I was 9 years old when I first heard about “the investors.” It was winter—the temperature was so low the teachers sent us home early because there was no way to stay warm in the school. 

There was also no heating in my house in Isani, a historic district not far from the center in the Georgian capital Tbilisi. The only thing creating warmth at home was my cat, who curled up under the blankets that covered my legs and burrowed down, creating a small, furry circle of heat. 

My situation was not unique in the building—or in the capital or entire country, for that matter. It was the 1999, a period in Georgia when an insidious mixture of corruption, inefficiency and incompetence meant there was rarely any heat or electricity to be had. 

For my neighbors and I, the government’s indifference to its citizens’ needs took a more personal form in the slow, but very visible, collapse of the 110-year old building we called home. 

But I am getting ahead of myself. On that fateful day when I learned about “the investors,” it was hunger, not cold, that concerned me. 

My mother was at work, and I was left to fend for myself. The most appetizing option was also a forbidden one: a sprinkle of sugar on a piece of bread. Sugar was an expensive treat, and my mom kept the jar, like other items of value, high and out of reach. I had to stack three chairs one on top of the other to reach the jar. The sugar and I survived the climb, but calamity struck once I reached the ground: a loud call and knock at the door nearly knocked the window panes out of their decrepit wooden frames and the combined racket startled me into dropping my dessert before I ate it. Priceless grains of sugar flew from the toast to the floor.

So, I was more worried about the spilled sugar than the fate of my building when I answered the door. It was a friend of mine, Dato, calling me to join him to see the frozen Mtkvari River, the usually formidable body of water that split the capital in two. 

By accident or design, I don’t really know which, the Mtkvari has also long served as a dividing line in the city’s development. While historically, the heart of the city expanded across both sides of the river, in Georgia’s modern history—or more specifically, in Tbilisi’s modern history—the left side, where Isani is located, has been largely left to languish while the right side, home to the main boulevard and most prestigious districts, has been nurtured and coaxed into flourishing.

Districts like Isani, which are home to scores of historic buildings including the first large military hospital built in the South Caucasus, have been reclassified as suburbs, despite the fact they are geographically closer to the historic heart of the city than “central” districts like Vake and Saburtalo. 

Which brings me back to “the investors.” 

Dato and I were returning from our adventures—I had rescued a small fish from the frozen ponds that remained of the Mtkvari that day—when my sister announced excitedly that “the investors” had come to save us. She started racing around the room, shoving her belongings in bags.  Confused, I headed out to the yard to see what the excitement was about. Our building, as I already mentioned, is a historic house, built in the tradition of old Tbilisi houses, where the apartments are connected by large balconies that overlook a common yard. My neighbors also seemed to be humming with some pent-up anticipation. The apparent source was a bit of a let-down:  a relatively normal looking guy, dressed in a suit.

He didn’t look like anyone who could solve any problems, let alone like a messiah who could save us from our cold, dilapidated and crumbling building.

But a few words from him—specifically soft murmurs about a pay out and modern apartment in a new building somewhere else in the city—was enough to start my neighbors and I off in a cycle of hope, anticipation and disappointment that has marked us ever since.

That fateful day was the warmest I remember that winter. My sister and I rushed around, packing everything we could find. We were jumping from pure joy. By morning, we were both packed although my mother had not started boxing the rest of our belongings. In our family, she alone seemed untouched by the promise of this messiah “the investor.” 

Over the years, there have always been one or two people who did not like the idea of abandoning their native corner of the city to new apartment blocks. 

The fabric of our community, our small neighborhood building, reflects the same traditions that created the rickety building we call home. There are ethnic Russians, Armenians, and Georgians–people of all walks of life who have grown up together in this Tbilisi courtyard, sharing space, resources and everyday life just as generations of Tbilisians did before them, before the advent of modern gigantic apartment buildings with closed off balconies and separate entryways.

Traditional Tbilisi yards are more or less handovers from the time when the people of the South Caucasus lived communal lives even among their individual struggles. 

When I started working on this essay, I made an informal poll of my neighbors, asking them if, so many years after the first investor’s promise, they still wanted to exchange their piece of the neighborhood for a modern apartment in a new residential complex.

One neighbor, Maritsa, overheard my conversations and leaned out her window to inquire if there was any news from the latest investor. “Maritsa, what is the best memory you have from this house? What will you miss the most?” I asked her. She was born in the house and spent most of her 71 years there. 

Maritsa gave me a confused look, as if I was proposing a strange and foreign idea. “Oh, Gio jan [term of endearment], are you kidding me? How? I remember nothing good about this house.” 

“How can you live here for so long and not remember anything good?” I asked, still searching for something positive. 

“Nothing. Most of the people changed their surnames or left and changed other things as well,” she said. 

It is hard to blame my neighbors for wanting a better life, in an apartment with better services and a modern building with all the conveniences that come with it. Who doesn’t want that? 

But I am troubled by the reality that despite all the renovations going on elsewhere in historic neighborhoods—usually the ones on the other side of the river—no one is planning to renovate our building or preserve the traditions that have marked generations of Tbilisians in Isani and elsewhere. 

It feels like the city is trying to package itself in a compact, easily-accessible-for-tourists image.  Everything that is off the central tourism route is at the bottom of the list to be restored or rescued. As the district now classified as “Old Town” (according to the new map from Tbilisi City Hall) has scores of buildings on the brink of collapse, there is no time or political will to tackle the hundreds or thousands of historic buildings that exist outside that narrowly defined “tourism zone.” It seems like the window to create the latest version of Tbilisi is closing, and the city’s history is rapidly shrinking into one little district.