Kilikia Bus Station in Yerevan, Armenia

10 April, 2016 | Railway / Bus / Ferry | 139 seen

I have used Kilikia bus station to travel from Yerevan to Tbilisi using minivan (marshrutka), but seems you can get from Kilikia to Istanbul (Turkey), Tehran (Iran) or Moscow (Russia), take in note those will be very long trips (starting 40 hours) and I would rather prefer to fly instead of traveling such long distances by bus.

I reserved a seat a day before by calling to firm in Yerevan - Tbilisi minivan (Read more:Tbilisi - Yerevan transfers by taxi car ). Cost for Yerevan - Tbilisi minivan (7 seats in comfortable Mercedes Benz minivan) is 8,000 AMD (USD 17) (As of March, 2016). Minivan was leaving at 10:30. I don't know for sure precise departing times, but they for sure have many daily routes to Tbilisi, like at 9:00,11:00,13:00,15:00 and 17:00. It took about 5 and half hours to reach Tbilisi (Avlabari metro), with a longer (about 20 minute stop) at some gas station near Georgian border, and about 15 minutes at Sadakhlo Georgian/Armenian border for passport checkup. 

Of course local (domestic) Armenian routes are served from here as well. They should be really cheap also.

Kilikia bus station is located pretty close to city center, just next to Ararat brandy factory. If you will take taxi from city center, you will be charged the minimum 600 ADM fare (it's really close). I took a taxi from our hotel and gave him a tips - 1000 AMD (equals to about USD 2.00). Taxi's are cheap in Yerevan.

Kilikia bus station in Yerevan

The station is not in the best shape, seems last time has been reconstructed back in Soviet days. Mostly marshrutkas are leaving from here.

At Kilikia Bus station

Private drivers and marshutkas.

Local routes served from Kilikia bus station

Narikala Fortress

9 April, 2016 | Military Heritage | 32 seen

Ask anybody in Georgia - what are the must have tourist sites to visit while in Tbilisi. Narikala fortress will be a top of the list.

And there is a good reason -  an ancient fortress, featuring rich history, overlooking Tbilisi, with some really spectacular views towards Tbilisi Old Town. 

Spectacular view to the Narikala Fortress

Above photo is shot from another monastery, located just opposite to Narikala fortress: See: Tabor monastery

Inside fortress complex there is located St. Nicholas Church

St. Nicholas Church inside Narikala fortress

There are many (at least three) options to get to Narikala - by Tbilisi Aerial tram, from Tbilisi Botanical garden or climbing up from Bath District (Abanotubani)

Tourist route to Narikala fortress from Abanotubani

You can get here by taxi as well.

View towards Tbilisi

Some really great views can be seen from here. Narikala is great for photography.

Ancient fortress walls

If you have been to Yerevean, Armenia - you might find some similarities with Erebuni fortress, thus Narikala will impress you more. 

Hiking trails at Narikala

Some can take aerial tram to get up here from Rike park and then walk along impressive Narikala fortification wall.

Watch towers can be seen from Botanical garden side

Karas fast food on Mashtots Avenue, Yerevan

8 April, 2016 | Restaurant reviews | 32 seen

We paid a visit to Karas fast food restaurant on Mashtots avenue in Yerevan, just shortly we checked in at nearby Park hotel on Koghbaci street.

We got to this place by simply asking on street to a passer by where are some cool places around to get some cool food experience. The lady told - Karas, it's just around corner. So we ended up in Karas.

Menu at Karas restaurant in Yerevan

This was the most interesting menu I have seen, featuring neat marketing element. Menu was illustrated with happy people eating at Karas with texts like this - Omelet with ham and tomato juice - its the best start of my day. Buy Tomato juice - AMD 300. 

