Tbilisi - Georgia

The South Caucasus country borders with Turkey and is situated on the coast of the Black Sea. The city has a rich history full of cultural traditions which stretches back many thousands of years. Today Tbilisi is the major industrial centre and university town of Georgia. At the beginning the twinning partnership, which evolved from initial cultural contacts, focused on student and youth programmes. Since Georgia’s independence the partnership has put significant effort into building new structures, developing a new land registry system and modern waste disposal facilities in Tbilisi.

A new book on Georgia and the twinning partnership between the state capital of Saarbrücken and the Georgian capital of Tbilisi was published just in time for the 30th anniversary of the town twinning in 2005. The book is based on a series of events which were organised by the state capital and the Saarbrücken Faculty of Protestant Theology in summer 2004.

“We succeeded in convincing (almost) all leading experts on Georgia and town twinnings to contribute articles to the book. It offers a wealth of information on the current situation in Georgia today, is up to date with recent research, extremely well-written and easy to follow,” the editor and publisher of the volume Prof. Dr. Bernd Schröder from the Saarland University said. The book is dedicated to Prof. Dr. Gert Hummel, the former Bishop of the Protestant Lutheran Church in Georgia, who died a year ago and was very close to many of the contributing authors during his lifetime. This beautiful 250-page book is published by Röhrig University Press and is available from most good bookshops for 28,00€ (ISBN 3-86110-387-7).