Podnieku Lake Near Kalvene in Latvia
Podnieku lake is located close to the Kalvene in Western Latvia. We headed here while returning back from Liepāja (probably we were eating paella's and empanadas at Tex-Mex Klondaika restaurant prior).This lake seems in past has been some popular recreational area, there were a lot of camping sites and rumor has it here even was a cafeteria. Nobody knows for sure what happened to this place and why any development tasks has stopped. I believe it won't take long and Podnieku lake will be turned again in a popular recreational area. But for know take a look how it looked like here in Summer 2015.If you are up to for some eco tourism adventures - Podnieku lake has a lot to offer. Be…
Akhali (New) Shuamta Monastery Complex
If you are traveling to the region of Kakheti in Georgia and your road is leading through the Telavi town, there are a few interesting tourist sites to visit and one of them is monastery complex Akhali Shuamta.
We arrived to this site just shortly we paid a visit to another Dzveli Shuamta monastery. In fact that's a good idea to visit both monastery complexes together.
The monastery was founded in the XVI century by the king of Kakheti Leon and his wife Tinatin. Queen Tinatin was tonsured a nun in the same Monastery and is Buried there.
Akhali Shuamta monastery complex
New Shuamta Monastery lies near Telavi, on the wooded slope…
Listening to Classical Music at Tbilisi Baroque Festival
Tbilisi Baroque Festival was held from November 13 till December 6, 2015 in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia.
There is something in the classical music. I don't know exactly what, but I have found that lately I'm starting to enjoy it. Maybe that was the reason I allowed to convince me to visit a Tbilisi Baroque festival.
On December 3rd we visited Sergio Azzolini and Christine Busch concert in Rustaveli Theater.
Tbilisi Baroque Festival
About Tbilisi Baroque Festival
The word "Baroque" (French) – means a "rough or imperfect pearl." This style has been conceived approximately in 1600-ies in genres of sculpture, painting, literature, music and spread all over the Europe of…
Zurab Tsereteli Museum of Modern Art in Tbilisi
I don't call myself an art or museum person, thus time by time I visit some exhibition, and that's exactly happened again at start of December, 2015 - For the first time I visited Tbilisi MoMA (Museum of Modern Art). And it happened by accident. It started as a planed visit to classical music event in frames of Tbilisi Baroque Festival. We left our apartment early and had some time to spend on lively Rustaveli avenue, for a starter we headed to The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf to enjoy cup of tasty latte, when another great spontaneous idea arrived - let's visit a museum which proudly bares the MOMA name.
It turned out to be - Zurab Tsereteli Museum of Modern Art,…
Restaurant Tsiskvili in Tskneti
It was a mid day of working day at the start of December when I came up with spontaneous idea - lets leave our work behind and let's go out. I was eager to photography a daylight photography for my 365 photo project. We decided to use public bus instead of using a taxi to get to the Freedom Square in Tbilisi center. So we were standing at bus stop and couldn't figure out which bus actually goes to Freedom Square. I proposed, hey let's take bus #34 heading to Tskenti, which already approached our bus stop.
And so instead of Freedom Square we were heading to Tskenti. Tskenti is very lovely suburb close to Tbilisi, I have been there several times, either during some hiking…
Car Service in Kazdanga
If you are having troubles with engine, need to change a tire or just looking to replace oil and you are stuck in Kazdanga area (Latvia) there is one car service I can recommend. Since I believe it's the one and only one in Kazdanga, let's name it - Kazdanga car service.
At this service we fixed a leaky muffler and straightened a dent on car's surface for about EUR 50
Car service in Kazdanga
Since this service is located in rural Latvia they mainly specializes on repairing tractor machinery and agricultural vehicles.
Repairing hydraulics
Agricultural machinery
Tractor
Oils and other
How to Capture and Post-Process Professional HDR Photos Using HDR Efex PRO
In today's digital photography school tutorial I will show how you can take and make professional looking images using technology which is called HDR photography.
