🎆 Tbilisi began to prepare for the New Year

Friday evening city cervices began to decorate Chavchavadze Avenue. Maybe a little early, but beautiful! 😁

🌤 The weather in Georgia will become calmer this week.

A cool Northwest wind will give way to a Southeasterly wind bringing warmer weather.
📍In Tbilisi, despite the cold snap to 12 degrees in the middle of the week, by the weekend the air will again warm up to 18 degrees. Hurricane winds that scared us on Sunday and Monday will calm down. Precipitation is not expected.
📍In Batumi, the week will start with light rain and +15 degrees, but from Tuesday the thermometer will rise and reach 20 degrees by Friday. Precipitation after Monday is also not predicted. Good weather for the end of November 🙂

📊 In October 498,477 foreigners visited Georgia.

According to the Georgian National Tourism Administration, the visits of foreigners in October this year compared to October 2021 increased by 125.9%, compared to October 2020 increased by 858.3%, while the recovery of tourism is only 63.4% from October 2019.

🏵 TOP-10 countries from which guests came to Georgia in October:
🇷🇺 Russia — 109158 visitors
🇹🇷 Turkey - 81033
🇦🇲 Armenia - 72877
🇮🇱 Israel - 23761
🇺🇦 Ukraine - 15133
🇦🇿 Azerbaijan - 13719
🇰🇿 Kazakhstan - 9461
⚪️🔴⚪️ Belarus — 9066
🇮🇷 Iran - 8012
🇩🇪 Germany - 5679

ℹ️ Trends: in comparison to August and September, the number of arrivals from the Russian Federation decreased, Saudi Arabia dropped out of the top ten (-30,000), the number of visits from Belarus decreased by half, the flow from Israel decreased (-6,000 ), Thailand and India were added (not included in the top, but they have 4,000 visitors each).

🇬🇪🍷 The Georgian-Polish expedition discovered an old wine press in the Gonio fortress, which is 1800 years old.

The construction was discovered during a LiDAR study conducted inside and outside the walls of the fort (radar beams examine the soil and receive a response, when find changes in its structure). Researchers believe that the press was part of a farm that produced wine for the needs of the Roman soldiers who were settled in the garrison. Closer examination revealed that the wine was stored in qvevri, large clay vessels used for fermenting, storing and aging traditional Georgian wine. This is another proof that the wine culture on the territory of present-day Georgia has been developed for many centuries and is one of the oldest in the world.
ℹ️ Gonio is located in Adjara on the Black Sea coast, at the mouth of the Chorokhi River. The fort first appears in a text by Pliny the Elder, in the Natural History written in the 1st century AD, and in Appian's Mithridatic Wars of the 2nd century AD.

👨‍🌾 A fair of products from Georgian farmers will be held in Tbilisi.

Start planning your weekend from Monday: November 20 (Sunday), as a part of the celebration of Farmer's Day in Georgia and the large AGRO-2022 agricultural exhibition, ExpoGeorgia will host a market of Georgian agricultural products.
⏰ Time from 11:00 to 18:00
🔗 More information about the event here

📲 Google pay started working with cards of Georgian banks BoG, TBC, Credo, Liberty, Basis Bank.

The news has been officially announced by the Bank of Georgia.
❗️Previously, the service was unavailable for Georgian banks.
📹 Video instruction on how to add a card to Google Wallet using mobile banking from BoG: https://go.bog.ge/3AeHcVP

🧯Over 1,000 heating and homemade gas appliances have been dismantled in Tbilisi over the past month.

According to Tbilisi Energy, 1390 heating devices were installed in violation of safety rules and posed a threat to life. More than a third of cases (517) were discovered in the Isani-Samgori region, and the minimum number (105) in the Vake-Tskneti region.
ℹ️ Incorrect installation of gas devices leads to intoxication and accidents. Let me remind you that checking gas equipment is free. You can call the employees of the capital Tbilisi Energy by calling +995322404004. Residents of the regions should contact local gas distribution companies.

🇷🇺🔌➡️🇬🇪 Georgian businessman Khvicha Makatsaria announced that he was ready to buy the electricity distribution company Telasi from the Russian energy corporation Inter RAO.

At the moment, one of the strategic Tbilisi companies is under Russian control.
“I confirm my intention to buy out Telasi. I think that this is a matter of time, after which Telasi, following Tbilisi Energy and Beeline, will also become a Georgian company,” Makatsaria said.
ℹ️ The assets of the businessman who returned to Georgia after 2008 include Telasi (25%), Tbilisi Energy, Telmiko, Beeline \ VEON (bought out from Vimpelcom in 2022 for $45 million) and many others .

🏦 Some SWIFT transfers to Georgia are frozen and recipients have not been able to receive them for several days.

They write to me that there are problems on the side of TBC, Bank of Georgia and Liberty banks:
"They stopped crediting USD from American customers, the whole team has an account in it.
Money has been on correspondent accounts for more than two weeks, BoG’s support cannot say anything, such a situation”
“The Liberty bank stopped accepting swift dollars, the money was stuck for a week. Everything that came to the bank after November 4 is returned back, the timing is not clear. All stuck (("
Problems, first of all, are with transfers from the USA & Europe to Georgia.
❓ Friends, how is the situation with your tranfers? Does everything pass on time, from which countries?

🏺⚱️In Georgia, they began to make vessels for Qvevri wine on .... a 3D printer.

Only yesterday, after the discovery of an 1800-year-old wine press in Gonio, we started talking about the traditions of winemaking, and now we learn such interesting news. The author of this idea is the founder of the Qvevry company, David Mizandari. He was the first to use a ceramic 3D printer to print traditional Georgian Qvevris. His company is the winner of the grant program of the Georgian Innovation and Technology Agency (GITA). The grant amount was 100,000 GEL ($35,000).
“Our 3D printer was built specifically for printing qvevri. For this, a lot of work has been done. We searched for and ordered parts for the assembly of equipment in various countries of the world. In addition, laboratory studies were carried out on various types of Georgian clay, which is used in the manufacture of qvevri. Each type of clay has its own characteristics. For example, the temperature required for firing depends on this. As a result, we have selected the type of Georgian clay that is best suited for Qvevri printing,” said the founder of the company, David Mizandari.

🇬🇪❤️❄️ Snow in the mountain Bakhmaro.

While in the capital and Batumi the air warms up to comfortable + 13-18°, snow has fallen in the mountains and it is quite cool. But it is very beautiful.
📹 Video by Giviko Didia

🏦➡️🇬🇪 The National Bank of Georgia published statistics on money transfers for October: Russia retains its leadership by a wide margin.

Over the past month, $299 million was transferred from the Russian Federation (+726% compared to 2021). The amount is only $14 million behind the record high in May. The reason is most likely a new wave of migration recorded after the announcement of mobilization in Russia. In total, over 9 months of this year, $1.4 billion was transferred from the Russian Federation to Georgia.
🇮🇹 In second place, traditionally, is Italy, where 18,500 Georgian citizens are officially employed.
📈 Belarus became the leader in growth last month, about $5 million came from there (+1163% compared to 2021).
ℹ️ In October 2022, Georgia received $502 million. Top countries:
🇬🇧 Russia $299M (+726%)
🇮🇹 Italy $35M (+8%)
🇺🇸 US $29M (+26%)
🇬🇷 Greece $19 million (0)
🇮🇱 Israel $16M (+8%)
🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan $16 million (+164%)
🇩🇪 Germany $15M (+42%)
🇹🇷 Turkey $8M (+4%)
🇰🇿 Kazakhstan $8 million (+13%)
🇦🇲 Armenia $5M (+346%)