Museum of Illusions Tbilisi — Local services in Tbilisi

First time in my life I wanted my money back in a museum. I wonder, where do all 5-star reviews come from?

There are 2 parts: Illusions museum and something like temporary expo.

The Illusions are ok. At least there are 3-5 nice things to see. Maybe with good explanation, there are more. But nearly half of exhibition you can not understand what you should do to see the illusion. There are manuals on the walls, but they don’t help. Call me dumb, but I could not understand what to do with the half of them. The other half is too obvious and unimpressive. Do you feel excited watching stereograms on the walls like in the school magazine from 1991?

But the temporary part feels just like scam. You walk in the dark and you are supposed to feel something from unobvious visual experience. There is no explanation for what you have to do. Moreover, the navigation is missing. At the start you are asked to wear off you shoes to walk in the digital forest. You expect something, but there are just neon lights from the walls. The passage suddenly ends with half-open curtain, where you see probably the other part of exhibition. But you don’t know wether to go further without you shoes or come back.

In other room you find a PC, keyboard and a microphone. It is presented as digital philosopher, who can answer your questions. But no manual, how to speak with him. Do you need to text from the keyboard or somehow turn on the microphone? Maybe the experience could be nice, but how to use it? And it is dark and there is nobody to ask.

Finally we walked the stairs and found ourself in kind of museum’s office. Probably we entered some “staff only” space, but there were no signs. Another family followed us 1 minute later and also occurred in this office. And there is absolutely nobody, who can guide you through this mess.

I assume this museum as purely organized and low quality. No navigation, no explanation. Feels like it was 3rd grade student of art school who created it.

The last but not the least. I came with my son who is 4 years old. When I was buying ticket, I hesitated would it be interesting for him. However I received total confirmation from the administrator, so we decided to go. There are 10% of exhibition, which he could understand/feel at his age. My idea was mainly to entertain him, but it is just too early for 4-year old. Walking in digital forest to feel digital detox being 4-years old, damn!

When you walk away, you feel like you have been jocked and your time has been wasted. Looks like the worst example of “touristic attraction”.

In Tbilisi you can buy ticket to the opera house for 30 GEL. Here you pay 55. Think twice...

Finding this place could be an adventure in itself. It is located in the Old District, lost among derelict houses and narrow winding streets.

The museum is quite small. This space could have provided a comfortable home to a small family. But you could say that the staff are like a small family. They might also treat you like a member of their family.

The museum focuses on illusions. Some are simply drawings you probably have seen online, like the Impossible Triangle or two lines which appear of different lengths.

Luckily, the museum does feature one or two illusions that only work in real life. So, you may have read about Ames's Room, but here you can actually go into one. For me, this was the main reward for coming to this museum. It is a really interesting illusion, if you are interested in how the mind and vision work.

Another noteworthy illusion is the small catwalk in a room, where you are trapped into believing that the ground is rotating. If not for the rails, your brain would make you fall over on a perfectly stationary and still ground. You cannot experience that online either.

The rest of the illusions can easily be experienced and comprehended online, without taking a trouble to visit the museum. Still, one or two are just fun, even of they provide no insight into your brain's inner workings. For example, the Upside Down Room could be used for taking some cool pictures, but you will have to use your imagination - it is not really well thought-through for cool pictures.

In addition to illusions, the museum features some puzzles as well. But this part is less exciting: if you are even moderately interested in puzzles, you will see nothing new. But as with some of the illusions, it could still be amusing to play with a table-sized version of your familiar puzzles, like the...

There’s a Digital Museum and Museum of illusions (they cost 35Gel each). I opted for the digital one and it’s not for me. There are just 1D moving picture projections on the hallway and walls, a mirror projections which are the coolest thing there. A walk through was less than 3min in honesty but I tried to go slower (mainly to spend more time cooling down) but there isn’t much to see.

There are 3 ladies in the reception area. I went up to greet them and it was as if I had said the most absurd thing ever 🤣🤣 (I said “hi” with a smile in the nicest way possible). The one who was infront of the counter (long dark hair, looks young / late teen) responded with a smile, the other behind the counter maintained a sour face with a borderline eye roll (think teenage attitude), the other one next to her remained blank faced. I truly understand how dealing with people may be hard but damn 🙂

The place is easy to get to, once you walk through the digital part, you are led straight into the illusion part (which is why I didn’t understand why they were priced separately since they are designed for one to lead into the next). I turned back because I didn’t pay for that side and had no interest in the illusion part anyway.

I would not recommend this place at all. The illusion part MAY be fun for little kids to take pictures they’ll appreciate (as I’ve seen a few in other countries),...