At the end of September, the air in Abanotubani – Tbilisi’s historic bath district – thickens with the scent of wood smoke and grilling meat. The city is celebrating Tbilisoba, its annual cultural festival. According to the popular national tourist website, Georgian Travel Guide, visitors here can “encounter not only the traditions of Georgia but also those of ethnic minorities living in the country“. This vivid phrase offers an insight into how ethnic minorities are imagined from the dominant perspective: not as part of “the traditions of Georgia”, but as an “addition” to the culture of the ethnically dominant Georgian group.
In 2023, Tbilisi City Hall explicitly branded the Abanotubani section of the festival as “Tbilisi’s Diversity”. However, a deeper examination of the festival’s history and contemporary approach reveals an ambivalent relationship with this multicultural identity. This inquiry is based on ethnographic observations, interviews, and historical documents I collected within the framework of the KonKoop B1-Project.
The Evolution of “Diversity”
Tbilisoba was established in 1979 by the Soviet City Committee to emphasise the bond between urban and rural Georgia. Yet, as historian Claire Pogue Kaiser notes, while the festival celebrated Tbilisi’s ancient roots, the city was transforming from a multiethnic imperial outpost into a Soviet capital dominated by ethnic Georgians.
The demographic shift was stark. In 1939, ethnic Georgians made up 44% of the population; by 2014, that number had risen to nearly 90%. Conversely, the Armenian population plummeted from 26.4% to roughly 5%, and the Jewish community dropped from 18% to nearly 1%.
Today, public attitudes remain conflicted. A 2020 CRRC survey found that while Georgians express pride in their multicultural heritage, there is a lingering mistrust toward minorities, who are often perceived as a threat to statehood. Some experts I interviewed in the framework of the project “Ethnoreligious Diversity between Regulation and Everyday Practice,” of which this blog is a part, suggest that the state sometimes views these groups through a “national security” lens rather than one of social integration.
A Tableau of Cultures
The “Diversity” exhibit in Abanotubani functions as a series of curated vignettes. At the Azerbaijani stand, an interlocutor in traditional dress demonstrates the “visual semiotics” of hand-woven carpets – patterns that encode regional history and lineage. Nearby, at the Assyrian stand, a teenage girl and a young boy, also dressed in traditional attire, shyly pose for photos, while another host, a middle-aged woman, invites a passer-by to the Assyrian New Year celebrations in April.
Picture: The Azerbaijani stand during Tbilisoba in Tbilisi, 2023 © Tinatin Khomereiki
Picture: The Assyrian stand during Tbilisoba in Tbilisi, 2023 © Tinatin Khomereiki
Picture: The Assyrian stand during Tbilisoba in Tbilisi, 2023 © Tinatin Khomereiki
The Yezidi stand is easily recognisable by its peacock feather decorations. An elderly woman I talk to expresses concern that younger generations are losing touch with their ancestral traditions.
Picture: The Yezidi stand during Tbilisoba in Tbilisi, 2023 © Tinatin Khomereiki
Picture: The Yezidi stand during Tbilisoba in Tbilisi, 2023 © Tinatin Khomereiki
At the Ukrainian stand, handmade jewellery in the blue and yellow of the national flag sits alongside anti-war signs; this creates a poignant contrast with the surrounding festivities, a quiet but firm reminder of the harrowing reality of the ongoing war.
Picture: The Ukrainian stand during Tbilisoba in Tbilisi, 2023 © Tinatin Khomereiki
At the Greek stand, young women tell me I can find their community page on Facebook, yet my search yields no results.
Picture: The Greek stand during Tbilisoba in Tbilisi, 2023 © Tinatin Khomereiki
The Polish and Jewish exhibitions, which have a joint stand, primarily consist of books on their respective histories in Georgia. The Chechen–Kist stand follows a similar pattern, though they also offer delicious khalva, which I taste as I pass.
Picture: The Polish stand during Tbilisoba in Tbilisi, 2023 © Tinatin Khomereiki
Picture: The Jewish stand during Tbilisoba in Tbilisi, 2023 © Tinatin Khomereiki
Picture: The Chechen-Kist stand during Tbilisoba in Tbilisi, 2023 © Tinatin Khomereiki
At the Belarusian stand, the host – a shy but friendly young woman – responds awkwardly to Georgian greetings, and I realise she does not speak the language. Uncertain whether switching to Russian would be acceptable or comfortable for us both, I opt for English, which creates a mix of amusement and mutual embarrassment between us.
