Blog Archive: March 2016

Chops by the River - Restaurant & Grill

11 March, 2016 | Restaurant reviews | 32 seen

Chops by the River restaurant and grill is now among my favorite Tskenti restaurants, and allow me to say among Tbilisi restaurants as well. Located in village of Tskneti this restaurant offers single priced grill menus and very pleasant atmosphere.

I have heard of this place by some friend before, but the circumstances that made us actually to visit this restaurant was a little bit strange. As an active outdoor lovers we were off to hiking trip from Tskenti to Turtle lake, unfortunately this route is not anymore accessible, because of landslides near Tskenti. Read more: Failed attempt to complete Tskneti - Turtle lake hiking route

After hiking some 2km in the nowhere we decided to turn back. We agreed, we should visit Chops by the River because we have heard of it and it is located somewhere in Tskenti. We wondered how do Georgians call this place, we came out with - Chopi bai de riveri. I continued our route back to civilization and sung Chops by the river.

We were back on the road (paved) and at start I decided to take a taxi to this place - unfortunately taxi driver thought Chopi bai de riveri is located in Tbilisi... So .. I decided to take bus #34. So we did. Turned out Chops by the River is located at the last stop of bus #34.

Story can be told now:

Chops by the river restaurant in Tskneti

We entered this restaurant and it looked it is not working, although doors were opened. After short glimpse of wandering waiter approached - I asked - are you working? Yup, they are working. I asked for a table on the terrace. We were completely alone in the large restaurant complex. But we have been use to it for last couple of years here in Georgia.

Menu at Chops by the River

Menu is simple and complicated altogether - basically you pay fixed price and eat as much as you can, unfortunately it is hard to understand what to order here. Pricing is divided in two levels: Grill level and Restaurant level. We chose two Green zone plus all you can eat meats for GEL 35 and ordered God knows what (I was told  I can choose 8 meat meals, I decided to stop with 4, but at the end we got even a baked trout - God knows what, but worth of it.)

Outdoor multi level terrace

It must be very cozy in mild summer nights here

Assorted Georgian cheeses

I believe these were one from the salad kind

Sauces for the meat

Grilled meat and vegetables

A hamburger

Our table

Inside interior 

Lovely mood

Got some ideas for our upcoming home remodeling tasks here.

Piano

Tea in the pot

The bottom Line

Although our bill here was well above hundred lari here, I don't regret a tetri spent here. Superb interior, lovely atmosphere and great grilled meat. Highly recommend!

• Learn more: Chops by the River Facebook page

Drupal IMCE very slow on uploading images - here is how to fix

11 March, 2016 | Drupal Development | 6 seen

It has been about a year, since I noticed IMCE upload is damn slow when uploading images for my photo stories or just any other articles. For a very long time I was convinced that it's some cdn or JavaScript incompatibility (because sometimes, just sometimes IMCE upload worked just fine)

It was until today, when it started to take more than one minute to properly load that modal window of IMCE upload.

IMCE upload window

I quickly realized, IMCE folder was using about 1GB of memory (default upload folder -/sites/default/files) which stored more than 7,000 images - each time IMCE had to do a check up on all those files. I decided to look on IMCE settings, can I change default upload folder and start fresh? Luckily I was able to that:

From IMCE config - admin/config/media/imce/profile/edit/1 - create a new upload directory for IMCE

IMCE upload directory

Woila - after applying new settings - IMCE was blasting fast again. Hope this helps.

Postcards from Modena, Italy

10 March, 2016 | | 13 seen

Modena is a little charming town in the middle of Italy. Known as the birthplace of Worlds famous Ferrari car.

We spent a few days in vicinity of Modena (during our recent trip to Italy), enjoyed a colorful facades of houses, narrow streets, a lot of prosciutto and of course great Italian coffee.

