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The article series "Georgian Perspectives" provides weekly insights (via Twitter: @doinggeography) and analyses of contemporary Georgian social life from a geographical viewpoint. This means that all articles examine the social space and the practices taking place within it. This includes both the built space and the non-built space and all communications about places and spaces. It is important to underline that the insights given here must always include views from the outside, as the author is neither a native speaker nor permanently living in Georgia.
Georgian Perspectives | Paradise lost? An architectural walk through the center of the Soviet Colchis
Russian writers have been imagining Georgia as a paradise-like country since the 19th century. The warmth, the sun, the subtropical climate – Georgia was considered a country where life was a constant feast. This image also influenced the literary texts of the 1920s and 1930s, and it continued to have an impact until the Sovietization […]
Georgian Perspectives | Controversial World Culture – Conflicts over Georgia’s Architectural Heritage Using the Example of the Bagrati Cathedral in Kutaisi
Georgia has three World Heritage Sites, which are of great importance for the worldwide recognition of Georgian history and culture. However, all three sites are the subject of intense conflicts between state, religious and economic actors and UNESCO. As a result of these conflicts, another 15 sites and regions in Georgia have been on the […]
Georgian Perspectives | Poti – The waiting city (Georgia)
The port city of Poti, located north of Batumi on the Black Sea, is in many regards an awaiting city. Since the decline of the port and a long period of stagnation in the 1990s, the inhabitants of Poti are waiting for the city to regain its former importance. In the past, it had the […]
Georgian Perspectives | On Stalin in today’s Georgia
One cannot travel to Georgia without encountering evidence of a still present Stalin worship among some Georgians. Perhaps one shouldn’t write texts about Georgia without at least cautiously touching on this subject. The following statements represent my attempt to do so. I would not have dared to write about this issue without the reflections of […]
Georgian Perspectives | Fridon Nizharadze – Painter of the traumas of Svaneti and the world
The tower buildings of the village community of Ushguli in Svaneti are probably the most frequently photographed motif in Georgia. Ushguli is the longed-for destination of many visitors to Georgia. They want to see the place with their own eyes about which it is often written that it has been preserved on the edge of […]
Georgian Perspectives | On the problem of giving ideological artwork a voice – Mosaics of Soviet Modernity (Georgia)
No matter how bad the Soviet system was, it’s part of our past. A destruction of the related forms and images cannot and will not erase it. Nini Palavandishvili: Soviet Modernist Architecture 2019, p. 12 The article series „Georgian Perspectives“ provides insights and analyses of contemporary Georgian social life from a geographical viewpoint. This means […]
Georgian Perspectives | The „Green Bazaar“ of Kutaisi (Georgia, Imereti)
The „Green Bazaar“ is located in the centre of Kutaisi. It is the main supply centre for the population living in the city and the surrounding area. At the same time, it is an excellent example of the high esteem in the Georgian culture for the value of food and drink. Despite the simplicity of […]
Georgian Perspectives | Photographs of selected traces of history in the urban space of Kutaisi (Georgia, Imereti)
The path through a city leads deep into the present and past of the people living there. By discovering objects und spaces, one can learn much about what is constitutive for peoples’ lives. „Expose the objects, recover them, make them speak – that is the path of archaeology proposed here. (…) The world is viewed […]
