The building looks gorgeous both inside and out, and impresses beyond any doubt. On the television at least! The transparent greenish glass coating outside and the snow-white parliamentary scenery inside makes this ultra-modern architectural complex a real eye-catcher.
The sporadic spiteful tongues would say though that an old-style conventional edifice could provide for a better chance for our overly polluted lungs, but forget it – our breathing is impaired anywhere we go anyway. I have been invited a couple of times to have a tour but some obtrusive sense of misgiving makes me drag my feet so far. I will probably venture someday, maybe when the spring days start dwindling away to meet the summer son. They say the construction costs of the new building of the Georgian parliament in Kutaisi, west Georgia are astronomical, but the opposing ‘they’ will argue passionately that the ends justify the means. I wish! To my question ‘why the parliament of the country has to be moved from the capital city to a regional center’, the prompt answer of a political expert of the well-known ilk was that such a move contains a chance of regional development as such. Some of the differing comments contained the thought of deeper political significance which was so vague that I could not even make head or tail of it. Whatever the truth, I have never come across any competently written corroboration of the arguments, fortifying this serious move on part of Georgia’s former leadership and just as seriously opposed by the present one. In the eyes of a regular watcher of the current goings-on in Georgia like me, two things have definitely changed since the epochal transfer of the legislative body of the country from east to west. One – the visual on the box, and two – the traffic intensification on the east-west highway! The persistent grapevine has it that the decision about undoing the act is being matured in some of the decision-making heads, which is not easy at all to put to life – changing back to where things were half a year ago will need time, energy and money to be spent straight out of the government’s scanty pocket, permanently refilled by a not-so-well-to-do taxpayer of Georgia. Why all that pain in our emaciated miserable necks? I might not have the slightest clue but could it be the idea of putting the parliament in neutral venues for some reason? Then, why is Kutaisi a neutral venue? And what neutrality are we looking for? Tell us and we will believe, but talk to us without those habitual Georgian prevarications. Why such a wasted sweat? Who needs that? How much has the nation gained thanks to that grandiose move, if at all? Maybe the expected benefit rests in the future! Money is a very tricky thing to handle, especially if it is found in the governmental coffers – ‘who-cares’ kind of an attitude. Attitude, folks, attitude! The culture of treating money is a difficult culture to learn. Are you telling us that the new glass-and-metal shining structure in the wilderness, harboring the Georgian parliament is a sample of rational spending? Fine! I have no problem with that, but how many times should I remind you guys that I am from Missouri?