Simple interior 

The restaurant is actually located at the second floor, at first floor take away food can be ordered. The Best - Karas on Mashtots avenue works 24/7

Armenian beer - Gyumri

Very good Armenian brewed light beer

Shaurma combo

A combo, with some interesting local sauce and Coke for AMD 1200. Frankly speaking - nothing special - want real shaurma - best are located in neighboring Georgia. See Shaurma club on Tamar Mephe (Georgia)

Armenian cabbage dolma AMD 1000

Wow, this was some real masterpiece of Armenian cuisine - cabage leaves were soft and filling was just melting. Try dolmas (tolmas) 

Traditional Armenian Tolma AMD 1000

Once in Armenia, mandatory try tolma (grape leave rolls). Some time ago at our kitchen we tried to master something similar, see: How to prepare traditional dolma (grape leaves roll)

The Bottom Line

Karas restaurant is really cool and budget friendly, we paid AMD 4500 (EUR 8) here, service is excellent. Definitely worth of a visit.

Cranberries in Powdered Sugar

6 April, 2016 | Food blogger | 90 seen

Cranberries in powdered sugar are one of my favorite sweets from my childhood (sorry, Georgian churchela).

I remember in my childhood there were little nice cardboard boxes available for sale at local stores around my native Riga. It was always like a little celebration when my mom or grandma bought me some of those cardboard boxes with cranberries in powdered sugar and let me eat them 

For a very long time I didn't find them around, but at the start of 2000's they started to appear again on shop shelves. Anyhow - many more years later I got this treat again, in my kitchen - homemade cranberries in powdered sugar. I haven't touched the following recipe (just eaten a lot of cranberries in powdered sugar), thus photographed.

Frosted cranberries just from the fridge

We bought a large 2kg sack of them at the local East Point Shopping mall in Tbilisi (imported from France)

Cranberries in Powdered sugar

Add 1/4 cup powdered sugar into 1 cup water for a simple syrup. Soak cranberries in the sugar/water mixture until coated. Sprinkle white granulated or powdered sugar across a cookie sheet. Sprinkle white granulated or powdered sugar across a cookie sheet. See recipe: Sugared Cranberries

You can put them in preheated oven to make the process faster, but don't bake them. 

cranberries in powdered sugar

St. Nicholas Church, Tbilisi

5 April, 2016 | Churches and Monasteries | 152 seen

The chances you have seen or even visited St. Nicholas church, if traveled to Tbilisi, are huge - located on the lower court of city's most famous landmark's - Narikala fortress.

This Church has been "recently" restored. Newly built in 1996–1997, it replaces the original 13th-century church that was destroyed in a fire. The new church is of "prescribed cross" type, having doors on three sides. The internal part of the church is decorated with the frescos showing scenes both from the Bible and history of Georgia.

St. Nicholas church in Tbilisi

Located in the Narkala fortress complex, from here a lovely view towards Tbilisi is seen. The little church/monastery up in the hill is another interesting sight in Tbilisi, from which astonishing view towards Narikala and St. Nicholas church is seen. See: Tabor Monastery of the Transformation in Tbilisi

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Church bells a top on the fortress walls

Inside St.Nicholas church at Narikala fortress

I just love church photography - there is something magical, something mystical.. 

Tombs, cross and Tbilisi

Tbilisi For Dummies- 10 Places To Visit When Planing Your Trip to Georgian Capital

4 April, 2016 | Travel guides | 10 seen

Planing your next trip to the Pearl of Caucasus - Tbilisi? Spending hours researching Lonely Planet, TripAdvisor and travel blogs?

I'm here to help you, save time on researches and let Georgia to surprise you - after five years spent in this South Caucasus republic I decided to craft list of ten interesting tourist attraction sites in Tbilisi which will please most of the travelers.

You don't need a fancy budget to visit these sites (as most of them are free of entrance or for symbolic price). How to get around city? Easy - download taxify mobile app and pay as you go (cheaper can be only marshrutka

How to replace all "http" hyperlink with "https" Drupal

3 April, 2016 | Drupal Development | 11 seen

Recently I made a switch from http to https. I was pretty pleased with results, and started to wait for possible SEO boost from Google. As time passed, instead of boost some traffic drop started to appear in my Google Analytics account.

