First Republic Square

Beside Hotel Iveria stretches an open square where the unceremonial facade of the Melik-Azaryants House was once hidden. Seven curved concrete shells formed a grandstand here for officials during processions, and Tbilisi residents nicknamed them Andropov's Ears. In two thousand five, the arcade was dismantled and an event hall was created in its place. The square's current name recalls the first Georgian republic, although independence was proclaimed farther along Rustaveli Avenue.

The level area in front of the high-rise Hotel Iveria sits above three levels of rooms. In the early nineteen eighties, there was a deep ravine here. The city architects Otar Kalandarishvili and Gaioz Potskhishvili were tasked with turning it into a transport hub, a place for large ceremonies, and a commercial and cultural complex. They covered the ravine with a slab of about twenty thousand square meters. On weekdays, cars were meant to move across the top, while for holidays and demonstrations traffic could be removed. Part of the underground design was never completed.

A grandstand was needed for parades. In addition, the rear wall of the neighboring Melik-Azaryants House was visible from the square, and the organizers considered it an unsuitable backdrop for celebrations. Kalandarishvili and Potskhishvili screened it with seven tall concrete arches and a podium. The structure received the precise official name, Spatial Arcade of the Ceremonial Square Grandstand. From the podium, leaders received the columns passing through the square.

The arcade was completed in nineteen eighty-three, for the expected official visit of Yuri Andropov—the general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and former head of the Committee for State Security. Tbilisi residents saw enormous outer ears in the curved concrete shells. The official name almost disappeared from everyday speech: the arcade came to be called Andropov's Ears.

The concrete “ears” were dismantled in two thousand five. The underground levels remained, and an event hall appeared in place of the arcade. The size of the open area is also explained by the architects' former assignment: enough room was left here for car traffic to be replaced by a large crowd.

The present name refers to another event. The First Republic was the Democratic Republic of Georgia, proclaimed by the Georgian National Council on May twenty-sixth, nineteen eighteen, after the collapse of the Russian Empire. It lasted just under three years, until the Red Army entered Tbilisi. The act of independence itself was adopted not here but farther along Rustaveli Avenue, at the former viceroy's palace, now the Palace of Youth. This square received its commemorative name a century later.

When the concrete slab was opened in nineteen eighty-three, the words Republic Square referred to the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. Now the word First points to the state that existed from nineteen eighteen to nineteen twenty-one.