I have an apartment on the twenty eighth floor of a high rise apartment building in downtown Batumi.
I pay $429 per month for a furnished apartment and the landlord pays the utilities up to $30 per month.
January was the first time I went over the $30 for utilities. It was cold hovering just above freezing for two weeks. The apartments all around me are empty because they are still under construction or have not yet been sold. This means that they are not heated. Therefore my apartment is losing heat through the walls ceiling and floor to those empty apartments.
That said, the amount over was only $15.
I am retired and living on $1,600 a month combined SS and disability.
Out of that I also support my granddaughter who is attending college.
I look at the situation in the US in amazement. An apartment like mine where I lived near Longview, WA would cost as least $1,200 per month. Utilities would be extra and nothing would be left for me to eat.
I couldn’t afford to return to the US and if I did I’d be living in a tent under a freeway overpass somewhere.
Thank God I am where I am.
I walk on Batumi beach almost every day. The views are amazingly beautiful. The fact that I can rent reasonably leaves me money for entertainment. I can eat out where they have live music. I can attend concerts at the municipal concert hall. I have ridden the cable car and Ferris wheel.
I wouldn’t call it an exciting life but it certainly beats living in a tent under an overpass.
Today I walked the Batumi Boulevard from the airport to the sea, pointing out the objects of interest along the way.
I am retired and living like a king in Batumi. I highly recommend it as a retirement destination for the following reasons.
Safety: You can walk the streets at any hour of day or night without fear of being bothered.
Affordability: Absolutely everything is less expensive here than in the USA or Europe.
Often the quality is far better.
A big shout out to the people who follow me. Unfortunately I’ve had to leave Russia. It became impossible to receive any funds from the US. I am currently living in Batumi, Georgia.
This is my family in the living room of my apartment in Kimovsk, Russia. I am a disabled Vietnam veteran. Seventy six years of age. My son Aleksandr (left), and my granddaughter Dasha (center) look in on me. Here, I had hoped to live out my retirement years.
February 19. Third preparatory week for Great Lent. Cheesefare Week – continuous. No fasting. Tone 3. LEAVE OF THE FEAST OF THE PRESENTATION OF THE LORD.
February 19. - 987580477586
Forty days after the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, and after the days of legal purification had been fulfilled, the Most Pure and Most Blessed Virgin Mother, together with Saint Joseph the Betrothed, came from Bethlehem to Jerusalem to the Temple of God, bringing the forty-day-old Infant Christ to fulfill the Law of Moses. According to this law, it was necessary, firstly, to purify oneself after birth by bringing a proper sacrifice to God and through priestly prayer, and, secondly, it was necessary to present the firstborn child before the Lord and make a ransom for him at the established price (Lev. 12:7). This was commanded by the Lord in the Old Testament to Moses, in whose books about the law of purification of the mother it is written thus: "If a woman conceives and bears a male child, she shall be unclean for seven ...
A person's epiphany usually comes at the moment of death. Until the last moment, he is certain that the world belongs to him. But then he sees everything leaving him, everything turning out to be a dream, and he is left with only what he managed to acquire in his heart. That is why the memory of death is so hateful to the Devil.
A person must always expect death and constantly remember that every day could be his last. This is precisely why today, through repentance, can become his day of salvation.
For those who do not remember death, death comes to them suddenly as an enemy and takes them captive. For those who remember it and prepare for it, it comes to them as a liberator from labor and suffering, leading them to the land of eternal peace.
For a Christian, the memory of death, combined with prayer, is a fiery sword directed against the Devil. As long as a person remembers the impending end and the mystical experience of death makes their heart tremble, they cannot sin, just as they cannot, ...