I cannot say for sure is this because of https thing or some major update in Google Search algorithm (Penguins & Pandas) , I just wanted make sure everything works right on my site.

Traffic dropped to 0 (hourly view)

Most probably it is just some glitch in Google Analytics (it happens time after time), or my server was not accessible, but maybe it was some Google Algorithm update. I'm not sure what was that, but that was the reason to get rid of Mixed content on my site and fix this ASAP.

Since I have a pretty large website with tons of photos uploaded (I'm using both Drupal file upload, both inline uploading images using CKEDITOR) - I started to notice that on some (on most,actually) articles a Mixed Content warning appeared and instead of browser bar turning green it stayed gray, at least for Google Chrome.

What is Mixed content

This basically means following your site is serving resources (images, for example) both over http and https. Here is good explanation about mixed content from Mozilla

However, if the HTTPS page you visit includes HTTP content, the HTTP portion can be read or modified by attackers, even though the main page is served over HTTPS. When an HTTPS page has HTTP content, we call that content “mixed”. The page you are visiting is only partially encrypted and even though it appears to be secure, it isn't. 

The more I'm reading on Mozilla, the more I'm assured I must fix this mixed content as soon as possible:

An attacker can replace the HTTP content on the page you're visiting in order to steal your credentials, take over your account, acquire sensitive data about you, or attempt to install malware on your computer. 

Solution for Drupal

At start I manually updated articles which included images (It was fun actually, many of articles were bad written or out dated, so I had chance to update them), but in the last two and a half years I have written more than 400 articles with images, and some of the articles feature as many as 136 pictures. It would be a very time consuming task - to manually update all http paths to https version.

I wanted to write a simple update query and run it on phpmyadmin to replace all http://reinisfischer.com to https://reinisfischer.com, but before I proceeded I did found and excellent Drupal module Pathologic:

Pathologic is an input filter which can correct paths in links and images in your Drupal content in situations which would otherwise cause them to “break;” for example, if the URL of the site changes, or the content was moved to a different server.

With help of Pathologic module it took mw some 10 minutes to get rid of all mixed content warnings. From admin/config/content/pathologic I checked Protocol relative URL (//example.com/foo/bar)

General settings for Pathologic module

Nest from Text Editor settings page I enabled Correct URLs with Pathologic for all my text editors (I had two)

Enabling Pahtologic for Text formats

After clearing cache all my content was served over https. The Pathologic module is a true time saver and set and forget module.

Georgia - 5 years latter (Economic Developments 2011-2016)

1 April, 2016 | Living in Georgia | 11 seen

April 1st marks my five year anniversary since I opted to move to this amazing country on the edge where East meets West - Republic of Georgia.

Today, to celebrate this small anniversary I decided to take a look back - to see economic developments in Georgia 2011-2016 - how things how changed since I first landed at Tbilisi airport back at at April 1st, 2011. 

See: 3 years in Georgia and 16 places to visit in Georgia and Tbilisi , for my previous annul reviews about Georgia.

As for a small country, pretty much of daily life in Georgia is related to politics. During past five years a major political turnover happened at the end of 2012, when former Presidents Mikheil Saakashvilli party United National Movement lost a majority to rival Georgian Dream coalition, a year latter, when Presidents term of office ended, Misha flew away country (by know Mikheil Saakashvili has been appointed a governor of Odessa oblast in Ukraine).

Very rarely I have found some useful information about country's economic developments, instead there are plenty of politics, public dirty laundry and sometimes some information about tourists visiting Georgia, oh, yes, there are a lot of talks about Lari devaluation. Seems Georgians are not too much worried about actual economic developments. GDP is a term I rarely have ever talked about with anybody here in Georgia. OK, I agree the late comedy shows on Rustavi 2 most probably are lot more interesting than some boring talks about gross domestic product. 