Back at the time - I was tired of photography and made just a few random shots here:

Colored residential buildings and window shutters in Modena

An ancient town, and seat of an archbishop, it is now known as "the capital of engines", since the factories of the famous Italian sports car makers Ferrari, De Tomaso, Lamborghini, Pagani and Maserati are, or were, located here and all, except Lamborghini, have headquarters in the city or nearby. One of Ferrari's cars, the 360 Modena, was named after the town itself.

Prosciutto 

Modena has a rich and diversified cuisine, often including meats, hams and salamis.

Narrow cobbled streets of Modena

Architecture in Modena

Piazza Grande square in Modena

Juliet's House in Verona, Italy

10 March, 2016 | Tourism objects | 34 seen

As testified by the coat of arms on the internal arch-way of the court-yard, this house belonged to the “Dal Cappello” or “Cappelletti”. The building, dating back to the 13th and renovated in the last century, features the balcony where Romeo promised his beloved Juliet eternal love in Shakespeare’s famous tragedy.

I had a chance to visit World famous Juliet's balcony on January 2nd, 2016 - it was a very rainy and cold day In Verona

Juliet's Balcony in Verona

Well - balcony as balcony right? But:

Young couples are still very moved by the right of this house and unmarried people touch Juliet’s statue (a kind of good-luck ritual) in the hope of finding the love of their life. How many hopes and desires has this court-yard witnessed over the ages?

Crowd gathering at Juliet's House

The interior of the house can be visited and you can stand on Juliet’s balcony and re-live the “ high-light” of the earthly life, as well as admire the furniture and the beautiful velvet costumes worn by the actors in the Metro Goldwyn Meyer’s colossal “ Romeo and Juliet”.

Opening hours: Tuesday-Sunday 8,30-19,30 – Monday 13,30-19,30.

Prices: Standard € 6.00 – Reduced € 4.50 (groups minimum 20 persons, students 14-30 years old and over 60) – € 1.00 (Schools and young people 8 - 13 years old ) - € 1.00 the 1° Sunday of the month for everyone (from January to May and from October to December) – Free entrance  with the Verona Card.

See more: Juliet's House

Let's Encrypt to fix HTTPS Certificate incompatibility with Windows XP and Google Chrome

9 March, 2016 | Servers | 33 seen

It was about a month ago - when I successfully installed secure https pages for my blog, I opted for using free certificate provided by Let's Encrypt certificate authority. I first heard Let's Encrypt certificate authority from KeyCDN.

It was super easy and fast to create SSL certificates for my Linode powered Nginx box. Unfortunately - just a few days later I noticed a deadly screen - Your connection is not private

Your connection is not private Google Chrome screen

I was using Windows XP machine with Google Chrome. I panicked, stressed - then I opened my blog on my default laptop (Windows 8) - everything was fine - green bar was visible, not any problems with connection. I went back to the Windows XP machine - deadly screen.

I googled - https windows xp - and soon I ended on Let's Encrypt community forums - there were many folks just as me complaining about the same issue - Let' s encrypt certificate does not validates on Windows XP machines.

...there is some information suggesting that the Name Constraints on our cross-signed certificate from IdenTrust are the reason IE and Chrome on Windows XP don't support Let's Encrypt certificates...

Ok, I know Windows discontinued any support for XP already back in 2014 and anytime sooner or later Windows XP will be completely dead, I decided to check out my Google Analytics statistics - how many of blog visitors are actually accessing my site from XP. The number was about 4 percent. since my site is getting about 50,000 unique visitors a month - four percent is a lot ~ 2,000 users each month cannot access my site and even worst they sees a deadly warning message that it is not safe at my place.

I started to look for a fix for this issue - there were few workarounds - to disable HTTPS at all, I didn't wanted to disable HTTPS, so I went looking for more fixes - another was not using 301 redirects (turn of http to https redirect) - which I don't like either - because users might get to my blog by direct links, and if they are https, they still will see deadly screen. Make some redirect just for Windows XP... again, too complicated.

