Vake: where to live in Tbilisi

The main thing in Vake is the environment. It is one of the few districts in Tbilisi where pleasant to walk and pleasant to live coincide: tidy streets, mature buildings, plenty of greenery, calm without feeling like the edge of town. Everyday infrastructure is tuned to a demanding crowd — good supermarkets, coffee shops, restaurants, private clinics, gyms.

This is Vake's weak spot. It has essentially no metro stations of its own — the nearest (State University, Vazha-Pshavela) sit on the seam with Saburtalo. Life here is built around taxis, a private car and walking. At rush hour Vake's streets clog and parking in the dense blocks is a task. If daily cross-city trips are critical, that is a minus.

Here Vake is the best in the city, and not only to look at but for active recreation. Vake Park, with its cascading staircase, climbs into the forest park — the main green mass of this part of Tbilisi and a popular running and walking route. Nearby the Mziuri children's park in a green ravine suits families and unhurried walks with a pram or a dog. Higher up in the hills sits Turtle Lake (Kus Tba): shoreline trails, city views, a draw for walkers and cyclists, reachable by cable car from Vake Park. For a residential district that concentration of greenery and walking and sport routes within reach is rare.

Vake is historically linked with Tbilisi State University; the district reads as intellectual and academic. International schools and kindergartens are nearby, which makes Vake a choice for families with children. Coffee shops and workspaces are on a par with the centre, without its noise.

Vake is about a calm, composed, slightly high-status life. There are fewer tourists and less chaos than in the old town, and more normal everyday life than on the outskirts. It is a district where it is comfortable to live for years and where you do not have to put up with everyday compromises — but you pay for that in both price and less convenient transport. In feel it is closer to a quiet prestigious quarter than to the lively bohemian part of the city.

Vake is a settled, mature district with almost no room left for mass construction. New projects here are mostly pointed and premium, built into an already expensive setting: boutique complexes, reconstructions, individual towers. There is no large-scale renewal like Saburtalo around Central Park — and that is part of its character: the district changes carefully and slowly.

Vake suits those looking for a ready, high-quality environment and willing to pay for it: families with children, professionals and remote workers with above-average income, lovers of greenery and quiet. It is the wrong pick for anyone counting every dollar of rent (Saburtalo and the left bank are cheaper nearby), for whom the metro is critical, or who wants the bohemian atmosphere of the old town (that is in Sololaki, Vera or Mtatsminda).