Georgia Links || Welcome to Georgia || Living Space || Sightseeing || To the Conference || Thinking of Keti || Foreigners in Georgia || Kartuli

Travel Stories >> Georgia >> Living Space

LIVING SPACE OR, THE JACUZZI IS WHERE?

Development project contracts are funny (not in the ha-ha sort of way). We are given a temporary quarters allowance for 20 days (i.e., they cover our hotel costs). 20 days seems reasonable, you might think, except that our household effects (that would be everything on this earth that we own) will likely not be here until late August. Today is June 14th. You see our problem. Ever forward thinking, Roger has arranged to have the local real estate ‘mediator’ (self-titled) show us a few houses the day we arrive, you know, 5 hours after that exchange with the bellhop? At first I am thinking, this is crazy! I am expected to make a decision about where I am going to live for the next 3-4 years in a jet-lagged daze on my first day in the country? Whew! But. But. But I discover that this is not such a bad way to stave off the sleep and see the city for the first time.

Keti (the ‘mediator’) and Gela (note: all spelling suspect at this point) - a driver from the project whose claim to fame is as the former bodyguard to the former president of something (the parliament? Do they have a parliament here? I’ll get it right later when the fog in my brain has lifted.) – take us out to look at living quarters. Of course, in my current state of jello-brain, the first apartment we see I want to holler out, “We’ll take it!” if for no other reason than to be allowed to immediately crawl back into the bed at the Marriott. But we see a number of apartments and a number of houses – some closer to our expectations than others. [ Note: I also spent the better part of Monday looking at houses, as well, so these impressions are a result of considerable looking ]

Housing is sort of wild here. We commonly see large apartments in the city, and large compounded houses in the outer neighborhoods. Some of what we see has some potential but most are also laid out in the most ridiculous manner. We see apartments where the front door/stairs open into a kitchen and then the entire rest of the living space is up two more small flights of stairs (?). We see apartments where the obvious master bedroom has no bath but one of the smaller bedrooms does. Or, the living/dining areas are combined, but there is no easy way to get to them from the kitchen. We see one place where, to reach the laundry room you must exit the house; climb down a spiral set of stairs and into another room underneath the house. Fine in June, but am I doing laundry here in January? I don’t think so. Since security is always an issue, we need a secure place for the car. Many of the apartments we see have parking inside a compound or underneath the building. Most of those parking spaces are in a row, lined up one after the other – so unless you were lucky enough to be the last guy in (if you want out) you have to disturb all the neighbors whose cars are found between yours and the exit to come move them so you can get out! Who thinks these things up? Or perhaps that’s just it – no one thinks about these things at all. I know, I know, there’ll be a guy who watches the cars and will hold the keys, and move everything when you need to get out, but then you are beholden to wait 20 minutes every time you need the car, day or night.

The Georgians, like most non-Americans, use wardrobes (armoires) instead of closets, so we rarely see closets. The older apartments have a smell that is not necessarily bad but is indescribably glum. All of the entrances and stairways of the apartment buildings are like the Bosnian ones, dark, sometimes dank or dusty, unclean and untended. In the communist societies, what was found outside your apartment was not yours and therefore you had no responsibility for it. So we find it is common to enter dusty, grey, decrepit-looking buildings with scary stairways and halls, climb three flights and then enter lovely, airy, bright apartments in those buildings. We have seen only one apartment building with an elevator. Not that we mind walking – but that swell apartment on the fifth floor is a far piece when you have bags of groceries in tow.

We are shown newer houses in the out-lying neighborhoods (Keti points out every ambassador, consulate, or embassy person living in the vicinity – an obvious (?) selling point) that are beautiful and obviously designed by someone who has actually considered what it is to live in one – and that are not only too expensive for us – but too big as well (reminding me that we won’t be filling those extra rooms with children, gee lovely).

We saw a house with a pool, which initially sounds like such a nice idea, but the reality is that Georgian pools do not have filter systems – it was just a big hole in the back patio that the landlord would fill with water for us (and assumedly pour LOTS of chlorine into over the next three months. Can you say earache??). Hmmmmm.

Almost every place we have seen (especially the newer ones) have plenty of bathrooms – which on the surface seems great, but. But. But. The bathroom nearest the living/dining area (ostensibly the ‘guest bath’) almost all seem to have a Jacuzzi tub in them (in case the dinner guests need a quick water massage before dinner?), or are the one bathroom in the place designed for the washing machine (so the guests can bring their dirty laundry?). There are usually no storage areas in the places we look at, and as mentioned, no closets. No laundry or washrooms – no, that activity takes place in the guest bathroom (usually the one closest to the front door). And the list goes on. Perhaps we are too picky and are asking too much.

So, we have yet to find the right combination of new + sensible lay-out + right amount of space. And I hear the jeopardy music in my head as I am reminded that our temporary quarters allowance is finished by the end of June (and that furniture will not darken our door until late August, if we are lucky). Should make for an interesting challenge. We are both optimistic, however, and it is fun to look at places together so we can shake our heads in company at most of what we see.

[Note: As of July 3, we have fixed on a place that has enough potential to be workable. It is a single story home not too far from where the US Ambassador lives. The owner has about a month more work on it and there is a good deal to be done. The metal shutters have to be replaced with bars, the windows as they are now will leak heat this winter like an open door, the bathrooms need to be re-designed, the tiny yard cleaned, we’ll need a generator (electricity is mafia controlled and the system is in pitiful condition), a water tank on the roof, a garage door opener. I’d have to go look at and buy a kitchen, cabinets and all, and so on and so on. It sounds like a lot but in essence we are making it possible for this young man, the owner, David (Dato), to get his house finished in a more Western style, and rented for the next 3+ years… I lay in bed and dream about what it might look like finished and can’t yet… but I know we will be able to make it a home, a cozy loving space where our guests will feel completely comfortable – and that’s what really matters!]

(top)