A goat dragging a snapped rope around its neck calmly hoofs it over a crosswalk in a Tbilisi suburb on January 10. Once common during the economic breakdown of the 1990s, some Tbilisi residents still keep domestic animals in the city.
Temo Bardzimashvili is a freelance photojournalist based in Tbilisi.
Hunters paddle out for an evening pursuit of prey as smoke rises over Paliastomi Lake near Poti, Georgia, in late December. The Paliastomi lake marshes, which are part of the Kolkheti National Park, are often set on fire by hunters and cattle herders, who clear the area for easier fowling and cow grazing. Violation of national park regulations – quite common in Georgia’s protected areas – are often due to poor management.
Temo Bardzimashvili is a freelance photojournalist based in Tbilisi.
Roman Glonti, a bathhouse attendant in Tbilisi baths, was born to an Armenian father and a Georgian-Iranian mother. The 42-year-old, who uses his mother's last name, says the sulfur baths are the ultimate symbol for Tbilisi's multi-ethnic Abanotubani district.
"There can be no quarrel between us, as the sulfur always soothes your mood," Glonti says jokingly.
Temo Bardzimashvili is a freelance photojournalist based in Tbilisi.
A man and girl ride around central Tbilisi during the annual Tbilisoba festival on October 7.
Tbilisoba, usually celebrated in October and dedicated to the Georgian capital Tbilisi, is a showcase for national culture and the place where farmers from the regions bring their harvest to market. The festival was first held in 1979 as an initiative by Eduard Shevardnadze, then the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, allegedly to counterbalance the popularity of religious holidays and promote socialist traditions.
Temo Bardzimashvili is a freelance photojournalist based in Tbilisi.
Omar Dolidze, 28, uses ropes to lift parts of a log-turned-hive to the top of a tree in Merisi, a gorge in Georgia's mountain region of Ajara.
Traditionally, Ajarian beekeepers make hives by hollowing out linden or spruce tree logs and then wedge them in place at the top of the trees -- the higher the better. Bees eventually swarm inside, spending the spring, summer, and some part of fall making honey. In the middle of the winter, normally mid-February or so, the honeycombs are collected, and hives are left in the tree, until the next winter.
The advantage of this traditional method, Dolidze explains, is that such inaccessibility of the hives makes it difficult to forge honey by artificially adding sugar to the honeycombs. The efforts are appreciated: Dolidze does not lack buyers, who come to his very village to buy honey for further reselling. Mountain Ajara honey is popular in Turkey, from where the resellers come to buy it at 20-25 lari ($12-$15) per kilo, almost double the price in Georgian markets.
"They come because they know it's a pure product," Dolidze says. "And abroad, such honey is a few times more expensive."
Temo Bardzimashvili is a freelance photojournalist based in Tbilisi.
Tamar Kiknadze, dubbed "Mother Madonna," sits in a half-built house in the center of Tbilisi that serves as a shelter for herself, four dogs, and more than 10 cats. Kiknadze, homeless herself, says she started sheltering abandoned pets three years ago, when she picked up a stray dog and started taking care of him. Kiknadze, very protective of her charges, receives money from private donations to make sure the pets are vaccinated, well fed, and healthy.
Temo Bardzimashvili is a freelance photojournalist based in Tbilisi.
Roland Girgvliani, 68, spreads oat on the road in Upper Svaneti as the passing cars run over it, thus threshing it. Girgvliani says that this method was started during Soviet times, substituting the traditional ox driven threshers. The unorthodox practice became useless with the deterioration of the road following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Girgvliani says that since then, many people chose to grow vegetables instead of crops that required threshing. With the recent development of tourism in Svaneti, the road was renovated, and farmers such as Girgvliani recovered the decades-old method of 'car threshing.'
Temo Bardzimashvili is a freelance photojournalist based in Tbilisi.
Nika Gugeshashvili, a local guide, looks at a stalagmite in a cave around Oni, a major town in the mountain region of Racha, Georgia. An adjacent region to the intensively promoted Svaneti, Racha remains mostly unknown to foreign tourists.
Temo Bardzimashvili is a freelance photojournalist based in Tbilisi.
