2019 Eurasia Adventure - Georgia On My Mind

And not Georgia USA honey. I am talking about the country of Georgia, the second of our stops of our Caucuses tour. This morning we took a short flight from Baku and not much more than an hour after we took off had landed at Georgia's capital city of Tbilisi. We will be here for five days.

As before let's start with a historical overview.

As with Azerbaijan, this is an area long populated by man and civilization starts early here. It too was under the influence of Persia in the centuries before the Greek (Macedonian) expansion. But after coming under the influence of Rome, it became the second country after Armenia to adopt Christianity as its official religion. It was able to maintain its independence even with the onslaught of Islam in the 8th century. There followed hundred's of years of independence. Georgia became a strong player and prospered from its location on the East-West trade route (the Silk Road).

Then came the deluge. First came the Mongols destroying all. The Georgians regrouped only to be struck down by first the Black Plague and then the new conqueror from the Steppes, Timur (Tamerlane). The area broke down into little statelets. To the west they were dominated by the Ottoman Turks and to the East by the Safavid Persians.

The 18th century brought the Russians who remained until the late 20th century. The time under the Soviet Union and Stalin was particularly difficult even though he was a Georgian by birth. Independence from the Soviet Union did not bring instant benefits. The opposite. For the first 10 years after independence the country was poor, corrupt, crime ridden, economically suffering, not to mention under attack from Russia looking to take back parts of it. Then two changes in government ten years apart completely changed the dynamic. Corruption was halted. Almost the entire police force was removed. The country became more West focused. There have still been issues but now Georgia is considered one of the safest places to visit and has become a tourist magnet.