When my wife, Gwynne, and I are traveling, when we visit a big city, we have 3 tourist destinations in mind: McDonald's, movie theater & the zoo. My favorite is a zoo that has animals I've never seen before, or that tops the list in some area; I can clearly declare that the Tbilisi Zoo in Georgia (that's Eastern Europe “Georgia” that used to be part of the Soviet Union) is the World's Most Dismal Zoo.
Just getting to the Tbilisi Zoo was a challenge of underground tunnels to get past the major roadways, and plenty of walking through questionable districts. The zoo was squeezed between a freeway in one side, decrepit apartment buildings on the other, plus the opening into the zoo was almost invisible; a tiny window next to a crumbling statue of a leopard, over which was an electron sign that was out-of-order displaying a Windows Alert message.
Tickets were cheap but once passing through the small opening we were confronted with the reality of the place: no visitors, everything in disrepair, and a profound atmosphere of desperation. Gwynne, an old goat-lady, said the smell was Billy-goats smelled in rut. Somewhere close inside a small novelty stand, a woman began screaming "Oh, my God! Oh, my God!! Oh, my God!!!" then a baby started crying. We walked the other way.
There was an abandoned penguin enclosure with cracked glass sides was filled with murky green water. No penguins had lived there for a long time even though penguin toys made up a significant part of the small inventory of the gift shop. The few animals didn't seem to mind our presence at all. In fact, they were totally inured to humans, showing no awareness of our existence. An exceptionally large vulture lounged right at the front of its cage, inches away through an exposed mesh. I wondered how many children had lost fingers innocently trying to pet the smooth black feathers. The horse barn had burned down to a blackened skeleton.
A small building containing tiny pool contained a single old hippo. There was a sign showing the hippo running down the city streets & I remembered a story several years ago about a big flood in Tbilisi that had allowed the animals to get free: this was the famous hippo that I'd seen on the news! Definitely made my day: The Tbilisi Zoo may be the World's Most Dismal Zoo but it is also one of the most interesting.
World's Most Dismal Zoo August 19, 2016
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Martin Hash
- Posts: 18249
- Joined: Wed Jan 20, 2010 2:02 pm
World's Most Dismal Zoo August 19, 2016
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