There was another solution - not using Let's Encrypt certificate (after all it's Let's Encrypt problem, not mine) and buy some SSL certificate from trusted vendor. Thus I already started to love Let's Encrypt and idea to switching off, just because of Windows XP, didn't sound fair.

So I continued to stick around community on forums - looking are there any updates, when and if it will be fixed, for a long time there were no solutions or fixes. Today (on March 9) a miracle happened - by reading on forum I learnt that Let' s Encrypt will fix this compatibility issue before March 22, 2016

ETA: Before March 22, 2016

A bug in Windows XP causes parsing of our current cross-signature from IdenTrust to fail. We will be correcting this by getting new cross-signatures from IdenTrust which work on Windows XP.

If so - Let's encrypt you rock!

Number of Passengers served in Georgian Airports (2010-2015)

9 March, 2016 | Airports | 15 seen

Civil aviation is slowly but for certain growing in Republic of Georgia. There were in total four airports in Georgia in 2016. Tbilisi International Airport, Kutaisi David the Builder International Airport, Batumi International Airport and Mestia Queen Tamara Airport.

As a frequent air traveler I have used two of Georgian airports very often,  Tbilisi airport and Kutaisi airport, I have been at Batumi airport but never have flied from there and I haven't yet ever been to Mestia airport, thus I once almost booked a flight from Tbilisi to Mestia. Read more: Flights to Mestia from Tbilisi will resume starting July 18th by Service Air

Now, the biggest miracle of these four airports have been Kutaisi airport, opened for public just at the end of 2012, mainly served by low cost airlines - Wizz Air. Just recently Wizz Air announced it will use Kutaisi as its base and will open seven new routes to mainland Europe (Germany, Italy, Greece and Bulgaria) from here. So I decided to see how passenger statistics have changed over last couple of years. Back at then end of October 2013 I did my first examination of statistics - see: Statistics about Georgian airports 2010-2012

My finding at the end of 2013 were following:

My future forecasts is that Kutaisi airport will became second largest soon, this or next year, by outperforming Batumi airport. Why such confidence? In 6 month period (Jan-Jully, 2013) Kutaisi airport has served already 141 844 passengers, and they are adding more flights to and from Kutaisi in future.

It is time to see were my forecasts right or false.

Data used in bellow tables are from: Georgian Civil Aviation Agency

Numbers of passengers served in Tbilisi airport (2010-2015)

by regular and chartered flights

Tbilisi airport has reported some serious year on year growth for the last five years, in 2015 serving about 1,85 million passengers what is about a ~17% growth if compared to previous year of 2014.

It wouldn't be a surprise seeing Tbilisi serving 2 million passengers in 2016.

Numbers of passengers served in Kutaisi David the Builder International Airport (2010-2015)

2015 has shown a dip in passenger traffic in Kutaisi airport by about 16%..  Frankly speaking I was looking for much greater growth rates in Kutaisi airport, but previous 2 years have showed stable around 200,000 passengers annually. Probably the new routes which will be opened later this year will boost again passenger count in Kutaisi?

Numbers of passengers served in Batumi International Airport (2010-2015)

Batumi seems haven't lost it's second largest Georgian airport title, served 226 thousands passengers in 2015

Numbers of passengers served in Mestia Queen Tamara Airport (2010-2015)

Mestia is the smallest airport in Georgia, nothing much to comment here, yet.

Numbers of passengers served in all Georgian airports (2010-2015)

The total passenger traffic growth over the last five years are pretty much incredible. All four Georgian airports combined have increased total number of passengers from less than a million in 2010 to more than 2 millions in 2015. Which means just one - civil aviation in Georgia is on fast track. Any forecasts? 4 million and more passengers by the end of decade in all Georgian airports combined.

New Design and Upgraded Security for Lari (GEL) Banknotes

9 March, 2016 | Living in Georgia | 9 seen

On February 1st, 2016 the National Bank of Georgia issued upgraded Lari banknotes. It was mid February when first upgraded banknote ended up im my hands, I got it at local Procredit ATM. 