In fact before teaching you how to take and process a HDR images please take a note - I have been doing HDR photography less for one month. My findings so far are - like HDR is the best thing (I know as time will go I will probably change my mind and will go back to the routes, who knows maybe I will find a B&W the next BIG thing?!). I'm not a professional photographer, just a regular dude with a DLSR camera eager to learn some new things. I'm more than glad sharing my findings with you, my dear reader.
For…
Dzveli (Old) Shuamta Monastery
If you are traveling to region of Kakheti and your road is leading through Telavi town, there are few interesting tourist sites to visit and one of them is a very old monastery complex called Dzveli Shuamta.For the first time I visited this site together vith my mom in the middle of October 2015. It was a rainy and foggy day so not very spectacular images this time, anyway Dzveli Shuamta still has one of the oldest Christian churches of Georgia – the triple-nave basilica that dates back to the 5th century. Two other cross-domed churches were built in the 7th century. The walls of these churches still have fragments of frescos and inscriptions made in the old Georgian…
How to Make Homemade Dumplings from Scratch
In today's food blogger series I will demonstrate how to make homemade dumplings from scratch. Well, almost from scratch, there are a few handy tools that might be very useful preparing this delicious food.
I love dumplings, in most cases dumplings is a cost effective solution when you are in hurry and really hungry. It hasn't been rare for me to visit local groceries shop at 2AM just to buy a pack of frozen dumplings. Today I will show how you can prepare dumplings at home. It's a really simple and doesn't take a lot of time or a lot of effort.
Ingredients for dumpling dough.
1 kg of flour
600 ml water
100 grams of butter
1 tsp (with top) salt
Rest the dough for 30 minutes…
Tabor Monastery of the Transformation in Tbilisi
You have probably noticed Tabor Monastery of the Transformation in Tbilisi if wandered around Abanotubani district - it's the one you can see up in the hill left from Narikala. The idea to visit this site arrived for me when some of the Georgia Expat Photographer club members posted a picture of this church.
I believe you can climb up here and have a lovely and a very spectacular hiking trip doing that, but for this time we opted for a more convenient way - a taxi. We took a regular street taxi and he took us up here, agreed to wait for 30 minutes while I will take photography here, and the took us back to the city for 20 Lari.
And this is actually the way I suggest to you for…
Painting Floor - Final Touch For Maximum Effect (Second Paint Layer)
Right, we have arrived to the second post in my painting floor adventures from home remodeling series. Today I will show you how after adding second paint layer to our rural house's paint we achieved the maximum effect.
Paint work was performed at the start of July, 2015
Make sure you read other posts in our adventurous efforts of remodeling an old country house.
Floor ready for second layer of paint
Read more how I prepared this floor and applied base layer of paint here:
Floor waiting for a new layer of paint
As you can see in the background - it is a kitchen starting to get already a decent look
Applying second layer of paint
Wow,that's a dramatic makeover…
Wanderings In The Tbilisi Old Town (HDR Efex Pro)
It was day 62 from my 365 photo challenge project and I felt I'm out of good photography locations. For couple of the last days I have been doing nice landscape photography in close to me locations, and it seemed that I'm out of options. I asked a friend (photographer) and asked could he give me some advice. He advised me to make a list with items to photograph, like birds, macro's e.t.c.
Still I felt I need to continue improving my landscape photography. Then another person asked have I tried HDR Effect PRO (For HDR photography I have been using just Photomatix) - my answer was no.
And here did came the inspiration - I decided to head to the lovely Abanatobuani district in…
Sachebureke Abanotubanshi (Cheburek Cafe on Abanotubani)
The other day we were just wandering around Tbilisi sulphur bath (Abanotubani) district doing some cool photography of probably most popular tourist spot in Tbilisi - Abanotubani district. During our wanderings we noticed small doors with title - Cheburek Cafe and decided to return to this place once photography session will be ended.
Cheburek Cafe is located on Grishashvili street 8, Tbilisi
Those of you who don't know what a Cheburek is, here is a good explanation from Wikipedia - Chiburekki is a deep-fried turnover with a filling of ground or minced meat and onions. It is made with a single round piece of dough folded over the filling in a half-moon shape…
Fresh Vegetable Market Near Gori Highway
I once had a friend visiting me from Canada, he was pretty much obsessed with eco friendly foods, I took him to the local Tbilisi Dezerter bazaar and told - hey look there are plenty of eco foods here. He took some carrot from local salesman and answered me - this probably is natural, but it's not eco!