Picture: The Belarusian stand during Tbilisoba in Tbilisi, 2023 © Tinatin Khomereiki
Meanwhile, Germans and Ossetians unexpectedly share a stand; the former group displays beer, a newspaper, and portraits of famous Tbilisi Germans, while the latter focuses on showcasing books on Ossetian folklore and poetry.
Picture: The German stand during Tbilisoba in Tbilisi, 2023 © Tinatin Khomereiki
Picture: The Ossetians stand during Tbilisoba in Tbilisi, 2023 © Tinatin Khomereiki
Despite being one of the city’s largest minorities, the Armenian community has no visible presence at this year’s event. As becomes clear, I realise it must be due to the September events in Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) – the Azerbaijani military offensive, the subsequent Armenian exodus, and the period of national mourning in Armenia: the deep wound shared by Georgia’s Armenian community.
Picture: A police car at the exhibition site in Tbilisi, 2023 © Tinatin Khomereiki
The “Georgian” Frame
I then observe that there is no specific “Georgian” stand either. However, if one closely examines the spatial arrangement of the festival, it becomes clear how the majority culture effectively “encircles” the minority exhibits. Blue tablecloths, souvenirs decorated with the Georgian alphabet, wine pressing, and the scent of mtsvadi [Georgian-style grilled meat]define the perimeter. As you draw closer to the Multicoloured Bath – a prominent visual symbol of Abanotubani – you hear an accordionist play “Tbiliso”, the Soviet-era anthem of the city, asserting a dominant cultural frame.
Picture: The Georgian frame: grilling mtsvadi in Abanotubani in Tbilisi, 2023 © Tinatin Khomereiki
Picture: The famous Multicoloured Bath of Abanotubani in Tbilisi, 2023 © Tinatin Khomereiki
Picture: Pressing wine before the visitors’ eyes is one of the most common practices during Tbilisoba in Tbilisi, 2023 © Tinatin Khomereiki
Occasionally, boundaries blur. A Yezidi semi-circle dance is joined by Greek hosts, or an Azerbaijani ashugh [a poet-musician and storyteller in the South Caucasus, Anatolia, and parts of Iran] dances with guests wearing Ukrainian symbols. Nargile Mehtiyeva, a rare female ashugh, embodies this complexity. Having once faced alienation both as a minority in Georgia and as a temporary migrant in Azerbaijan in the 1990s, today she has become a compelling voice for her community. For her, the ashugh brings joy and connects people through song, transcending differences of religion, ethnicity, and upbringing. She notes that today’s festival evokes the historic Shaitan Bazaar – an organic marketplace in this same neighbourhood where bards from across the Caucasus, Turkey, Syria and Iran once gathered to perform together and exchange instruments.
Picture: Dasta, or a traditional Tbilisi folk music band chilling in front of stylised Georgian attire in Tbilisi, 2023 © Tinatin Khomereiki
Picture: Shaitan Bazaar in Tiflis, 1917 © Richard Sommer. Source: Wikipedia (https://ka.wikipedia.org/wiki/შეითან_ბაზარი). License: Public domain
Agency vs. Decoration
Despite the festive atmosphere, a fundamental difference remains. While the Shaitan Bazaar was a bottom-up, organic space, Tbilisoba is a top-down, staged event, where every stand bears the logo of Tbilisi City Hall. Dea, a Yezidi woman, says she enjoys public celebrations, but at the same time, is frustrated with the souvenirisation of these groups by various organisations. “There are so many ‘projects for a project’s sake,'” she notes, “where they dress you up and make you stand there, letting people watch you like in a zoo.”
For people like Dea, this is not true agency. Tbilisoba displays these cultures as decorations to showcase harmonious multiculturalism, yet the minorities’ everyday political and social participation remains constrained.
Conclusion
Tbilisoba 2023 highlights a gaze that frames diversity as an exoticised commodity. While the curated celebration still leaves some space for spontaneous interactions and joy, organising cultures into manageable stalls presents them as “proof” of Tbilisi’s multiculturalism rather than as integral parts of the city’s social fabric. It celebrates the colourful past while carefully managing the complicated present.