My first thought was that I have probably by accident pressed EUR account instead of GEL and have taken my money from EUR account, but then I realized it's a new upgraded currency. After I took the following photo I shortly spent it on groceries at local Dezerteer Bazaar.

New 50 GEL banknote

According to National Bank of Georgia -  Firstly, upgraded banknotes in denominations of 20 and 50 Lari will be gradually issued into circulation. As for the upgraded 100 Lari banknotes, they will be issued into circulation later this year. National Bank of Georgia will inform society beforehand. 

Original and well-known Lari banknote themes have been preserved on upgraded banknotes, but at the same time, histories featured on the banknotes have been diversified with distinct, new elements. The modified design presents Georgian cultural and historical heritage with more precision and modern appearance.

The upgraded Lari banknotes are characterized with distinct color spectrum that is harmonically synchronized with dominant and contrast colors of the main plots.

Sizes of Lari banknotes have been upgraded as well. The diagonal and symmetric growth principle has been used for banknotes with respect to denominations.

The style of design, parameters and security features of the upgraded banknotes are modern, tested and consecutive for each denomination. Furthermore, the components of the design are maximally integrated into security features, which consequentially create a concept of the one family.

The upgraded Lari banknotes are protected with modern and high technological and security features that, at the same time, are easily intelligible to users. Furthermore, the banknotes still have the special improved features for visually impaired people.

The upgraded banknotes are made with special materials and security mechanisms that make them robust against contamination and natural wear-and-tear.

The banknotes in denominations of 5 and 10 lari will be upgraded later. 

The banknotes of the previous issues will remain in parallel circulation with upgraded lari banknotes.

Guest House Hapi in Jūrmala

8 March, 2016 | Hotel reviews | 8 seen

If there is a reason I will remember Hapi guest house in Jūrmala, then probably its green walls and super unprofessional staff attitude will be among top of them. 

Hapi guesthouse in Jūrmala

We stayed here for one night back in August 2015 and ... I can not even express my disappointment in words how unprofessional and meanwhile expensive this so called guest house was. We paid about EUR 40 for stay in this place... EUR 40 is not much, I agree - but you can stay for the same price in much more reputable Jūrmala hotels, yes that's right - hotels are not expensive in Jūrmala. Take for example hotel Dzintars (were I stayed a few months prior to stay at this guest house.)

Thus we had a confirmed reservation from Booking.com (and printed) after arrival at this place the person working there( it's hard to call him a receptionist, more some parking guard) informed that all rooms are already reserved, no more rooms for us. I showed him our printed paper, he scratched his nape and took some room keys from a desk. The room he gave us was small, bad ventilated with God knows what anything but bed.

At Hapi guest house

And yes green painted wall made the look even more dramatic.

Small window

Parking lot at Hapi

This place featured a free parking space, but the security guard was literally hunting me asking me to re-park car in other place (thus as you can see there were only two cars). Strange people and very strange guest house. Cannot recommend this time.

Lawn Mowing - The Never Ending Story Continues

8 March, 2016 | Home Remodeling | 5 seen

Our roof works were still in the middle, and I noticed that grass have grown again. It was just recently when I trimmed backyard territory, but this time I decided it's time to completely trim all our land (about 0.57 hectares).

I asked to our worker, could he handle this task in one day. He agreed, so in the next day - I took a day off from any home remodeling works, instead did some work for customers and photographed how grass is falling. 

Our veggie garden

Some time ago we planted some plants in wooden boxes (to save water) - and now our cabbages ripens. See: Our First Veggie Garden: Planting Plants in Boxes

Trimmer guy in action

Trimming around our small fish pond

Landscape beauty

Having such a wonderful views makes you to forget about all the hardships

Our rural house and new metal roof in front of it

See: Roof Works, Part 4 - Metal Roofing Arrives

Failed attempt to complete Tskneti - Turtle lake hiking route

7 March, 2016 | Outdoor Activities | 35 seen

About a year ago I discovered very cool hiking route in Tbilisi, heading from Turtle lake to Tskneti town. The total distance for this route was about 7 km and it offered very spectacular landscape views.

