Caucasus overview

Georgia will never end to surprise you, so today after finish concreting tasks for my country house foundation I spent some time reading Georgian websites (I have been absent from Georgia for about 4 months and haven't red news lately). One of the first I red was article about new airport/airfield construction in Ambrolauri, region of Racha.  I red the title and thought - wow, cool, then I red the whole article, and condemned - Awesome, they are not only to construct new airport, but they are…

I have never been to Azerbaijan, but have heard a lot of it's plans to build a super expensive project of Khazar Islands and worlds highest tower - Azerbaijan, somewhere close to it's capital city Baku. More than a year ago - I wrote about Baku to build Worlds Tallest building: Azerbaijan is aimed to build artificial island archipelago called Khazar Islands with worlds largest building on it - Azerbaijan Tower. Estimated cost for such a mega project is 100 bln USD, which is more than total of…

According to Georgian National Tourism Administration in 2014 there was a total of  5 493 492 international travelers arriving to Georgia, what is a increase of 1.9% compared to previous year (2013) Most of the travelers arrive from following 5 countries - Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia and Ukraine, if counted together international travelers from those 5 countries makes 4 992 934 or saying in percentage - makes 90.88% of total travelers,  leaving the rest of the World travelers with 500…

<p>Lately I have found transport systems as a interesting topics just to satisfy my curiosity. So we days ago I wrote an article about <a href="http://www.reinisfischer.com/first-high-speed-railway-launched-poland">… high-speed trains in Poland</a> and compiled a photo posts of <a href="http://www.reinisfischer.com/history-tram-and-trolleybus-systems-tbilis… and Trolleys in Georgia</a>.</p><p>Today I learned that Baku is launching new bus…

<p>Previously, this year I mentioned an event what might change future of South Caucasus region -&nbsp;<a href="http://www.reinisfischer.com/georgia-has-signed-association-agreement-e… has signed Association Agreement with European Union</a>.</p><p>Now was turn to European Parliament ratify it as well, and it did happened on December 18th.</p><p><strong>The European Parliament gave its green light to the EU-Georgia Association Agreement on…

<p>Today I red an interesting article on News.az - it turns out Azerbaijan avio carrier Azerbaijan Airlines has increased its flights from Baku to New York city.</p><p>At a start I was surprised to learn that there is an offer of direct flights at all, but having increased number of flights might mean just one - <strong>Economy of Azerbaijan is soaring</strong>, and those located in Caucasus (for example, me) now have an alternative for Istanbul flights.</p>…

<p>Georgia can count on continuing support from the European Union. Pierre Moscovici, the European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs, signed the Memorandum of Understanding for a €46 million Macro-Financial Assistance (MFA) programme to Georgia.</p><p>The assistance will be distributed evenly between grants and loans and will be disbursed in two equal tranches in 2015.</p><p>The MFA programme is intended to strengthen Georgia…

<p>Today I red an article pointing out about average salary in Georgia.&nbsp;</p><p>It was interesting finding for me to learn that <strong>average salary in Republic of Georgia in 2013 was about $442</strong> or GEL 773.</p><p>Turns out it's about 8.5% growth if compared to 2012.&nbsp;</p><p>Though there is a pretty huge inequality of how many receives man and women.</p><p>So in 2013 <strong>men received…

<p>The other day I took the taxi, for a short drive I usually pay 3 GEL, Taxi driver asked me 10GEL, when I pointed him that it's a bad attitude regarding foreigners, he started to yell on me telling that - Foreigners just like to visit Georgia, not to spend a dime, and that he is not satisfied with that. I asked does he thinks Georgia is equal to Germany, Netherlands or Spain?</p><p><strong>If it so, why dies he is driving a junk car without safety belts and fails…

Recently Georgia signed Association Agreement with EU, which includes Free Trade Agreement with the EU as well. Georgian Politicians were so happy, that they rushed to announce some great plans - and so the MP of Georgia announced, that Georgia is eager to have full EU membership in the next 5-10 years.  So far so good.  On the other hand, the newly elected president of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker has already announced, that he is not willing to see any enlargement in European…