Czar quality
‘These regions are not under the control of the central government,’ reads a warning on a map in the bustling center of Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi. ‘Traveling to these regions is not advisable.’ One of these regions is Abkhazia, only a few hours’ drive away. The other is South Ossetia, barely an hour from here. Since 2008 both have been occupied by Russian troops, in defiance of the Georgian government. Yet here in Tbilisi, tourism is booming, and many of the tourists are Russians. This neat irony encapsulates what makes Tbilisi such a fascinating city, a looking-glass metropolis in which nothing is quite what it seems.
