Travel Tips: Planning a trip to Georgia? You might find it good

Georgia. The country, not the United States. Yes, the country that lives in the shadow of Vlad the Great. I recently visited there on vacation and was so moved by the chaotic order and weird Georgian car culture that I decided to write about it. During my ten days living in this Caucasian country, I crisscrossed the roads from east to west, from the Russian border in the north to near the Turkish border in the west. I drove on major highways, arterial roads, mountainous areas, city roads, and so on. Some places have very good roads, while others, I felt right at home – because their maintenance looks like it has been outsourced to the Mumbai Municipal Corporation.

Georgia is uniquely situated, bordering Russia, Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. This places it right at the crossroads connecting all of these countries. International highways are bustling with trucks, transporting Russian oil and Turkish machinery. If you have a truck fetish, this is the place to come. You can drool over giant DAF, Volvo, Mercedes-Benz, Renault, Ford, Scania, and MAN heavy trucks in all colors and vintages. You’ll also see Sinotruk HOWO trucks, which are helping Chinese companies and Chinese laborers build Georgia’s road infrastructure. Of course, since Georgia was once part of the Soviet Union, there are practical Kamaz trucks, new, ugly-looking GAZ trucks from the Cold War, and beautiful early ZILs. In fact, in some houses in the countryside, these ancient ZILs are parked like the family cars you drove into town to buy groceries.

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The car market is weird. The country’s biggest export is used cars – a business worth nearly $1 billion a year – and its neighboring countries and Stan receive a large number of these cars. Oh, and the locals also prefer to drive these used cars because it’s much cheaper than buying new ones. How does this reflect on the roads? Crazy. Georgia is a left-hand drive country, but it buys used right-hand drive cars from Japan or Australia. So in a left-hand drive country, many locals drive right-hand drive cars, so it can get a little crazy on the roads.

Georgia receives a lot of used cars from Europe, the US and Japan, and has an army of mechanics and garages that repair them and re-export them to Kyrgyzstan or Kazakhstan at a high price. Many of the cars are bought by locals, who take the time to fix them themselves. So they drive around with cars without bumpers, with missing fenders or with huge cracks. Almost every car looks like it was just rescued from a car accident, especially near the port. As a result, the variety of cars is dizzying – from dusty Lada Nivas to powerful Camaros, from compact Subaru Foresters to hulking Toyota pickups. And Mercedes-Benzes. I thought Azerbaijan was the W124 capital of the world until I came to Georgia. Almost all W124s and W123s ever produced have been shipped here and are still in use. Many of the cars are gathering dust in parking lots; domestic W124 restorers would cry their eyes out if they saw this. To curb emissions, the Georgian government banned imports of vehicles older than 2013 for local use, which has led to rising prices. To make matters worse, newer cars perform poorly on lower-quality Russian and Azerbaijani gasoline. Georgians in the car trade are furious with their government.

The variety of machines on Georgian roads is dizzying, I expected to see Mahindra and Tata SUVs but found none. I believe there is a sizeable market for it in the Caucasus. The only Indian OEM you see here is TVS, especially in the capital Tbilisi. You occasionally see an Apache, but it’s the Ntorq that’s everywhere – Wolt delivery guys are enjoying the full potential of this sporty scooter. I suspect some of the Hondas here are also made in India.

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Have you heard of the Mitsubishi Delica 4×4? These are vans (passenger or cargo) equipped with four-wheel drive. In Georgia you can see these quirky vans in their third or fourth lives, many of which are from the 1990s. Some areas of Georgia have steep mountain roads that are often in a state of disrepair. These Delicas have found a new purpose and become a lifeline for locals to navigate these rugged roads. I believe the Delica is part of a local legend or folk song.

Most Georgians drive the same way we do, which is no compliment. If you plan on going there, be sure to rent a car and drive it around for a bit, right-hand drive and left-hand drive alike. It will be fun, I promise you.