We walked all over today. The weather is still good. It is noticeably cooler than my previous two weeks and getting darker earlier, but still nice. I didn’t realize I could walk from my neighborhood, Vake, to Mike’s neighborhood. 🤦‍♀️ It is a good walk—about four miles and along lots of nice streets. I have been taking Bolt—Eastern Europe’s version of Uber.

Mother of Georgia is also known as Kartlis Deda. I wrote about her briefly during my first visit to Tbilisi. You can’t get a picture of her from the front when you are up here—she is perched on the edge of a huge hill.

The statue was erected on the top of Sololaki hill next to the Narikala Fortress in 1958, the year Tbilisi celebrated its 1500th anniversary. Prominent Georgian sculptor Elguja Amashukeli designed the twenty-meter (65 feet) aluminum figure of a woman in Georgian national dress. Mother of Georgia symbolizes the Georgian national character: in her left hand she holds a bowl of wine to greet those who come as friends, and in her right hand is a sword for those who come as enemies.