't stop even after the piece was over. Everything was perfect in his play, no useless lines added for beauty, no unneeded decorations. Everything was there for a purpose. Even the way the marionettes were dressed spoke volumes about their characters. I think what also struck me was the simplicity of the play. Gabriadze managed to convey so much from the simplest actions and settings. He rarely used complex phrases used to show off one's erudition, instead he had these simple,short phrases that stuck in your mind, such as 'No one has ever seen an electron. I'll tell you. An electron is small, sour, and green.‘ Moreover, his stories were absolutely believable and that's what made it hurt so much. Because I knew that what he wrote probably happened. I really want to see the play again and recommend everyone to see Gabriadze's shows.
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