Blog Archive: February 2019

Venice is threatened by mass tourism. Some 30 million visitors a year come to the city in Italy, making their way through the narrow streets. it has been a while since we returned from our latest Italy trip, back at the end of 2015 and start of 2016. We greeted the New year of 2016 in Venice's St Mark square, the…

There are many options to consider when looking to grow your hard earned money - stocks, bonds, the relatively new peer to peer lending, and of course -  bank savings or deposits. As a small and growing investor, I'm always looking for a higher yield investment, and despite deposits doesn't fit in my wealth building…

Interesting documentary about fraudulent investment schemes in Indiana, US. From Wall Street to Main Street in cities and towns across Indiana…anyone with money to invest is vulnerable to financial fraud. Business professionals we thought were trustworthy sometimes lie, cheat, and steal for their own personal gain…

The Tbilisi sea or Tbilisi reservoir is an artificial lake in the vicinity of Tbilisi that serves as a reservoir. The lake has a length of 8.75 km and a width of 2.85 km. It was opened in 1953 and has become a popular recreation spot. There have been plans to develop the Tbilisi sea into a recreational park with…

The Pokaini Forest, located 80 km south-west of Riga, Latvia near the small town of Dobele is a place where myths, superstition and mysterious events co-exist. The Pokaini Forest is a picturesque location and an ancient holy site famous for the wondrous legends told about it. Take a walk along the path and find out…

I'm not a huge fan of any secondary markets (Except probably just Tbilisi flea market), but at the end of February 2019 Mintos run out of the GEL loans (the last time it happened at the end of August).As more than half of my portfolio consists of investments in GEL and I have no plans to exchange them overnight to EUR…

Peer to peer lending is a hot topic in 2019. Both novice and seasoned investors are putting some serious money into peer to peer lending.  I've been familiar with this type of investment since 2016, and starting 2017 have actually invested some money. When speaking about me - there is just one peer to peer platform I…

Degusto is a popular diving chain in Tbilisi. The food here is sold by weight for very budget-friendly prices.  They have excellent sweets and really tasty cappuccinos served at Degusto. The one located on Aghmashenebeli avenue 148-150, Tbilisi is just next to the Champions Academy, and sometimes I visit it after the…

Take on today's most challenging, graphics-intensive games without missing a beat. The GeForce GTX 1070 Ti and GeForce GTX 1070 graphics cards deliver the incredible speed and power of NVIDIA Pascal™—the most advanced gaming GPU architecture ever created. This is the ultimate gaming platform.  In today's article, I'…

Rustavi auto market is one of the most popular and useful places for buying a used car in Georgia (imported mostly from the US, but probably also from Asia and Europe).  It was at the end of 2018, we decided to buy a car here in Georgia. After research on the most popular Georgian auto website myauto.ge we decided to…

The 107-meter tall building is considered the first high-rise in Latvia. It has been a prominent fixture of the Riga cityscape since the 1950s. There are a total of 766 rooms on the 23 floors, occupied by scientists, researchers, historians, and various companies.  It was in May 2018, when I first visited the…

Astana took over the role of the capital city from Almaty (the largest city) in December 1998. Now, it is undergoing a transformation costing billions of dollars, where top international architects assist in trying to make Astana a worthy capital - not only of Kazakhstan but of all Central Asia. Thus, Astana presents…

Dzveli Duqani is a typical Georgian cuisine restaurant located next to  Didi Dighomi II  Micro District on Davit Aghmanashabeli avenue's 12th km (you can get here when driving from Tbilisi mall back to the city) Discovered by accident in January 2019, after returning from Mtskheta. Next, to the restaurant, there is a…

Tbilisi Sea Plaza trading center is located in the eastern suburbs of Tbilisi City, near the Tbilisi Sea. I first heard about this "project" back in 2013 or something, and actually tried to visit it already in 2015, without luck. Turns out this place has been opened for the public just since the end of 2016. Despite…

Cafe Kāpenieki has been one of my best finds in the Aizpute town in Western Latvia. Tasty, traditional Latvian cuisine for a very decent price.  The fun fact, at this place in May 2018 I opened my first online brokerage account and soon started to acquire European and the US stocks. Also, they sell tasty Kvass, which…

Tashkent is a very Soviet city that has little remaining from its ancient Central Asian past. The city has a mixture of modern new office buildings, hotels, parks, and crumbling Soviet-style apartment blocks.  Over the last few years, the Uzbek government has embarked on a major reconstruction program in the center…

Welcome to the twenty-first (#21) dividend income report, covering earnings I've made from dividend-paying stocks, peer to peer lending (both fiat and cryptocurrencies) in January 2019. Wow, times flies, the last January disappeared like a flicker, little miss Fischer baby girl turned already 6-month old. This January…

Chinese Restaurant Ensemble is located in a 5-star hotel "Hotels & Preference Hualing Tbilisi" near the Tbilisi Sea in the so-called - Tbilisi Sea New City.  I got a recommendation to visit this restaurant from some other Tbilisi expats. So some Saturday afternoon in a company of the same expats we visited this…

Day trips to Bolnisi and region of Kvemo Kartli are quite possible and easy done from Tbilisi.  In the mid-December, we bought an SUV VW Touareg car and it was just the right time to put it on the test, so we decided to make a day trip to some easy and close place from Tbilisi.  As we were traveling with our 5-month…

Bird watching tower on Sloka lake actually is a floating platform which is a very popular tourist attraction among the locals and bird watchers. Discovered in the early May 2018, during our "living in Jūrmala" series.  Bird watching tower on Sloka Lake The bird watching tower actually is just one point from Sloka…