Tbilisi’s New Year tree lights up on Rustaveli Avenue
The lighting up of the tree customarily signals the official start of weeks of combined New Year's Eve and Christmas celebrations in Georgia. Photo: Tbilisi City Hall's press office
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Tbilisi’s main New Year tree was lit up in front of the parliament building on Rustaveli Avenue today. This year’s celebrations will differ from the previous years due to coronavirus-related restrictions throughout the country.
However, Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze encouraged everyone that with its shimmer and twinkle New Year illuminations Tbilisi will turn into a festive city despite the pandemic.
No Christmas village will be set up in Tbilisi this year to ensure pandemic safety and redirect funds to help the families struggling with the virus. Photo: 1TV
Today Orthodox Georgians are celebrating the day of Saint Barbara. Wishing everyone happiness and joy, Kaladze said ‘there is no evil which cannot be defeated with love, support and solidarity’.
All of us should declare the war against pandemic... this awful virus should better know that we are not scared and will never surrender”, Kaladze addressed the nation.
He said these New Year decorations are not only the part of Georgia's traditions but they serve as the challenge against the reality that the coronavirus has created for us.
With the pandemic situation curtailing plans for the usual scale of celebrations, the city will host a number of live music shows - also set for live broadcast - without the customary Christmas village, which is usually set up on First Republic Square to host events and socialising opportunities for citizens. Photo: Tbilisi City Hall's press office
Declaring Tbilisi ‘the city of solidarity’ Mayor Kaladze said this is the main responsibility that each and every citizen should share with one another. He said it is joy and happiness that the virus is afraid of.
“Life is beautiful! The new year will bring us hopes and healthy future”, he said prior to lighting up the New Year tree, hoping that 2021 will be ‘the year of peace, happiness and welfare’.
Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia has stated earlier today that for the first time in the past several months the country reported less than 3,000 daily infections from more than 17,000 daily tests. Georgia has reported 2,981 new cases, 2,001 recoveries and 31 deaths in the past 24 hours. 17,029 tests have been conducted in the past 24 hours around the country (8,859 of the 17,029 tests were rapid tests, while the remaining 8,170 were PCR tests).
Nugzar Aluashvili is the father of six children living in a 30 sq.m. house on the outskirts of Tbilisi, in a settlement colloquially called ‘Africa.’ The father is raising his children all alone, as his wife died several years ago – though he has little money to do so.
Several days ago, 63-year-old farmer Kako Jeiranashvil from Georgia’s Eastern Kakheti region thought that thousands of the tulips he had planned to sell at the Navtlugi Market in Tbilisi, were doomed to die. As a result of the nationwide curfew amid the coronavirus outbreak, Jeiranashvili could not bring his tulips to the capital.
Georgia’s main New Year three was lit up today on First Republic Square in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze invited everyone to join in the New Year celebrations.
Shopping centres have opened around the country at 07:00 in the morning for the New Year holiday.
Tbilisi City Hall will spend 400,000 GEL on musicians for New Year events, said Georgian Economy Minister Natia Turnava earlier today.
Georgia’s main New Year tree will light up tomorrow on Rustaveli Avenue in Tbilisi at 20:00, Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze announced earlier today.
Georgia's main New Year tree has lit up in central Tbilisi in front of the parliament building earlier this evening. Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze, as well as Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, attended the ceremony with their families.
Vehicle traffic on Rustaveli Avenue in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi will be restricted between midnight and 6am on Wednesday to allow city services to install New Year’s Eve illuminations.