I have completed this route several times - last time together with my dad in May, 2015.

At the start of February I decided to offer this route as a possible photo / hike route for Georgia Expat Photographer club members, but before that I decided to check is it safe there (because of Tbilisi Floods 2015, I have heard that in Tskenti area there are landfalls. And just another reason - since I felt my photographer skills have improved a lot lately, I decided it would be a great experience to capture better photographs here. You can take a look of my previous photographs from this route here: Hiking Trails in Tbilisi - Turtle Lake (Kus Tba) - Tskneti

We decided to start hiking from Tskenti instead from Turtle lake, just to make sure - if there are any landslides - it would be better if we face them at the start of our trip and can turn back faster, instead of facing insurmountable obstacles at the end of our route and then turn back - hiking instead of 7km but about 14km.

So we took a bus #34 leaving from Station Square to Tskneti. We missed our stop (I was not able to identify exact location where to get of from bus) and decided to stay in bus until it reaches its final destination (Somewhere in Tskenti) and travel back. At the final stop we had to change our bus and wait for about 30 minutes for next bus.

Bus #34 in Tskenti

We left bus in Tskenti opposite to Kopola bowling center, I turned on Map My Ride app (Very useful for hiking trips as well), enabled GPS and we started walking

Small church in Tskneti

We turned right just after passed this church

Just before start of trekking trails in Tskenti

I played a little bit with panorama photography here 

Steep path near Tskneti

and very muddy path

Ruins and mud

First obstacles - landfall and fallen trees

A significant flood occurred in the Vere River valley in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, on the night of 13 to 14 June 2015. It resulted in at least 20 human deaths and struck the Tbilisi Zoo. The Vere, a right tributary of the Mtkvari (Kura), runs through Tbilisi's Vake and Saburtalo neighborhoods. It is characterized by periodicflash floods, which had turned this normally small stream into a surging river, causing significant flooding in 1960, 1963, 1972, and 1995. In 1972, it resulted in several fatalities and completely flooded the Tbilisi Zoo.

Fallen trees near Tskneti

I submitted above image as my day 142 image for my 365 days photo project

Tskneti/Tbilisi panorama

We continued our road for some 500 meters more and were just surrounded by landfalls so we decided there is no chance we will actually complete this route and turned back to Tskneti

Fungi on stump

Played a little bit with close ups here

Landfalls near Tskenti

Now it was time to take the same muddy steep path to get back to the Tskenti town

Route map

Cafe Laboratory Review in Tbilisi

7 March, 2016 | Restaurant reviews | 16 seen

Cafe Laboratory is located at the top floor at the high end shopping and business center Merani on Rustaveli avenue, Tbilisi. 

I was doing some photography in Vere neighborhood, when I received a call and invitation from my beloved one, she insisted we should meet at this place, enjoy some cup of tea/coffee, also she knew I'm with camera so most probably something good for my Tbilisi restaurant review series might happen

So I walked Rustaveli avenue to the Merani shopping center, got to the top floor - and there she was already. Story can be told now.

Stylish interior 

This cafeteria/restaurant features stylish interior, another great feature is an outdoor large terrace (not the rooftop, but still)

Menu at Laboratory cafe

Another great feature - very simple and straightforward menus - basically here you get - main dishes, crepes and sushi. Thus the prices are well above than in more casual Tbilisi restaurants. Cup of Turkish coffee - 4.5 GEL? No, thanks!

Large terrace

Got some ideas for our upcoming home remodeling tasks here.

