Transportation in Georgia

Warning:  this will be a boring and useless post for anyone not going to Georgia.

Transportation in Georgia is, in a word, awesome--at least, from a financial point of view.  The taxis are cheap by American standards--a few hours' walk is around two USD or so--and it can be entertaining having them explain the sights along the way in a mix of English and Georgian (generally a lot of the latter and a tiny bit of the former).  However, all-in-all, I would say that's actually the worst method of transportation unless you need to get to a very specific place very quickly.  The better mode of travel is by marshutka (a Russian-origin word, this is written "marshrutka" in Georgian, but pronounced "marshutka"--I will write it as it is pronounced).  This is basically a full-size van with a bunch of seats (without seatbelts) and often a couple short, loose stools for the mass crowds of people who get on them (often there are also people standing on these crowded vans).  In more remote areas, the marshutkas will have a sign in the window saying which villages they are going to (in Georgian letters only)--in town, they have numbers for different routes, and you'll have to ask a Georgian which route to take to get where you need to go.  You hail these just as you would a cab.  While these can get a bit cramped, they're way more cost-effective than taxis.  In town, you'll pay about 50-80 tetri (100 tetri=1 lari) to get anywhere, and my marshutka ride from Ch'ik'aani to Tbilisi (2 hours' drive) was 8 lari--around $5 US.  By the way, with marshutkas, you pay at the end, and generally do not need exact change (I would recommend exact change with taxis, though).  With taxis or marshutkas, just be cognizant, also, of rush hour in the evening--at any other time, it will get you there in a reasonably timely manner.

Within Tbilisi there is also a metro, which is the best mode of transportation in town if you are going anywhere near one o the other stations or if you are going very far across town (in which case, if the station isn't very close to where you need to go, the metro then a marshutka could still be cheaper (and faster) than a marshutka alone).  It is 2 lari to get a metro card, and then 50 tetri for each time you go into the station (you load these onto your card).  The beauty of it is, on this 50 tetri you can go to any of the stations, because the price, like I said, is just for getting you into the underground station; then the ride itself is free.  So if you go too far, and have to get on the metro going the opposite direction for a bit to get where you needed, no problem--it's all still 50 tetri in total.  A quick note for those who get vertigo and/or are afraid of heights--you're going to want to hold on tight to the railing on the escalator down to the station:  it's steep and it goes fast.

The only other public mode of transportation I can think of is the train, for if you're going long distances--it seems to be well priced (I heard it's about 20 lari for Tbilisi to Batumi, the farthest two stations from each other), but I haven't actually ridden it yet--this December, in all likelihood, I will be using it to do some monastery-hopping.

A note on taxis:  agree on the price beforehand (or better yet, have a Georgian friend do the haggling for you), because Georgians will probably think you, as a Westerner, are both rich and naïve as to fair Georgian pricing.  If nothing else, ask a Georgian friend how much is a reasonable price to get from X to Y by taxi, so you have a ballpark figure.  I've heard that there's also a taxi company that is actually metered, but as I haven't used it (it's quicker and easier to just hail a taxi (they're everywhere in the city), instead of finding the number somehow, calling, waiting for it to get to you--especially if you don't know the Georgian name of where you are--et cetera), I don't know how it's prices would compare to other taxis.  Also, always hail one driving on the street, instead of getting in one idly parked on the side of the road; as one would think, those hailed on the street generally give much cheaper prices.  All the other modes of transportation are set-price.

Also, a quick note on Georgian driving:  it's different.  It's generally faster, the cars drive closer together (side-to-side as well as front-to-back), the lanes painted on the pavement are almost always ignored (and thus two written lanes often equals three driving lanes), and seatbelts are much more likely to be ignored (it can sometimes be insulting to a driver to put on your seatbelt, and marshutkas, except in any seats next to the driver's (some have these seats and some don't), don't have any seatbelts, as I mentioned above).  If, like me, you're used to nice, safe driving, with a seatbelt on at all times, well--get used to not always having the luxury of lower speeds and seatbelts.  I haven't really ever been driven by a truly bad driver (though I've seen a few on the roads), the driving is just more aggressive, i.e., faster, closer, and less according to any sort of rules; things are usually not too horribly bumpy (though they are never really smooth) unless you're really in the back-roots or if a cow walks into the road suddenly and the driver has to brake very suddenly or something like that (maneuvering around the herds of animals in the road isn't uncommon in the country and villages.  Because of these driving habits, if you're in the city as a pedestrian, you will need to be bolder than you're used to--look, and run when it's clear.  Or, if there are two directions going at different times, do what I (and the many Georgians who were my example in this) have done--go over the first direction's lanes when they're clear, and stand on the double lines until the other lanes are clear.  Sounds fun, right?  As long as you're not dumb, you can get by very safely in Tbilisi as a pedestrian, and thus, I would assume, in all the other cities as well (the towns are no problem).  Of course, being a pedestrian really is the best way to see the city, so long as you have the time--and it's a very safe country in terms of crime and things like that; Georgians are over-hospitable, if anything, even to strangers--don't be afraid to get out there and walk around a little!

In Christ,

Teopile/Theophilos Porter