Lying close to the left embankment of Mtkvari River, David Aghmashenebeli Avenue encapsulates Tbilisi’s diversity. A festival of colors and languages reflects the street’s vibrant community whose members - from Turkey to India, via Iraq and Pakistan - hustle in a string of cafes, restaurants, hotels, barber shops, service firms. The buzz embraces its cobbles and pavements, echoing Georgia’s history at the crossroads of east and west - a history that everyone knows of and a few are not pleased with. In 2016 the police arrested 11 Georgian nationalists after a crowd targeted Turkish restaurants on the avenue. The one-off incident has not affected the life on the street which over the centuries has attracted, and thrived on, thousands of people beyond the Georgian border who have in turn influenced its urban character. Today, Aghmashenebeli Avenue continues to tell the intertwined story of Georgia’s history, politics, and urbanism.

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