Napkin holder - cliche, but sweet

Items for sale

Pretty expensive items, but if you are a slave for stylish elements you might end your day with a new china (I hope it's china) cup for 105 lari, for example

Cheese soup served with croutons

Now in above photography it looks better than is tasted on place, I didn't find there any molecule of cheese, for some reason large potato slices were added there and total absence oy any spices. This was one the the rare times in Georgia when I actually used salt cellar and I was able at least to improve taste of this so called cheese soup, on the other hand, this is one of the rare places where you can get croutons for your soup. 

Onion soup

All above written applies to this soup as well - no taste at all.

Bread with grated cheese

Technically speaking that cheese was meant to be melted... 

The Bottom Line

Probably the chef was absent in the day we visited this place (February 12, 2016), probably it's just as it is ... For two soups, coke and large teapot with fruit tea we paid about GEL 25, which is pretty normal, but I would be afraid to spend here more ordering something from main dishes. The best taste here was for coke and tea. Speaking of interior and location - just brilliant. I will most probably return here to give this place another try.

Now it is your turn, have you been to this place lately? Drop me a comment and a short review.

Restaurant Greppia in Verona

6 March, 2016 | Restaurant reviews | 36 seen

It was a very cold, grey and rainy day in Verona, when on the way finding Juliet's Balcony I realized it would be great to find some local restaurant, order some meal and what's important to warm up.

I noticed a few signboards with direction arrows located around streets of Verona, when I decided to take the bait and actually followed those arrows. (A smart marketing from Greppia restaurant)

Greppia restaurant in Verona

We were not the only tourists following arrows, there was a queue in front of the restaurant entrance when we finally arrived. Luckily we got our table served fast.

Italian mineral water

I believe it's common to every mineral water producing nation, to serve their national mineral waters, Italy is no exception. Although I still prefer Georgian Nabeghlavi or Borjomi, but S.Pellegrino will be fine.

Pasta with octopus - or something like that

Ravioli soup

The Bottom Line

Restaurant Greppia is a tourist friendly, mid priced place in heart of Verona. We paid around EUR 50 for a main course and dessert (tiramisu) for two persons. It would be fun to return here in Summer time and enjoy a long evening here, perhaps drinking some Italian vine.

Rainy day in Verona

6 March, 2016 | | 18 seen

It was a damn cold, rainy and very grey day when we arrived to Verona, Italy. I was looking to photograph some nice looking pictures but found it very difficult to make any decent exposure today at all. 

Calendar told us it is January 2nd, 2016. We had made a long Italy trip and arrived here from Venice (where celebrated New Years eve). Our goal was to reach Juliet's balcony... We had not a single clue where actually in city it is located. 

Temperature was around zero (Celsius) - to keep us warm a little bit, we made a shopping in Verona. 

Square in Verona

The weather was against us today. I installed a tripod at one of the street corners in Verona, but rain a freezing hands didn't hold me long there

Verona Arena

Now I know, there is at least one other major tourist attraction in Verona besides Juliet's Balcony - The Verona Arena built in 1st century AD.

Verona Arena

The Verona Arena (Arena di Verona) is a Roman Amphitheatre in Piazza Bra in Verona, Italy built in 1st century. It is still in use today and is internationally famous for the large-scale opera performances given there. It is one of the best preserved ancient structures of its kind. In ancient times, nearly 30,000 people was the housing capacity of the Arena. Nowadays, for security reasons, the maximum attendance is of 15,000 people.

Now, if the weather would be a little bit better I most probably would enter this Verona Amphitheatre and who knows, probably made some great looking HDR photography. Now, we didn't wanted to stay a minute longer here and headed to find that Juliet's Balcony! Piece of Life after all.

Lurji (Blue) Monastery

5 March, 2016 | Churches and Monasteries | 31 seen

The Lurji Monastery also known as "Blue Monastery", is a 12th-century Georgian Orthodox church built in the name of Saint Andrew in the Vere neighborhood of Tbilisi, Georgia. The popular historical name lurji ("blue") is derived from its roof, adorned with glazed blue tile.

