Arrival in Tbilisi. We are welcomed at the station by [XX].
Mandelstam arrived in Tbilisi in 1930. Those were times of hunger, the dreadful famine in Ukraine had started and prices were on the rise as a result of the first five-year plan as well as of the extermination of the kulaks. In the city some products had completely disappeared, first of all cigarettes. And yet, despite the difficult external circumstances, this was the best period of their life, at least according to Nadezhda. Here they made new friends, Mandelstam realised he was not alone, and started writing again. They visited the Museum of Literature especially often.
Come, let's take the subway.
The transfer in the subway. Long escalators going down and then the arrival in the Rustaveli station.
The wide boulevard and then pebbled alleys, ancient wood houses. Unfinished skyscrapers and the new buildings symbol of Georgian power.
We walk to the Museum of Literature. Director [XXX] confirms that M spent there his time in Tbilisi and looks for the originals of his poems. She leads the troupe through the corridors, the stairs, the archives. She cannot find anything.
The group takes leave from [XX] and [XXX] and continues to the coach station in Tbilisi. In the chaos of the square, negotiation on the price of a marshrutka trip to Sevan, Armenia. The marshrutka stops by a huge copper mine, at the border between Georgia and Armenia.