Students Life Style In Tbilisi. Part I

Hello everyone, I have written here many articles about Tbilisi the capital of Georgia, different places in Georgia, its tourist attractions, places that you must see if you visit Georgia, some good places to eat and so on.. I have even written a blog entry about survival in Georgia and now I would like to talk about the student's lifestyle, in particular foreign student's lifestyle, in Tbilisi. When a student leaves his motherland and comes to study in a foreign place there are some important factors that are essential for leading a normal life in a foreign land. Lets analyze in detail all the factors that are needed and how they are present in Georgia. I can't analyse everything in a single section and therefore I will divide my topic into parts and discuss them with you!

Source

Shelter

When a student reaches another country to study the most important priority will be his/her place of residence. It is very important because you need a place to eat, sleep and also fulfill the most important part of your travel ie, to study. In Tbilisi there are mostly apartments rather than individual houses and it is easy to get an apartment for rent. Generally, the owners of the place determine the rent according to the number of people who are going to live in the house. The rent is not fixed for the house as it is done in some countries.

For example - If four people are going to stay in an apartment the house owner may ask you for a rent of $ 400 to $ 450 for a normal apartment. But if it is just three of you who are going to stay then the rent will get reduced accordingly.

The houses that these owners offer to students are not perfect all the times. Each place can have its own drawback so it is advisable to discuss with the owner all terms and conditions before getting into the house. There are also some house brokers available in the city who can search different places for you depending on your requirements. The house owner pays the brokers if they bring some people to stay in his house that he is about to rent.

You should be pretty cautious about these brokers as some may act cunningly and put you in trouble. After having a look at the house, and if you liked it, then you can talk with the house owner about the rent. If you are talented you may even try negotiating the rental price. Be careful that you don't agree to rent for a huge amount of money. The appropriate rent money for a person in Tbilisi is somewhere between $ 100 to $ 130 not more than that. In the case that you are going to stay alone in a house, then the rental price may go up a bit around $ 200 to $ 250 as it is an individual house just for you. So it is better if you stay along with a few other friends.

After finalizing the rental price the owner may ask about the time period you will be staying in his house. Be clear and say if you would stay there for a year or two years or whatever it may be. Mostly the summer vacation in Tbilisi comes during the month of July and this may help you in deciding the duration of your stay. Sometimes the owner may ask if you want to sign an agreement or in some cases the owner may say that the agreement is mandatory. The agreement will endorse the time period that you promised the owner that you would stay in his home and the amount of rent you promised to pay. Its always advisable to stay away from the agreement as it may cause you unnecessary trouble.

For example - If you visit a home and like it then you contact the owner sign an agreement, start living at the house for a couple of weeks. Suddenly you find out that the electric supply of the house is improper or there is a water problem in that area and you want to leave that house and find a new one, then, you can't do that because you would have already signed an agreement with the owner agreeing to stay there for a year or so. Despite of the agreement you still want to vacate the house it would be a great difficulty as the owner will rip you off with a fine money or, he would go to the police station to file a complaint against you. To avoid all these unnecessary troubles its always better to avoid any kinds of agreement. Mostly all house owners will ask an additional month rent money during the first month as an advance. They take this additional month money for the last month of your stay in the house. So if you had said that you will stay there for 12 months the first month you will have to pay both the first month and the 12th month money, therefore you don't have to pay any rent in the 12th month.

There is an important problem that may arise during your vacation time, because you would be leaving to your home country for a couple of months to visit your relatives, parents and friends but all your stuff would be in the house that you have rented. Will you be paying the whole two months rent money for the period which you are not going to be there in the country? Most of the house owners are open to negotiaton on this aspect, if you talk to your house owner he may reduce a certain part of your rental price for the period in which you are not going to be in the country. After completing all these processes you would be able to find a place for rent to live in Tbilisi. Now it is time to describe how an ordinary student apartment would be.

Generally an apartment would have:

• A hall with a table and a couch for people to sit.
• One, two or three bedrooms, depending on the house you choose. The bedrooms will have double or single cots adequate enough to accomodate all people who are about to stay in the apartment, a wardrobe to keep your clothes, a closet, a dressing table;
• Kitchen which will contain a wash basin to wash your dishes, a refrigerator, a series of racks and cupboards which contain some utensils for cooking, a gas stove and usually a burner and a table;
• Bathroom which will have an electric or gas water geyser, a bath tub, a wash basin, a chest of drawers and a shower. Apart from that there may be a central gas room heater with some additional electrical heaters or sometimes the owner may give a quartz heater or other kinds of electric heaters.

There are some important things to consider when you are living in an apartment. These things are common in some places of the world, however for the people who are not aware, I'm mentioning them here. While using a bathroom in an apartment make sure that you don't spill water on the floor outside the bathtub. As the apartment floors are mostly made from wood and the bathrooms just have a single layer of tiles or mosaics water may get absorbed through the spaces between the tiles and may damp the ceiling of the apartment beneath you. In case this damping causes a short in your neighbour's electric line then you may be asked to pay a huge fine.

Next comes the bills that you are about to pay. Some owners will include the bill along with your rent money but this won't happen in all houses. There are very few owners who do so. In other cases you must pay all your bills apart from the house rent. The bill which will be the highest is your electric bill and it will easily cost 100GEL per month and it entirely depends upon how you use electric devices.

For example - if you have an electric water geyser in your bathroom that runs all the time and electric room heaters that will be continuously running during the winter then obviously your bill will be at it's peak value. Having a gas heater and a gas water geyser can reduce your electric bill. Don't worry about the gas bill as it is not as expensive as electricity.

The next would be the Sanitation Department Bill and due to a current change in the government's policy the bill that you get from the sanitation department is directly related with the electric bill. The higher the electric bill is, the higher amount you need to pay for the sanitation department.

The next bill you must pay is your gas bill and definitely you need gas for cooking. The gas bill will not be that expensive and it generally costs around 20GEL to 30 GEL depending on your usage and the number of people using it. The other bill is the water bill and this one it is not a big deal. Even if you use a lot water the bill wont cross 10 GEL, so don't worry.

The last bill that you must pay will be your internet bill. To get an internet connection you may have to go to an internet provider office and register your landline number there. You may have to pay a fare for the modem and setting up a connection. Then after that you will have to pay the monthly rent for the connection you got. The most famous internet providers in Tbilisi are Silknet and Caucasus. If you are not too far from the main streets you may even get optical fibre internet connection that will give you a maximum speed of 50MB for 50GEL.

When you are about to vacate the house sometimes problems may occur between you and the owner of the place but this something common. Don't worry too much about them. Make sure that you don't break any of the things given to you by the owner because before you vacate the house the owner will come and check if anything is damaged or not. Remember even the furniture matter! If in case you damage any of the properties then you may have to pay an appropriate fine. There is also another thing if in case you decide to vacate the house earlier than you agreed to stay then when you vacate you won't be getting the last month money you paid in advance to the owner.

Considering all these facts its always better to find a place that you think would be good enough to live at least for a year. Then contact the owner and pay the rent. Don't be too careless because the more careless you are the more you will suffer! I will continue about the other parts in my next article.

Thank you for reading and if you have any comments please post it below.

Cheers :)