Georgian Tales and Jokes: The Most Light-hearted Stroll

What to Expect

"Nothing brings people together like laughter. Because laughter is a form of love..."
Leo Tolstoy

From Shota Rustaveli to the present day
At times, Georgian humor is gentle irony, sometimes it's sunlit uncontrollable joy, at times dark humor on the brink of failure, and very rarely, almost never, caustic sarcasm. The ability to laugh in any situation is one of the main characteristics of the Georgian character. We will take a promenade along Batumi Boulevard and atmospheric city streets, and look at Georgian culture from an unusual perspective. And we will also have a good laugh. I will talk about:

• Who and how they joke about in different regions of Georgia.
• Who they never laugh at under any circumstances (although there was one exception).
• Jokes from different periods of the 20th century, and how urban folklore reflects various periods in history.
• About self-irony in the works of the genius primitive artist Niko Pirosmani, and modern artists painting in this style.
• And of course, we will not forget Rezo Chkheidze, Georgiy Daneliya, Sergey Parajanov, and other directors who introduced Georgia to the world.

Stroll through Three Squares
We will walk along Batumi Boulevard and the Wonder Park, where near the Alphabet Tower, I will tell a funny tale about its invention. Then we will head to the three main squares. At Europe Square, I will talk about Georgian monuments and the interesting stories associated with them. At Theatre Square, we will discuss Georgian theater and cinema. You will learn about the films shot in Batumi and the amusing stories that took place during filming. And at Piazza Square, we will talk about the different peoples inhabiting Georgia and their reputations in jokes: who is considered the most cunning, temperamental, stingy, naive, and practical? We will explore the streets of the Old Town, the Turkish quarter, and many fascinating stories await us.