Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Decline of Dinamo Tbilisi

Renovated Dinamo Stadium on 2018
Last weekend I went to see Erovnuli liga match between Dinamo Tbilisi and Saburtalo. It was a local derby of the teams topping the Georgian league. There was less than one thousand people attending on a stadium with capacity close to 55k people. I saw a match three years ago, then attendance was several thousands and also the fanatic supporter group was bigger. In the Soviet Union Dinamo stadium had average attendance of 45k. Therefore you can say that the popularity of Dinamo Tbilisi has drastically decreased. In the times of Soviet Union Dinamo Tbilisi was a big European clud and won UEFA Cup winner's cup. Seems that the collapse of Soviet Union has had very bad impact to Dinamo Tbilisi and Georgian football. One positive thing compared to last time was that the stadium had been improved. For example the seats had been renewed, two big screens had been added, the grass looked good etc.

Thursday, April 12, 2018

Georgian Easter

Easter cake "paska"
This year I had a chance to celebrate Easter in Georgia. Georgians are mostly orthodox therefore the Easter is the most important celebration of the year. Georgian easter tradition is to paint boiled eggs red on red Friday. On Sunday you battle with the eggs against your neighbours and family members. In the egg battle you and your opponent choose an egg and hit the sharper ends against each other. The holder of the egg which breaks loses and gives the broken egg to the winner. The winner can battle again with the egg that did not break. The Easter meal is eaten on Sunday and the Georgian Easter table includes cake called "paska" which is funny to the Finns as it means shit in Finnish. Funnily Finnish have Easter dessert called "mämmi" which looks like shit.