PHOTOGRAPHY:

Fountain In Tbilisi

Uploaded on June 14, 2007 by Vladimer Shioshvili

Turkish kid playing in the fountain after attending Chaglar Educational Institutions graduation ceremony.

The fountain has a dozen spouts in a spiral arrangement. The center spout was not there when the fountain was first opened, and it was added some time last summer, as I recall. It is quite large, compared to other spouts and water goes as high as probably 10-12 meters. That's what he was watching.

The fountain in front of the Philarmonia has not functioned in a long time. Last year, government spent a chunk of money to upgrade it. The result is almost kitsch, but has approval of kids and youth. I posted a few photos last year, and now it's the time again, the summer is here and kids are full force getting wet.

While we had a mild winter, the fountain was not really happy about it. I failed to take a photo of little hills of ice formed by spouts, but luckily the fountain is still functional.

It is a piece of propaganda, using symbolism to make people "happy", and it serves its purpose quite well. Having kids happy is however worth something, isn't it?