First Day in Tblisi, Georgia

I arrived in Tblisi, Georgia, early Tuesday morning. I am here to facilitate a couple workshops with my teacher, Steven Young, hosted by the Caucasus Institute of Gestalt Therapy and Family Psychotherapy. He came two years back, and they asked him to come again. We will conduct one workshop to train therapists and healers from Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Ukraine, and another workshop on business planning and agile process development.

We spent the day with our long-time friend Dr. Alexander Cheryomukhin, known as Sasha, and Sophia Verulashvili, the President of the Caucasus Institute. We arrived at 3 AM on Tuesday and Sophia and Gulnara, who will attend the workshop and whose name means “pomegranate flower”, picked us up. We are staying in Gulnara’s apartment. We were fed a nice meal of bread, fruit, and cheese, and we talked. We then went to sleep. Sasha took a train in from his home in Baku, Azerbaijan, and when he arrived at the apartment at 1 PM, we got up and ready to go. We bought tickets for the theater and then ate at an old-style restaurant downtown. Here is a picture of the street and Sophia and Sasha sitting at a table in the restaurant:

We saw a modern dance performance at the Rustaveli Theater that was very nice. The theater itself was old and inspiring. Here are pictures of the ceiling of the theater, the street outside, and Steven and I in front of an iron gate outside the theater.

I am enjoying being introduced to Georgia, and learning about the people, the lifestyle, and the politics. There are still a couple days before the workshop where we will see more of Georgia and plan for the upcoming workshops.