Many readers will not have heard of Batumi, a secondary port of Georgia on the Black Sea.
There are a number of YouTube reels about this place but I recommend the 2024 one showing the city at sunset as the lights come on.
It is a feast of colour, one that we have nothing like. High buildings of at least 50 storeys each, wide streets and very colourful street furniture.
I would also suggest this resort for Maltese holiday makers (together with a reprisal of flights to Israel now that peace has hopefully returned to that area).
The best way to enjoy Batumi is to start from the area which comes right in the flight path of planes coming in to land where people take selfies with the planes over their heads.
There is then a very long promenade like our Bugibba one but far longer and wider with many attractions on the side.
But the main attraction is the colour when the sun sets, a feast of colour that we have no idea of at all.
Compared to Batumi, Malta is a cemetery, a dead place with only some adverts to offer a rare touch of colour.
Now there will be a second protest next week with some worthwhile aims against the government’s intention to water down protests by civil society together with a deep seated antagonism against high rises.
Check out Batumi and see how high rises can be attractive – as long as they are spaced out.
There are some negatives too – too many big dogs lying on the pavement and too many women wearing burkas with only a slit for their eyes.
Many people who visit Malta send photos of St Julian’s Bay. But if they were to see the photos of Batumi they would hide away the photos from Malta.
Of course they have the space to do it whereas we are small and hemmed in but a creative touch can create wonders. As long as proportions and distances are kept.
History note
The failed siege of 868 and the conquest of Malta in 870
Simon Mercieca, on the 60th anniversary of the Malta Historical Society, wrote that the Byzantines lost control of North Africa in 647 but the Arabs had to wait 223 years to subjugate Malta.
By 800 a new regional power of the Aghlabids came into existence in Kairouan, completely independent from the Caliphate of Egypt.
The Abbasids allowed the Berbers to keep their religion but the Aghlabids saw the veneration of saints by the Byzantines as polytheism and were intolerant of it.
More attacks followed – Enna (837), Messina (843), Lentini (847), Troina (867).
There are no records of attacks on Malta before 868. Throughout the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries Malta was fortified by the Byzantines to resist any attack. But in 868 Malta was attacked by the Arabs under Khalaf, a black Christian freed serf who converted to Islam. Khalaf lost his life in the attack.
The Arabs came back in 870 and this time they were successful. Conquering Malta meant removing an obstacle which stood in the way of the Arabs’ conquest of Syracuse. The Muslim conquest of Malta took place on 29 August 870.
The Arabs avenged themselves with ferocity, destroying everything they came across, rendering the island barren for a number of years and even taking marble pieces to Sousse.