Freedom Square, Tbilisi, Georgia

Freedom Square in Tbilisi, Georgia, is a large cobblestone roundabout of that spins off into six main streets: Rustaveli Avenue, Pushkin Street, Leselidze Street, Shalva Dadiani Street, Galaktion Street, and Leonidze Street. Rustaveli Street is the main wide, tree-lined city street with benches, cafes, pavement statues and grand architectural government buildings. Pushkin Street dips down to the river, past the State Art Museum of Georgia, the Georgia State Museum, and the flower market. The street continues over the Baratashvili Bridge to the left bank and the magnificent Sameba Cathedral on Elijah Mountain. Leonidze Street ascends past restaurants, residential houses and the Money Museum to the suburb of Sololaki to the ridge of the mountains.

In the middle of Freedom Square is the Liberty Monument – a tall flood-lit column with a golden statue of St George on his steed, slaying a dragon – erected on November 23, 2006. Around the square is the Tbilisi City Hall with its clock that keeps perfect time, the Bank of Georgia, the Marriott Hotel, and the construction of government buildings. A large underground tunnel connects pedestrians to the streets above.

Other Freedom Squares around the world are in:

1. Batumi, Georgia

2. Miami, Florida, United States

3. Tehran, Iran

4. Kharkiv, Ukraine

5. Bratislava, Slovakia

6. Baku, Azerbaijan

7. Novi Sad, Serbia

8. Yerevan, Armenia

9. Valletta, Malta

10. Tallinn, Estonia

11. Belo Horizonte, Brazil

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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