Why Georgia capital Tbilisi is the most fascinating city in Europe

Towering over the Georgian capital of Tbilisi is Mtatsminda Park, a Soviet-era fairground and gardens set atop a craggy hill. Accessed by a funicular railway, you will find a host of terrifying, creaky old amusement rides, including the 65-metre-high Giant Wheel, which seems to bow outwards over the edge of a sheer cliff.

Dotted around the park are the remnants of Soviet comms equipment; rusting satellite dishes, a vast radio tower. The amusements are what you might charitably call ‘low-fi’ – I would not recommend forking out the 20 Georgian lari (£5.60) for the House of Mirrors, for instance, a sad, reflective tunnel within which you bumble around for approximately three minutes like a daddy long legs trapped behind a window. But Mtatsminda is an excellent spot to pick up a few bottles of the local Natakhtari beer and gaze wistfully over one of the most geopolitically fascinating cities in Europe.

Bordering Russia to the North, Georgia’s position is at once prosperous and precarious. Following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, more than 100,000 Russians moved here – most to Tbilisi – a massive influx for a nation of just 3.7 million. This helped send the economy into overdrive, with the price of housing inevitably following.

There had been an uneasy detente between the two countries following the Russo-Georgian war of 2008, in which Putin redrew parts of the border in his favour, but the fire is once again being stoked. Graffiti sprayed liberally across the capital’s grand old buildings is not subtle: “Nationalists of all countries go f**k yourself,” reads one slogan. “Russians f**k off,” reads another, with “c**ts” added below, as if an afterthought. You can buy “F**k Putin” hoodies at most of the street markets, if you’re looking for a souvenir.

Graffiti sprayed liberally across the capital’s grand old buildings is not subtle: ‘Russians f**k off,’”’ reads one

I visited in April, on the anniversary of the 1989 “Tbilisi tragedy”, when the Soviet army killed 21 unarmed protestors. Commemorations of the massacre merged with protests over a controversial “foreign agents” bill passed by the governing Georgian Dream party, leading to days of heated clashes with police.

Hiking back from Mtatsminda Park, down Tbilisi’s perilously steep, winding streets, I met Vato Botsvadze, who as a teenager had attended the 1989 protest. Botsvadze is the owner of Chacha Corner, a small but impeccably stocked shop selling the eponymous Georgian national spirit. He invited me to sit at his tiny counter and offered me a shot of the brandy-like drink, which I duly knocked back. It was warm, sweet, not unpleasant. 

“How strong do you think that was?” he asked, smiling. I guessed around 40 per cent. He laughed, poured a splash onto the bar and set fire to it with his cigarette lighter, resulting in an impressive, blue flame. “This chacha is 12 years old and at least 76 per cent!” Given how the room began to pleasantly swim, I did not doubt this.

I drank chacha with Botsvadze for an hour or so, trying various styles as he regaled me about life in Tbilisi. He had worked his way up in politics before opening one of Georgia’s only chacha retailers (most chacha is ‘homebrew’ and getting a licence to sell it is almost impossible, he says). He shows me a picture of him, aged 14, on 9 April 1989, in the hours before the first shots were fired: “We were fighting flags against tanks,” he sighed.

Botsvadze turns out to be a minor celebrity. His Instagram is full of videos of visitors drinking chacha and singing their national anthems; I politely declined breaking into a rendition of God Save the King.

It was dark as I stumbled out of Chacha Corner, meandering streets that are both grand and endearingly shabby. Georgia was once on the lucrative trade route from Naples up to St Petersburg, and you can see this heritage in the columned, gold-hued buildings. 

Georgia isn’t just historically significant, however: it’s also one of the most digitally advanced countries in the world, home to a burgeoning tech industry. Clustered on street corners are retro-futuristic booths where you can pay your bills or buy bitcoin. It feels young, full of louche, independent bars, and cafes selling dumplings until 6am. Everywhere you go roads break into inviting little courtyards, neon lights spilling from within.

One of the most significant new developments in the Tbilisi building boom is the Paragraph Freedom Square hotel, a spectacular steel and glass creation in the centre of town. From the moment you walk in to find a famous Georgian pianist (or so I’m told) tinkling the ivories, you can tell it’s somewhere special.

Designed by architectural firm Hausart Georgia, it’s filled with details reflecting aspects of Tbilisi culture: repeating patterns that replicate the city walls, fabrics inspired by centuries-old Georgian chokha clothing. Here the lobby isn’t just a place to stand with your luggage but a genuine social hub, dominated by a central bar where guests are invited to attend wine and cheese tastings (both wine and cheese are a Big Deal here). 

