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Unlike some post-Soviet countries where independence a decade ago brought a burst of blue jeans and bright colors, Tbilisi's people chose black. Like most fashion decisions, it's not exactly explicable, but the black clothing carries twin auras of elan and menace that emphasize Georgia's tall aspirations and deep troubles.
Straddling the Transcaucasus land bridge between Europe and Asia, Georgia often seems to occupy two worlds at once. Gleaming new gas stations sprout on roads eerily empty of cars; remote villages frequently lack electricity but have crystal-clear cellular phone coverage; a door in a building with a lovely facade leads to a dank, filthy hallway tenanted by stray dogs.
Georgian hospitality is so intense that visitors joke they feel they're being held hostage to an endless round of toasts and demands to eat more. But the joke can ring hollow in the face of Georgia's rising wave of kidnappings.
A driver casually points out the Tbilisi overpass where two Spaniards were seized in a 2000 kidnapping that drew world attention to Georgia.
About 40 kilometers on, a half-dozen masked men wielding branches like bats rush into the road and block a car. But they're just raising beer money for the weekend, and after a donation of just over $2 they cheer and wave the car through.
This was a relative windfall amid Georgia's economic collapse: Monthly pensions are as low as $9.
Georgia's decline shocked Westerners who had known it as an exceptionally agreeable pocket of the Soviet Union, its warm seacoast and snowy mountains packed so close together that the country seemed as neat and accessible as a theme park.
Eduard Shevardnadze, widely admired in the West for his work as Mikhail Gorbachev's foreign minister, took over and hopes rose -- at least abroad. But he has done little to stem the corruption that bleeds the budget white and stifles enterprise. Shevardnadze has been firmly Western-looking, and the United States is bolstering him with military aid including an upcoming $64 million anti-terrorist training program.
But his failures make him an awkward ally. Privately, Western diplomats suggest he is interested only in holding on to power.
A recent UN Development Program report said economic decline and metastasizing corruption have driven it into a state of "amoral familism" in which each person looks out only for himself and those in his immediate circle.
It is a bookish term for the chaos of Tbilisi's surging streets, where cars swerve and jockey and often ignore the rare traffic light that actually works.
While many respond to the poverty, unemployment and social fraying with aggressive self-interest, others have sunk into exhaustion and nihilism. But for some Georgians, the blackest thought of all is the thought of being separated from their country. They adore its scenery, its unique alphabet, its culture and emotional warmth.
Mamukha Pirtskhalava, a 30-year-old linguist, spent some years in the United States and speaks happily of its color and entertainment, but willingly returned to face sporadic employment. Still, he thinks Georgians need to do something about their clothes.
"I don't like it all black. I wish I could wear something red," he said.
Jim Heintz is a reporter for The Associated Press.
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