I took following data from GeoStat and found following:

The GDP growth for past five years is rather modest, not to say humble. Well, I arrived here in 2011, when total GDP of Georgia was 14,4 bln USD, in 2015 total economic output of Georgia didn't even reached 14 billion dollars. Yikes. Five years is a lot. I feel pretty shocked of such slow and even negative GDP growth for Georgia. Will Georgia crack 20 billion GDP milestone by the end of this decade? Doable, but for now - I wouldn't be so optimistic.

Eldar's Bike Workshop at Kidobani Market (Tbilisi)

1 April, 2016 | Professional services | 45 seen

Eldar's bike workshop is a place where back at the end of 2013 we bought two mountain bikes as a Christmases gift for ourselves.

Take a look of my riding experience in Tbilisi: First ride, Cycling to Tbilisi sea or alternatively check out cycling topic.

At Eldar's place you can fix leaky tires, fix brakes order new details and of course to buy a new or used bicycle. It was at the start of March, warm weather approached Tbilisi and I decided to change the leaky tire for one of our bikes, so I went to Kidobani market and searched for this workshop. 

Eldar's bike shop in Tbilisi

Eldar asked me 8 lari for changing tube, he is a very nice and enthusiastic guy, can speak about bicycles a lot - he has some supplies from Europe - he is truly a master of his business.

Bikes are ready for the next cycling season

Shot at our Tbilisi apartments terrace.

Here are Eldar's contacts (Russian, Georgian)

+995 593 336 479 or +995 597 153 642

Postcards from Mtskheta

31 March, 2016 | | 8 seen

Mtskheta is small and lovely town located some 20 km from nation' s capital Tbilisi. Some will find a lot of similarities in Mtskheta with town of Sighanghi, while others will enjoy architectural and religious pearls of Mtskheta. Svetitskhoveli church, Jvari monastery or Samtavro are just a few to name. 

In today' s Piece of Life series - Mtskheta as we saw it on International Women' s day (March 8)

Cobbled street in Mtskheta

With the famous Svetitskhoveli cathedral at the end of the street

Svetitskhoveli cathedral

Mtskheta and surrounding mountains

Mtskheta definitely is a photographers paradise

Group of tourists gathered near cathedral

Panorama of Svetitskhoveli cathedral

It is the second largest church building in the country, after the Holy Trinity Cathedral of Tbilisi (Sameba), and is listed as an UNESCO World Heritage Site along with other historical monuments of Mtskheta.

Massive fortification walls of Svetitskhoveli cathedral

Highway in Mtskehta

To the city centre

Souvenirs for sale at Georgian yard

Read more: Georgian yard in Mtskheta

Georgian wines and chacha

Futuristic design buildings in Mtskheta

Some governmental organization is located here

Lonely benches

The other Mtskheta

View towards Jvari monastery from Gujari restaurant - museum

Gujari restaurant is one of the coolest Mtsketa restaurants, here are featured some archeological artifacts back from 6th century AD

Burning prayers candles at Samtavro monastery

Samtavro Monastery

31 March, 2016 | Churches and Monasteries | 24 seen

Samtavro Monastery together with Svetitskhoveli cathedral and Jvari monastery are one of the main sights of historical town of Mtskheta, located some 20 km from nation's capital Tbilisi. 

Official nam of this place is Samtavro Transfiguration Orthodox Church and Nunnery of St. Nino in Mtskheta, Georgia. It is believed that church were built in the 4th century by King Mirian III of Iberia. Nowadays Samtvaro is very popular tourist destination in Mtskheta with much greater popularity among Georgian believers - it's always crowded here. The nuns living and praying here speaks very good English, and don't allow photograph inside.

Samtavro monastery in Mtskheta

Tombs near the church

Visitors at Samtvaro monastery in Mtskheta

Beheaded angels sculpture at Samtvaro monastery

Church photography has always been interesting for me.

Prayers candles

 The famous Georgian monk Gabriel is buried in the yard of Samtavro Church.

