Georgian Post aims to provide letterboxes for every home in Tbilisi

In 2010 when I first arrived in Tbilisi, Georgia, I conducted an experiment. I posted a letter to myself addressed to the office where I worked, which was a 20-minute walk from my apartment. It took 7 days to reach the office. It was hand delivered to the door of the office because there were no letter boxes. The number of postal offices was declining and the General Post Office on Rustaveli Avenue was closed and in disrepair (it is now the site of Smart Supermarket near Radisson Hotel). All that is changing, says Georgian Post (Georgia Today, April 4-10, 2014).

Site of previous General Post Office on Rustaveli Avenue

Despite the large number of private competitors, the government’s Georgian Post is undertaking a major change in service across the country. It will continue, and improve, its express mail service, established in 2001, which delivers mail and parcels to 200 countries, and it will continue its telegraph service within the country to rural and regional centres.

It aims to improve its delivery service locally. It says “written correspondence will be delivered in Tbilisi within 24 hours, but in regional centres it will take 2-4 days and delivery is guaranteed.” To do this, all postal service centres in Tbilisi will be in “test mode” on Mondays and Thursdays from 9:00am to 8:00pm. The longer hours on those two days is timed for the upcoming holidays.

It will introduce a service to “pass Top Secret messages from hand to hand” and establish a postal service centre at the Tbilisi International Airport. Also, starting from this month, April, home letterboxes will be installed throughout the city – at everyone’s place of residence so that they can receive mail.

There will also be an interesting initiative called “Letter to the Future” in which anyone can send a letter to themselves or a recipient to receive it in 5, 10, or even 30 years. Customers can state the date that they wish to receive the letter in the future.

The postal service in Georgia has been around for a long time, transporting mail in bullock carts. The title of Georgian Post was introduced in 1995 by the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications. It was placed under the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development during government restructuring in 2010. Recently, the blue swallow was added as the Georgian Post’s official logo.

It might be time to do another experiment.