We have already seen much of the Tbilisi Old City so far. But our guide took us on a walk that he called “visiting the Old City”. Our walk took us to some of the less traveled neighborhoods and non-touristy sections of the Old City. I supposed that he wanted us to see some of the areas that most tourists never visit. After an hour or so, I came to the conclusion that he was presenting us with one of Tbilisi's problem areas. The problem is that many of these ancient streets have houses and buildings that have outlived their usefulness. Some people want to protect their architectural heritage in the old buildings while others want to tear them down and build new buildings to improve the area. This problem exists in many parts of the US as well and I've heard all the arguments before. It was still interesting to view these streets and see the issue first-hand.

The first building was very near our hotel. The contractors had destroyed the entire building with the exception of the front wall. We have seen this exact thing in other areas of Europe. But Vicky and I took several good looks at the front of the old building and we couldn't see any structural items of note. If there was something redeeming in the architecture, it eluded our understanding. You can't see it because of the net, but we walked under the net and still could not see anything of particular value.

The next photo will give you a view of what many of the streets in this neighborhood looked like. It was clearly run-down and in need of upgrading.

But it was a real surprise to see a church that had been abandoned. That is much more unusual and especially in an area with so many churches as Tbilisi.

I took the next photo to show the difference in a partially upgraded street. The right side of the street has not been improved while the left side of the street had been completely renovated.

Our guide said that the cost for major renovations or destruction and rebuilding was extremely expensive. Some people, however, had made that commitment as you can see in the next photo. Our guide said some people loved it and some people hated it which was no surprise.

My lasting memory of walking these Old City neighborhoods will be in the next two photos. In the first, you can see an old building that is not in terrible shape, but could definitely use a little work. It didn't look to be super fancy but clearly had been impressive at one point in time.

Then our guide let us into the building, and you can see in the following photo that it was owned by royalty at some point back in time.