Archimandrite Gabriel born Goderdzi Urgebadze is one of the most renowned orthodox monks in Georgia. He was born to Vasili and Barbara Urgebadze on 26 August 1929, in Tbilisi, Georgia. He was baptized as an infant in St Martyr Barbara’s Church, in Navtlughi district by the former “Sister of Mercy” Tamar Begiashvili. The communist regime was furiously violent then; religion was persecuted; churches were destroyed and closed; innocent people were murdered and deported. Goderdzi was about two years old when his father, Vasil Urgebadze, was murdered in uncertain circumstances. After that his family members called him Vasiko in honor of his father. Learn more: Archimandrite Gabriel Urgebadze 

Prayer candles and icons at Samtvaro monastery

Inside church

At this stage a nun approached me and informed in plain English it's forbidden to photograph inside the church, I told her, OK, I understand, but I'm not using a flash - making some damage to icons or disturbing nuns or other visitors, but she was bold in her statement - any photography is prohibited inside the church. Sad :( 

Guest House / Restaurant 'Āķa Gals' in Pāvilosta

30 March, 2016 | Restaurant reviews | 15 seen

If there is a reason I would love to return to Latvian coastal town of Pāvilosta - cuisine served at restaurant Āķa Gals will be probably at top of my priorities. 

Cozy tavern located in the dunes of Pāvilosta, only 100 meters from the sea, is a great place for celebrations, relaxation and recreation with family and friends.

Guesthouse / Tavern Āķagals in Pāvilosta

Visitors both of simple and refined tastes will enjoy traditional Latvian dishes and international cuisine served in pleasant atmosphere by kind staff.

Salmon cream soup - a traditional Latvian dish

Here you can taste dishes cooked from the local fishermen fished fishes.

Potato pancakes with salmon

One of mine all times favorite traditional Latvian dishes

Creme brulee

Āķagals in Pāvilosta is a must have dinning place, highly recommended! 

Pāvilosta piers and Lighthouse

30 March, 2016 | Tourism objects | 12 seen

If planing your trip to Latvian coastal town of Pāvilosta don't forget to plan a trip to Pāvilosta piers, grab your camera and make some stunning sunset photography here. 

I first visited the piers of Pāvilosta and the town at the end of Summer 2015, and let me express my desire to acquire a small summer cottage here, thus I you plan to make some investments here - hurry up, a lot of foreigner have already bought real-estate at this Latvian coastal town and the prices might be up (haven't checked actually).

It might sound a little bit overstated, but allow me to say - Latvians have their own Portofino (hmm, should we call it part of Latvian Riviera?)

Pāvilosta pier

Pāvilosta is a popular destination for surfers as well - I'm not a surfer dude, but seems locals are pretty excited about wind and waves here. You can try to lend a yacht if you prefer more calmer relaxation.

Boat decks in Pāvilosta

Much of the Pāvilosta history and foundation is related to harbor here - Information about the history of Pavilosta dates back to the period of Duke Jekabs (1642-1682) when ships could enter the Saka River and Pavilosta served as Aizputes harbor. This harbor was used to export wood, grain and other products to various other harbors in the Baltic Sea and the North Sea. Trade agreements with Danish merchants were especially prosperous. 

White Sand beach near Pāvilosta

After the war between the Swedes and Poles in 1660, the Saka River was dammed per the Swedish occupants to guarantee the growth and development of Riga’s harbors. Boulders were placed on the ice during the winter months. In the spring when the ice melted, the sunken boulders narrowed the path for sea vessels. 

Pavilosta piers

In 1855 during the Crimean War, Russian boarder guards built their cordons in Pavilosta to protect this strategic location. 

In the winter of 1878 the German Baron Otto fon Lilienfeld, owner of a large portion of land in this region, commissioned the building of the first wooden pier. The pier cost 8000 gold rubles. That spring when the river thawed, the extreme melt water dredged the river’s bed enough that the first large ships could harbor in Pavilosta. 

Pāvilosta lighthouse

With the building and grand opening of Pavilosta Marina on May 20, 2006, the harbor has been reborn and a new and meaningful period in Pavilosta’s history has begun.