Believe me or not - but my friend was right, I understood that immediately. If you just like my friend are into eco thing - you wont probably find eco friendly food near Gori Highway (connecting Tbilisi with Batumi) some 60 km from nations capital. On the other hand if natural is OK then you can buy fresh vegetables here for sure.
In fact this is what we actually did after…
Motsameta Monastery near Kutaisi in Georgia
Motsameta monastery is one of the most spectacular sites I have visited while being living in Georgia. To get here yo will need either to own your vehicle or hire a taxi, probably there are organized tours as well heading to Motsameta monastery.I first visited this site in Spring 2015, unfortunately it was already a night and I didn't see much nor photographed anything decent here, the next time I visited Motsameta was in Autumn 2015, together with my mom, this time I was better prepared and it was a day.Rail tracks near Motsameta monasteryThere is actually a train making a stop in front of the entrance at Motsameta monastery, the Train is connecting Kutaisi and TkibuliForest surrounding…
Water Reflections on Lisi Lake
She was free in her wildness. She was a wanderess, a drop of free water. She belonged to no man and to no city. - Roman Payne, The Wanderess
Spectacular water reflection photography done in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia on Lisi Lake.
Water reflections on Lisi lake in Tbilisi
A perfect harmony water reflection
Mountain reflection on water
Boat deck reflection on water
Building reflection on water
Ducks
Cost of Living in Tbilisi (Republic of Georgia)
This post is a result of an experiment I performed for one month in October 2015, I counted my everyday expenses and summed it up to see how much actually it costs to live in Georgia. This information might be useful if you are planing to move to Georgia or just to compare how your country stands to Georgia.
For tracking my (our) everyday expenses I installed Expense Manager Android app on my phone and entered spending just after purchases.
Total expenses in October 2015
In October in total we spent GEL 4,385 which equals to $1,823 or EUR 1,708 (according to exchange rates on November 20,2015)
Now to clarify the results for this experiment I must mention that bellow listed…
Simple Aspic (Meat Jelly, Kholodets) Recipe
In today's food blogger's series I will show how to prepare a really tasty and delicious homemade aspic out of pig's trotters.
I'm not sure how popular an aspic is in the Western world, but it is a super popular in post Soviet countries, and is served in every fiests. Russian have a name for it - a kholodets (Холодец).According to Wikipedia - Aspic is a dish in which ingredients are set into a gelatin made from a meat stock or consommé. Non-savory dishes, often made with commercial gelatin mixes without stock or consommé, are usually called gelatin salads. Nearly any type of meat can be used to make the gelatin: …
Postcards from Tbilisi
Tbilisi is city which have inspired many great poets, writers and of course travelers. Mikhail Lermontov, Alexander Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy and even Marco Polo have spent some time in Tbilisi.
Who knows maybe the sulfur baths in Abanotubani district has inspired the great poets?!
As for a photographers - Tbilisi is a lovely destination and we have found a lot of inspiration here (This is the place I learned to create a decent night exposure photography).
This time we headed to catch the Golden Hour and ended up with lovely postcard style images from Tbilisi.
Tbilisi - thanks for being a piece of our lives.
David Agmashenebeli street in Tbilisi
Metekhi church and river…
Gelati Monastery in Georgia
Gelati monastery together with Bagrati Cathderal are one of the main sights in this region (Imereti) in Georgia. Although I have been living in Georgia since 2011, first I visited this site just in the Spring 2015 together with my dad, unfortunately it was a late evening already and I was not proficient of taking night photography (now I'm).
The second time I visited Gelati monastery was together with my mom already in Autumn 2015. This time I was prepared much better and instead of just taking photographs here I took HDR images.
Gelati monastery near Kutaisi
Gelati is a monastic complex near Kutaisi, Imereti, western Georgia. It contains the Church of the Virgin…