Ruins, Baguettes & Free Soul-Stuff

🌍Whether you’re bus-hopping from Tbilisi to Mestia or rail-crawling toward Batumi, Kutaisi is the logical lung-stretcher. It’s gritty-pretty, wallet-friendly (read: free), and dishes out some of the best “abandoned-Soviet-chic” photo ops in the Caucasus. All below = 0 GEL if you walk/hitch, so save your lari for cheese-bread. 🛣️ Roadside Relics (15 min outside city) 1️⃣ Abandoned Old Bath House Google pin: “Kutaisi Old Sulphur Baths” Look for: cracked concrete dome + missing mosaics. Tip: go early; security guy sometimes shows up at 11 a.m. to shoo influencers off the roof. Sunrise beams through the oculus = instant Blade-Runner story. 📸 2️⃣ Medea Sanatorium Sci-fi brutalism – rows of 2-storey concrete ribs that look like a grounded space cruiser. History: 1970s spa for female textile workers; now home to cows & graffiti artists. Safety: watch for open elevator shafts; bring a head-lamp if you want the basement pool shot. 🐄🛸 Both stops sit 300 m apart on the same dirt road—easy 10-min hitch from the main highway marshrutka stop. 🏰 Inside Kutaisi (all walk-able) 3️⃣ Bagrati Cathedral (11th c.) UNESCO delisted in 2017 after controversial reconstruction, but still drop-dead gorgeous. Climb: 20-30 min cobbled switch-back from centre OR 5 GEL taxi. Front lawn = local wedding factory; Fridays = rice confetti storms. Golden hour hack: sunset fires the limestone + city smog turns pastel—tripod on the west wall for 70 mm city-rooftop compression. 🌅 4️⃣ White Bridge / Red Bridge arcades Pedestrian spans over the Rioni—perfect for people-watching, buskers, and impromptu cha-cha (local wine) sips in plastic cups. 🍷 5️⃣ Davit Agmashenebeli Square Benches, fountains, 19th-c. theatre façade. Base-camp for cafés: try “Bavaria” for 1 L home-brew beer (6 GEL) or “Palaty” for khachapuri boat under 10 GEL. 6️⃣ Central Market (behind theatre) Ground floor: pyramids of sulguni cheese, cilantro bunches bigger than your head, home-pickled jonjoli (colchic bladdernut). Upper deck: 1 GEL shot of Turkish coffee + 50 tetri churchkhela (walnut sausage in grape must) = sugar-coma snack. People-watching level: grandmas haggle in Imeretian dialect—record for ASMR content. 🧀🎧 🥟 Street-Food Hit List Khachapuri (Imeretian style) – circular, cheese-stuffed, no egg river. 3-4 GEL. Kubdari – spiced meat bread from Svaneti; find it at station kiosks. Hotiani – fist-size pork parcel; crack black pepper on top. 1.5 GEL each, 3 = lunch. Tklapi roll-ups – sour fruit leather, perfect car-snack for the onward winding road to Mestia. 🚌 Micro-Logistics Tbilisi ➜ Kutaisi: marshrutka every hour, 20 GEL, 3.5 hrs. Drop-off is central bus station—walk 10 min to cathedral hill. Kutaisi ➜ Batumi: same station, 15 GEL, 2 hrs. Taxi to ruins: 8-10 GEL one-way; ask driver to wait 30 min if you don’t want to hitch back. Cash: ATMs on David Sq.; most cafés take card but street vendors = coins. Bottom line: give Kutaisi 24 hrs—sunrise on a Soviet spaceship, coffee in a leafy square, wedding bells echoing off an 11th-c. cathedral, and a pocketful of cheese bread for the road. Free history, cheap calories, maximum Caucasus charm. #Georgia #Kvaisa