Mtatsminda Park in Tbilisi, Georgia

Mtatsminda Park is built on a plateau with impressive views of the city of Tbilisi. It is accessed by highway or the Tbilisi Funicular. The plateau is on the top of Mount Mtatsminda, meaning ‘holy mountain.’

The park was constructed in 1930, partly because the funicular had been built to transport people to a restaurant, and partly because it was part of the city’s planning to develop the ‘wasteland’ of Mount Mtatsminda. The amusement park was constructed in 2007. The area of Mtatsminda Park is 100 hectares with rides, a ferris wheel, water slides, cafes, kiosks, and a 210-metre-high television tower. It’s basically a giant amusement park.

The ferris wheel, opened in 2010, is 80 metres high (263 feet), perched on the edge of the 324 metre-high mountain (1000 feet).

The original restaurant on Mtatsminda Plateau was built in the early 1900s, and had a third storey constructed in 1936-38 during renovations. It has been further refurbished and changed into a complex of restaurants. It contains four restaurants, and a banquet hall.

MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), 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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