We begam the day by visiting the park of big trees (sounds more impressive if you say ‘dendrological’) established by a billionaire Georgian who, at one time, owned a third of the GDP of the country. Bidzina Ivanishvili had a thing for trees and uprooted big ones from around the world and brought them to his park – with much controversy. A documentary has been made about the project (Taming the Garden) and was shown at the Berlin Film Festival a few years ago.
The trees are enormous and astounding – but it’s quite shocking to think of them uprooted and brought here from their homelands. Some appear with the image of their transport and arrival:
Beautiful but quite shocking!
We then visited Ozurgeti which the guide book said was drab and uninteresting but there was still tons to intrigue us including a market selling all kinds of paraphernalia for making pickles and jams and wine (we’ve come to the conclusion that Georgian homemade wine is to be avoided – though this is difficult since it is ubiquitous):
And this is the land of nuts! We came across stalls selling fresh hazelnuts which had been shelled by hand and left in the sun to dry, and others which had walnuts and nuts we couldn’t identify, again shelled by hand for lazy consumers:
Finally, for cat lovers, there have been many (probably too many) dogs on this blog so here is Nikhil making friends with a tiny kitten who then followed us for some of our journey:
Good looking preserving pan I’ve spotted there! R xx
Yes, indeed! Plus a range of jars, lids, spoons and spices and, I’m sure, a lot of advice ( albeit in a Georgian dialect)…
Do you think Bidzina might be open for suggestions about other ways to spend his money?
Rockets? Electric self driving cars? The man apparently introduced computers to Russia – well, that went well I guess,. The trees were originally for a private park apparently but local people objected ( trees for all! ). Park is very popular. Wait till we report on the Stalin Museum…
The Big Trees Park looks pretty spectacular till you discover how the trees got there. I’m having difficulty deciding whether or not the man would have been better off spending his money on the usual gazillionaire toys (and a lot of gilt furniture).
Well, it’s entirely possible he did that too! The trees are a root and branch folly perhaps…
an amazing feat – and what an ego!
Yes, definitely no shortage of ego here. The big tree park also contained some lurid flamingos ( such improbable birds) and apparently lemurs though we didn’t see any..
That looks like lots of bamboo in the first photo? And another looks like a Eucalypt?
Quite right, Hermine – an awful lot of bamboo and quite a lot of Australian eucalyptus- I slightly hope the Australians drove a hard bargain ( yes, mate, very rare trees, no, don’t need any water..).