Yacht between Pāvilosta piers

Gujari Restaurant Museum in Mtskheta

29 March, 2016 | Restaurant reviews | 117 seen

Gujari restaurant - museum is another absolutely brilliant restaurant I have lately discovered. Located in the historical and picturesque town of Mtskheta, some 20 km from nation's capital Tbilisi.

Discovered again - by accident - after just wandering around town of Mtksheta, After visiting Svetitskhoveli cathedral I decided it would be great to walk around Mtskheta and find some non-touristic places. And wuola - instead of tourist attractions - another great restaurant.

Giraffe at Gujari restaurant in Mtskheta

This restaurant features a very good landscaped territory, equipped with a lot of interesting garden elements - I had a chance to take some ideas for our upcoming home remodeling tasks here

Menu at Gujari restaurant

The menu consists mostly of local Georgian cuisine, prices at first seems well above average, but portions they are serving here are at least double if compared to Tbilisi restaurants.

Large table at garden

Double portion of cucumber/tomatoes salads and freshly baked shotis puri

Grilled fish

An excellent meal - expensive (20 GEL) but worth of it.

Veal barbeque

juicy and delicious.

Grilled vegetables

Now, it was a total failure - much overdone and looks ugly. Tasted so/so... I wouldn't order for 10 GEL another time grilled vegetables here.

Dining hall at Gujari restaurant museum in Mtskheta

Gujari restaurant - museum is a large complex, featuring many dinning halls, lovely garden. Speaking of the museum elements - you will find some archeological artifacts from Georgia (dating back to 6th century) hanging on the walls inside. I wouldn't call this place actually a museum. But restaurant featuring rich museum elements - yes, why not.

Bronze axes

Georgian cognacs and wine featured at Gujari restaurant museum

Speaking of cognacs - Sarajishivlli brand is mostly featured here.(Well, it's the most known Georgian cognac)

Clay pots (ketsi)

Visitors of this restaurant - museum can take some master classes in preparing Georgian bread (shotis puri), prepare khinkali, observe chacha distillation process and other. 

Large complex territory at Gujari Restaurant in Mtskheta

At top of it you can see Jvari monastery.

The Bottom Line

Gujari restaurant was like a nice surprise during our recent wanderings around Mtskheta town. Our total bill here 80 GEL (which is pretty much above the average). All food (except grilled vegetables) were great. We spent here about 3 hours, both enjoying our meal and wandering around restaurant - museum territory. Highly recommend. See Gujari restaurant on Facebook

Georgian Yard (Kartuli Ezo) in Mtskheta

29 March, 2016 | Restaurant reviews | 33 seen

Restaurant "Georgian Yard" is located in the central part of Mtskheta - the ancient capital of Georgia, near the Cathedral Svetitskoveli in the territory of the central square of parking.

This restaurant is famous among tourists and guests serving delicious traditional Georgian dishes, medium prices, interesting and pleasant environment.

Georgian Yard in Mtskheta

Restaurant "Georgian Yard" unites few companies - "Fast Food," where you can enjoy delicious meals as well as hot and cold drinks;  "Wine shop" where you can taste for free and purchase the desired type of alcoholic beverage - wine, brandy and "Chacha"; 3. The most important thing - the restaurant, which is famous mainly for Georgian traditional dishes.

Wine shop Enoteka in Georgian Yard / Mtskheta

Seems this wine shop is owned by Winery Khareba - if you are not familliar with their wines and wine making traditions, I highly recommend to take you another trip to Wine Tunnel near Kvareli.

Shotis puri

Mmm a loaf of freshly baked Georgian bread - shotis puri  - can anything be better than that?

...perhaps something stronger?

How about Georgian national beverage - CHACHA?

...even a tripod needs a rest

That said - Georgian Yard / Kartuli Ezo is a great all in one place in Mtskheta - you can buy your souvenirs here, enjoy delicious meal and try some chacha. Wonderful place. Visit qartuliezo.ge to learn more.