In these spaces of resistance, Brodsky is trying to reclaim tiny pockets of public space from the speculatorвЂ™s maw, celebrate the informal, and repurpose the legacy of the Soviet and post-Soviet Tbilisi. They provide jobs and sociability where such things are often lacking. Then there are Budkas, makeshift corner shops occupying basements, cabins and any lockable structure, providing beer and cigarettes to communities long unserved by the modern world of retail. There are informal spaces, places to sit and play dominoes, to drink or to shelter from the sun, erected by locals in the absence of government amenities. There are gaps: lacunae where yet another apartment complex-cum-Martian penal colony simply wonвЂ™t fit. Balconies and loggias, sometimes with multiple floors, cover the concrete like barnacles on the underside of a boat.Д«ut hidden in the pandemonium of TbilisiвЂ™s free-for-all development death spiral, there is what young Georgian architect David Brodsky likes to call вЂњresistanceвЂќ.

Meanwhile, the cityвЂ™s hulking lines of Brezhnev era apartment blocks, neglected for decades by the authorities, are festooned with informal extensions. In the historic centre, where dilapidated art nouveau streets meet Stalinist baroque, developers are squeezing concrete condominiums into every vacant lot in the suburbs, the roadsides are bulging with petrol stations, kebab houses, and peri-urban arcana. Tbilisi, GeorgiaвЂ™s charming, crumbling, instantly-Instagrammable capital, has been through a lot in the last 30 years.

Land bridge to bar island