Getting the bill at Georgian restaurants has turned out to be a surprisingly pleasant experience. Many of us are having the most inexpensive and delicious lunches and dinners ever. In one of the fanciest food spots in Tbilisi - the Black Lion - a meal that included appetizers, more than generous portions of two entrees, and a bottle of wine came down to around $10 per person. Yes, tourists love Georgia.
But the affordability is mirrored in Georgian wages. An average salary in Tbilisi is around $300 per month. So if a Georgian tried to go on a study trip to Washington, DC he or she would probably have to abstain from eating, drinking, and spending for at least three months just to buy the plane ticket.
But forget about overseas trips, iPhones, or imported clothes. Even Georgian goods are not cheap for the locals. Twenty percent of the population lives below the poverty line. And, yes, that’s why the economy is Georgia's "problem number one" - not security, NATO or Russia.
Tourists are usually carefully spared from this kind of “Georgia experience” behind the closed doors of urban hotels, art spaces, and hipster bars. On a way from one burgeoning spot to another, the cracked asphalt, shattered buildings, and dark underground crosswalks of the central Shota Rustaveli avenue may seem to be just an attraction for tourists, a reminder of the era, like remnants of the Berlin Wall.
But, no. This is an illusion.
Old courtyards make for an exotic Instagram feed but can barely meet the expectations for a modern home. The Khrushchev-era buildings from the 1960s that were supposed to serve for 25 years as a temporary housing solution are still in abundance and in extremely poor condition. Poverty takes its toll on a population deprived of opportunity, and average citizens are likely to be increasingly willing to exchange this tourist paradise for any other - down to earth - place.
-- Daria D., Cohort 4