As you wander the streets of the old town, beyond the Leaning Clock Tower of Tbilisi, through a warren of squares and parks, you will spot a series of brick domes: Tbilisi’s famous sulphur baths

After dinner at Paragraph’s excellent fine dining restaurant Ostigan, where international dishes are given a Georgian spin (a chocolate creation is shaped like a traditional winemaking pot, for instance), I took the lift to Paragraph’s Sky Bar Chinari, which offers panoramic views over the old town. As a steady stream of cocktails washed away the exertions of the day, I watched pleasure boats crawl across the Kura river and a hot air balloon – a permanent tourist attraction – rise and fall in place. A couple of floors below, a huge circular pool overlooks the same vista. During the turndown service, a “good night story” is left on your pillow, filling you in on some esoteric aspect of Georgian culture, with topics including “the Gelati Monastery Complex” (a compelling read).

Paragraph is one of many landmark new hotels in the city. A few minutes down the road, the Swissotel is a more business-focused offering, a smart affair decked out in bare wood. Rooms come complete with a fold-out gym and weights rack, should you fancy keeping up your workout regime while you’re away. And across town in the business district – a real change of pace from the bustling old town – you can find the giant Pullman Hotel, a poppy monument to Tbilisi’s economic boom, with suites so spacious and beds so vast you could spend your entire trip there, watching Netflix on the freestanding TV.

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But you shouldn’t spend your trip watching Netflix. Tbilisi is a city best experienced stomach-first. Famous gastronomic creations include khachapuri (cheese-filled bread topped with an egg), meaty khinkali dumplings and skin-contact wine. You will not have to travel far to find these things – one of the first places I stumbled upon, Cafe Daphna, sells some of the most highly rated khinkali in the city. These dumplings are designed to be held by the twisted ‘nipple’ at the top and bitten in such a way as to catch the liquid contained within. Do not make my mistake and assume they are the size of Chinese dumplings – each one is as big as a fist and you will not get through a dozen (I gallantly tried and painfully failed).

For a comprehensive introduction to Georgian wine – an 8,000-year-old tradition using buried earthenware pots called qvevri – head to 8000 Vintages. Here they have more varieties than you could drink your way through in a year. It’s remarkable how much this amber liquid tastes like the orange wine now ubiquitous on the menus of hip London restaurants; the Georgians were doing it eight millennia before it was cool.

As you wander the streets of the old town, beyond the Leaning Clock Tower of Tbilisi, through a warren of squares and parks, you will spot a series of brick domes: Tbilisi’s famous sulphur baths. I booked a private pool and sauna at Gulo’s Thermal Spa, among the oldest in the city. For an hour, the subterranean heated pool, sauna and icy plunge pool are all yours (it’ll set you back between £30-£60) and for an extra fee you can get a wash and scrub by a no-nonsense Georgian masseuse. With its dim lights and quasi-religious atmosphere, it’s a wonderful way to unwind before emerging, hair still damp, into the warm Tbilisi night.

Should you want a more exclusive spa experience, book a spot at Banya No.1, the Georgian outpost of a London-based business. Located 45 minutes outside of Tbilisi in the mountainous resort of Kiketi, the drive is spectacular. The crumbling brickwork of the old town makes way for gleaming new developments, then vast, pastel-coloured Soviet housing blocks, which themselves recede into the distance as you snake your way up into the mountains. 

Kiketi is a remote farming village that’s been redeveloped as an eco-resort, dotted with traditional wooden houses, modern shipping container apartments and stilted treehouses (one of which features the tree trunk in the centre of the bedroom). Jazz nights are held in restored, Soviet-era conservatories and yoga classes take place on the mountainside overlooking Tbilisi. Here you can enjoy more Georgian wine at the on-site winery, Tanini, where Revaz Vasadze makes natural qvevri skin-contact wines. If you ask nicely he’ll set up a tasting, expounding the virtues of various Georgian grapes and explaining how the length of skin-contact affects the flavour. 

Banya No.1 (a ‘banya’ is a traditional Russian steam bath where you go to eat, wash and socialise) is among the most spectacular I have ever seen; buried Teletubby-style beneath the ground, you emerge onto a terrace overlooking a waterfall. I booked a three-hour session including a parenie treatment, which involves being expertly beaten with handfuls of hot birch and oak leaves in a superheated sauna before taking a dip in a freezing plunge pool on the terrace.

The afternoon, curated by Andrei, a parenie master from Siberia, also includes multiple body scrubs and intense aromatherapy, facilitated by chucking infused water into the sauna’s brick oven. Andrei takes his job seriously: “I had no bathroom growing up,” he tells me. “Only the banya – if you wanted to wash: banya. To eat: banya.”

Armed with a pair of fans, he is a wizard of heat and cold. He chases in gusts of cool air from outside then coaxes hot air down from the top of the sauna. He’s like a free-form jazz musician – “and on the steam tonight: Andrei!” – and the experience is unlike anything else: overwhelming, intensely pleasurable, occasionally painful. When you emerge from that outdoor pool you have never felt so alive.

It feels like a microcosm of Tbilisi, a city of contrasting extremes: relaxing and invigorating, hedonistic and healthy. There is nowhere in Europe like it and there has never been a better time to visit.

• To book the Paragraph Freedom Square hotel go to marriott.com; for the Swissotel Tbilisi go to swissotel.com; for the Pullman Axis Towers go to pullman.accor.com; To book Banya No.1 go to gobanya.ge