Botanical Garden - Latvians are Everywhere!

One of the things one should not miss when visiting Batumi is the Botanical Garden. While I happen to be here on the first rainy day in weeks I stick to my plan and find the minibus to go North to the gates of the garden. It was established in 1912 at the steep shore and with the slope towards the sea and the valleys and hills to the inland side it is possible to imitate different climate zones on this small area - though for a garden it is quite big. As I gather from the bilingual Georgian/English maps there are citrus groves, a bamboo forest, a rose garden, a bonsai garden and, of course, gardens dedicated to plants from specific regions of the world. It even holds a small railway station, I'm not sure if it still is active, but the coastal train does go along here and through the tunnel integrated in the garden. Early on my walk through the garden I hear two couples discussing over a tree and its trilingual (Georgian/Russian/Latin) sign what kind of fruit this actually is. They speak Latvian! I tentatively join the conversation and happily surprised they welcome me to join them for the walk. It is really great to explore this garden together, talk about Georgia, Latvia, and Germany and especially doing so in Latvian totally unexpectedly. Latvians really are everywhere. I would have enjoyed the garden on my own, too, and probably not less, but in a different way. Walking in a group of five we share the joy to be in this vast and diverse greenness and point out to each other different especially amazing trees and fruit and flowers. The Latvians get picked up by their Georgian friend at the back gate and I return - on a different path, of course - to the front gate, this time being swallowed by all the huge leaves and woods.

After I return to the city it takes some time to get used to streets and houses again as if I had been with the plants for a long time. The sky is still grey, but I walk around the old town some more and find the many minority houses of worship: An Armenian church, a synagogue and a mosque. Batumi is the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara - the conflict is settled for this region - and the Adjarians used to be Muslims. Today 30% of the region's population are Sunni Muslims while more than 60% are Georgian Orthodox.

I also very much enjoy the less crazy, but probably more lasting architecture of two-story wooden town houses with carved and doors with forged decorations, flowers and wine growing in the most unlikely places around them. I get to join many people just going out to the beach for the sole purpose of watching the sun set over the Black Sea. Such a peaceful atmosphere on a beach far from empty.