I first discovered this church by accident after went photographing another church (Russian Orthodox Church of St. John the Theologian in Tbilisi) and just on site I noticed there is a smaller Georgian church just across the street in distance of few meters from Russian church.

Blue monastery church in Tbilisi

The church stands in the central part of Tbilisi, at the Vere Park, on the right bank of the Mtkvari, not far from the mouth of the Vere River. The original edifice of the Lurji Monastery was built in the 1180s, in the reign of Queen Tamar. It was a domed cross-in-square design, with a pair of dome-bearing columns and an extended apse.

Signboard at Lurji monastery, written in Georgian and Russian

Bell tower and garden

A lengthy inscription in the southern tympanum, in the medieval Georgian asomtavruli script, identifies a sponsor, Basil, the former archbishop of Kartli. The heavily damaged church was restored as a three-nave brick basilica, without a dome, in the 17th-century. In the 18th century, the church was in possession of the Gabashvili noble family. In 1873, under the Russian rule, the church was reconstructed, according to Aleksandr Chizhov's project, with new brick walls attached and a new round dome, alien to the Georgian architectural forms, was added.

Inside interior at Lurji church

During the Soviet era, the Lurji Monastery building was used as a factory, a warehouse, and finally, as the Museum of Georgian Medicine. In 1990, the Lurji Monastery was restored to the Georgian Orthodox Church and Christian services were resumed. In 1995, the old dome was replaced with a new conical one which was more in line with traditional Georgian design. Of the original 12th-century structure, only an apse with large windows adorned with fretwork framing, lower half of southern wall, and a couple of stone rows of western and northern façades survive.

Georgian cross

• Used resources: Lurji Monastery

Russian Orthodox Church of St. John the Theologian in Tbilisi

5 March, 2016 | Churches and Monasteries | 107 seen

Church of St. John the Theologian (Russian: Церковь Иоанна Богослова) is located in Vere neighborhood, Tbilisi. Tis was already second Russian Orthodox church I have visited in Tbilisi. Read more about Alexander Nevsky Russian Orthodox Church in Tbilisi, and I know for sure there is another Russian church (at least in Tbilisi). I didn't enter inside this church, just tried to make some panorama photos here.

Located at the end of L. Kiacheli Street, a few meters away from the Blue Monastery (Lurji monastery). It was constructed with the order of the governor-general Golicin in 1898-1901. According to the saying, the St. John The theologian main temple (founded in the 7th century) was constructed on the very same place.

On the left side Blue Monastery

It was pretty hard to make a full frame picture here of St. John the Theologian church, so I decided to give it a try for panoramic photo, unfortunately tower is missing here.

The church belonged to Mtskheta-Tbilisi eparchy, though the liturgical ceremonies were conducted in Russian. Nowadays the liturgical ceremonies are conducted in Georgian. The brick church is whitewashed from outside, (the whitewashing tradition in Russia dates back to 18th century). The church has four entrances that are symmetrically disposed on east and west sides of the southern and northern walls, and the western door functions only.

The interior is simple, here the white and light blue plaster replace each other, enabling the arches, spherical dome and conch to be marked out. The golden iconostasis, erected in front t of the altar is perceived as a colorful spot. The wooden (choir) gallery is arranged on the east side of the northern arm to which the stone stairs, (fixed in the thickness of the wall) are directed. The space is concentrated under a wide spherical dome supported by the protruding of the conch and the northern and southern walls. The facades are divided by lancet arches, circles (made by the brick arrangement), slim columns, and semi columns. The ever changing shapes and the richness of the details, make the church differently perceivable from various sides and gives birth to a dynamic rhythm. The church is decorated with the central and four false domes that are supported by the narrow barrels.

The high bell tower, crowned with conical roof and ‘onion type head’ is built on the western arm of the church. The piece of Christ’s tomb, sacrificed by the general-lieutenant Leonid Teliakov is kept in the St. John the theologian church. Source: Saint John the theologian Russian church

Georgian and Russian churches standing next to each other in Tbilisi