Page 12 - DIVA_No.18_2005

r Georgia

TBILISI:

ANCIENT CITY OF

WARM SPRINGS

Capital of Georgia - Tbilisi is
1500 years old. From the top
of the mount Mtatsminda
your sight will command
sparkling pictures queerness
of the city panorama, lying
majestically on the river
Mtkvari, bearing the traces
of its past and present har-
monized. Tbilisi was first
mentioned in the chronicles
in the IV century and was
charted, in the same century,
by Roman geographer
Castorisus.

The king ordered to build a existent. Despite the fact, that
town on this spot and called it the town has grown enor-
Tbilisi, because of its hot sul- mously and medieval residen-
phur springs. In Georgian tial houses gave way to
"tbili" means warm. European houses and the
From the ancient times the population amounts to a
town was an important trading million and half, to our great
and military center. The trans- satisfaction, it still preserves
it caravan road crossed the unique appearance of the old
town going from East to West town.
and from South to North.
Wealth and might of the state Georgia - a place, where east
made the capital a target of and west verge on
numerous invasions, by close Georgia's position at the
There exists a beautiful legend, and far neighboring countries crossroads of the eastern and
why Tbilisi was substituted as alike for centuries. During the western worlds put her into
capital for Mtskheta. Once king existence the town was forty contact with the countries of
of Kartli, Vakhtang Gorgasali times brought to ruins, sacked, Asia Minor and the
went hunting with his retinue. set to fire but like fabulous Mediterranean, the Hellenist
His trained hawk, while hunting Phoenix rose from its ashes. and Roman empires, Iran,
his prey - a pheasant, overtook All the above said is a brief Turkey, Russia and Europe.
it and then by chance both fell review of the town's remote Georgian art culture is a syn-
into hot sulphur springlet where past. Thanks to God old tradi- thesis of these varied influen-
they were found scalded. tions and customs are still ces, and is thus a unique

14 Diva 1.2005