Commie Fun Park

I had a pretty surreal afternoon on Saturday. My friend Christine and I ventured up to the Mtatsminda park, which is a theme park of sorts that sits on top of one of Tbilisi's hills. It's accessible one of two ways - a bus which takes you way round the back of the hill and steadily up, or by the funicular. What's a funicular, you ask? It's this weird railway train thing that has two cars. They are at the opposite ends of the line and, through a pulley system, counterbalance each other to take passengers either up or down. 

It's actually a pretty neat thing, even if it isn't the smoothest ride. The last time I was on it was during orientation, all those months ago. Young, naive Jo was slightly alarmed at the jerky ride, the heartstopping pauses and jolts, constantly worrying that one of the cables would snap and that we would all plummet down to our deaths hundreds of feet below us. 

However, since spending a little more time here, where absolutely nothing is in my control, I've become sort of a fatalist. Not that I'm hoping to die or anything, but what the hell is the point in being worried constantly about near death experiences since I can't do anything to prevent them? It's been an enjoyable time in marshrutkas since I gave up caring about how drivers liked to pass each other at absurd speeds around blind corners, and this trip up to Mtatsminda was a far more pleasant experience than it had been the first time, as well. 

It's a pretty steep ascent, and that little white dot way up there is only the halfway point where there is, naturally, a church. Because Tbilisi loves its churches.

The funicular station at the top doubles as a restaurant as well, offering stunning panoramas of Tbilisi from the highest point around which you can enjoy with some beer, wine, and decent food. Upon leaving the station, you're dumped in front of a wide, gently sloped set of stairs, generously broken up by little platforms with various carnival type rides. You can also go right, and follow the ridge of the mountain where there are a bunch of game stands with very scary looking stuffed animals as prizes. The signs are super helpful for letting you know where you need to go. I'm glad that, since this is Georgia, there is of course a wedding hall in an amusement park.

There are also really creepy statues, like the one below. The more horrifying part of them, though, is the sheer size. This way-too-pleased-with-itself fat baby cherub thing is easily 15 feet tall, and is on the main entrance for the park. 

Basically, if you take Disneyland, reduce the budget of it by millions of dollars, and add 1970's Soviet vibe to it, you'll have the decor of this park.

Which isn't to say that there is a lack of cool shit up there, because that's not true. There's a gigantic ferris wheel that goes around and around at a snails pace. It's also right at the very edge of the hill, and that makes me more than a little nervous, so I've only ever visited the bar at the bottom of it. Shocker, I know.

There's also a pretty decent looking roller coaster, but it wasn't running on Saturday. Underneath the coaster, in a concrete space reminiscent of a parking lot, is the Go-Kart track. Georgian Go-Karts are apparently just small four-wheelers. And there are only two of them. Don't worry, though. You get a helmet for the ride, too! Or at least I think you do. There were two of them off to the side at least, so they might have just been for decoration. Like the roller coaster above, the Go-Karts were also not operational.

My favorite part of the park, though, is the Dinosaur Experience. Just past the ferris wheel is a small fenced off area with animatronic prehistoric creatures. They're motion activated, and don't do anything too crazy - opening their mouths in roars that aren't synchronized with the soundtrack, blinking with eyelids that needed to be replaced ten years ago because they had holes in the lids, wagging their arms around in weird little robotic dances. The trail takes you around the perimeter of the area, and is doable in probably five minutes.

We of course took almost fifteen, since most of the robots were exceptionally hilarious, such as the Ornithomimus making some incredibly weird sounds. I've been trying to upload a video of it, but it's not letting me. However, if you have an iPhone, go to Settings>Sounds>Ringtone>Classic>Old Car Horn and that is exactly the sound that one of the dinosaurs was emitting. I'm no Robert T. Bakker, but I feel like there's something off about this interpretation of saurian vocalizations...

What I was really excited for, and what made the two lari admission price to the dinosaur area really worthwhile (oh yeah, I forgot to mention that you have to pay a few lari for all the janky rides and attractions at the top, since admission is free), was the prospect of riding this Pachyrhinosaurus. The attendant lady unfortunately dashed that hope, so this was the best I could do. Which I guess for being a 27 year old in an exhibit obviously targeted at those twenty years younger than me isn't too bad. I just really liked his shocked and concerned little face.

We explored pretty much all of the park, and while it was fairly slow and quiet that day, I feel like it's anarchy and pure chaos in the warm summer months. There are a ton of water features reminiscent of Splash Mountain, as well as numerous fountains that are obviously designed for children to run around in. Take any carnival you've ever seen, put those rides on top of a park, and voila - you have Mtatsminda.

There's also a little roller coaster for children, and we of course had to ride that. We wanted to ride the big coaster, dammit, and since that was closed, this kiddy one (called the "Happy Train," just by the way) would have to do! Who cares if we were the oldest people on the ride with no youngsters of our own, and who cares if we were laughing like complete goobers the whole time, and putting our hands up on the hills that were only a five foot drop. We were having fun, dammit! Which is more than we can say about all the actual children on the ride, most of whom were just staring straight ahead and weren't smiling or giggling or giving any indication of fun-havingness. The only reaction on any of them was one girl at the very front of the train who was unafuckingmused by us, and spent the entire time glaring at the two idiotic Americans cackling in the back cart.

Christine was most excited to do the Bumper Cars, so as we were on our way out of the park we stopped by. And of course, given our location, it couldn't just be normal Bumper Cars. No. There had to be furries on them. We hypothesized that this is what bored carnies are apt to do when days are slow. They had their costume heads over on the side, and stayed in the cars for consecutive rides. I guess when your job is "Be A Dog That Gives Balloons To Screaming Children," riding the Bumper Cars endlessly and for free is a perk.

The whole day was just full of weird, surreal little things like that. There are some Saint Bernards that are an attraction all their own - they don't do anything, and you can't pet them, and they're in a really remote part of the park. They just sit/sleep and you can take pictures of them. The old and broken parts of rides and attractions are just kind of thrown behind thin stands of trees, and you're able to get back and poke around them. There's a Ghost Castle which isn't open right now either, but there are attendants on the upper balconies of it who wave at you and call out, "Hello! How are you!", because even from thirty feet away it's wickedly obvious you're a foreigner. There are big paper mache mice at a supra, and a few roundabouts and swings for kids to play on that are chained and bolted to the ground, forbidding both the roundabouting and the swinging. And maybe these are all just side effects of the park being in offseason, but part of me really doubts that it will get all that "normal" come July.

We ended our little afternoon up at Mtatsminda grabbing a beer and some snacky foods, all the while making our own version of Cards Against Humanity: Georgian Edition. Christine and I spent most of the day in the park laughing ridiculously hard and having an insane amount of goofy fun and, judging by the wi-fi password for the restaurant, Mtatsminda thinks we're just as good of a time!