Foreign jobber.

This is the Timilisi Podcast, covering life, travel and more in the country of Georgia, brought to you by foodfuntravel.com expathub.ge and ethistours.com welcome, everyone, to the Tibilisi Podcast, a show about life and travels in the country of Georgia.

Yeah, that's it.

We're here.

We are here.

This is one of our introductory episodes.

So pretty excited that we're going to be doing this one because just wanted to do a little bit of information about what the show is about and who the people behind the show are.

So you guys get a little bit more of an insight into who we are and you know what our inspiration is.

Your inspiration for doing a podcast?

Yes.

Yeah.

So we've got three people here today.

Meg is the main host.

Meg's voice, you heard first.

I'm Tom.

I'm the co host.

And also we have Yanar here, who is the occasional co host.

Hello.

Occasionally turning up to the show when he's.

When he's available.

I think the way we should start off this episode is to explain exactly the sort of people that we want to have listening.

Who is going to be listening to the show, who's going to enjoy this show.

Exactly.

So we really wanted to make this show be something that would be relevant for tourists that are visiting and also expats who have been living here for a while or people who have just recently moved here.

You know, the three of us have all lived here for a while and we've all had to sort of feel our way around different information and different things.

So we just wanted to bring that wealth of knowledge in podcast form.

Yeah, exactly.

So whether you're a tourist coming here for a few days for the weekend, whether you're an expat who already lives here, whether you're someone who's planning to relocate here, or whether maybe you're a slow traveler or digital nomad or somebody like that who's going to come here for like six months or something.

You're going to find a wealth of information through all the podcasts we're planning over the next years.

Well, really years.

Yeah.

We've got at least 100 episodes planned already to sort of get things rolling over the next two years.

With that releasing one a week, that is roughly who it's for.

If you're any of those people, if you are interested in Georgia, even if you're not planning on coming here, then you might also learn something.

Yeah.

So the plan is we're going to be Doing lots of episodes on things that we wanted to know about when we first came here, both as tourists and also when we moved here as a expats.

You know, as I said before, we're going to bring out our own knowledge and the things that we've learned, but we're also going to talk to experts along the way as well about specific topics so you can get a bit more of an in depth dive into those particular things and just find out more information about the specific things that you want to know about in Tbilisi.

Yeah.

So as well as the three of us who are going to be doing episodes as we go along, taking it in turns or working together, we've got a whole bunch of random different people who are going to join us as guests.

We've got the sommelier from my, my food tour company, my food and wine tour company.

We've got legal experts and real estate experts from Expat Hub, which is Yanar's company and my company that we run together.

We also have other expats who are local business owners who live here.

Going to get some of them on the show to talk about their experience and give their take on things here.

Tour guides from the tour company that I run here.

And hey, if we get big enough, which we hope to really quickly, then let's get some local celebrities on the show or something.

Yes, get some Georgian celebrities on to.

Talk about chef, people that have opened restaurants and people that have done lots of different things.

So hey, if you are a celebrity or you know a celebrity, tell them about us.

Yeah, do it now.

So that's what the show's about.

That's who it's for.

We've, we've covered that.

So let's talk about who we are.

I think we should do a bit of an introduction to everybody who's sitting in this room at the moment.

The three of us recording here in Tbilisi.

So Meg, surprising fact about you.

What's something weird and unexpected?

Let's start with that I have been to both arctic circles and I was.

In the same year.

It was in the same year.

Yeah.

So yeah, that's a pretty cool fact.

I've been to all seven continents as well.

Well, yeah, Meg is representing the international travel side but decided to relocate and live in Georgia permanently after many years of travel.

Exactly.

So yeah, I've got the insight from being a traveler, both from budget through to luxury as well.

You know, I sort of upped my game as I, as I went through, I'm quite proud to say, you know, I Did.

I did.

All right.

So, yeah, I've got the insights from both of those sides, but also just being a digital nomad and working around the world and in different places.

So I first came to Tbilisi in 2016 as a tourist, definitely as a digital nomad.

So looking for places to work, Looking for good Internet.

But also My blog is foodfun travel.com.

so I am a food and travel writer.

So I'm here for the food.

Yeah.

That's fair.

Yes.

Sounds good.

And I came back for the food.

How many khinkalis have you had in your life, Meg?

I don't think that can be counted.

It can be counted in kilos and you never ask a lady that.

Yeah.

And the problem with khinkali as well, once it's 3:00 in the morning and you sit down to eat some, you can't count how many you're eating.

No, you always eat too many.

You always order too many.

And we'll be talking about khinkali in another episode if you don't know what we're going on about.

It's dumplings and they're great and you'll eat a lot.

I would never, ever, ever get sick of khinkatli.

Never.

So, Yannar, a surprising fact about you.

Something interesting.

Well, if Meg's been to all seven continents, I've been to all 44 countries of mainland Europe and I've lived in seven of them.

Nice.

Which was surprising to me as well.

I just counted this morning the places that I've lived in and I didn't think that seven was a number.

And now I've been in Georgia, coming to three years, I think.

Yeah.

So a serial expat.

Serial expat.

But I know you probably tell the story a lot, but you moved somewhere on a.

Because you lost a bet.

Yes, I was.

I was actually, when Tom asked me to prepare a surprising fact about myself, I was in between what I said and what.

What you mentioned now, Meg, which is that I.

I accidentally became a nationwide celebrity in Poland because I happened to lose a bet that sent me to a small town.

Small.

Small town in eastern Poland called Rubies for a month.

And.

And that got picked up by.

By the.

By the media there, which.

Which made it a very interesting month indeed.

What was the bet?

Is it.

Are you allowed to say it was.

It had to do with poker and.

And it was actually a little bit.

A little bit complex.

I.

I'm happy to tell more about this in one of the upcoming episodes, though.

It's a bit Of a long story.

It's an interesting story, but it's a bit of a long story.

All right.

All right, cool.

And me a quick bit of background.

I think we'll talk a little bit more about each other as well as we go along.

But I'm married to Meg, so we're not married to Yanar.

That's a separate thing.

But we're business partners, not life partners.

But me and Meg are actually married.

We got married here in Georgia in 2018, actually.

Indeed.

Surprising fact about me, I actually worked as a musician for a eight years.

So although I work in the travel industry and I work in expat services here in Georgia and both of those things here in Georgia.

I worked as a musician for eight years before that.

So long before that.

Back when I was a young'un like 15 years ago now, something like that.

10, 15 years ago.

So that was my first career when I left university, did that.

Yeah.

Which is pretty crazy.

Full time musician, professional, traveled all over the world doing that.

So we've all traveled a lot.

I think that's one of the important things we're trying to establish here.

I think.

Moving on.

One of the things that we should probably explain to the audience is exactly what brought us to Georgia because as you said, Yana, you've lived here for three years.

We've been here permanently three years as well.

Coming up in May.

And this is.

We're recording this in 2020, so.

And well, we're recording this in 2022.

Oh, my goodness.

You know, Covid years.

Whatever happened, I think we lost two years.

2020 didn't count.

Nor did 2021, really.

So I think it is 2020 again.

I'd like those two years back.

Yes, please.

But yeah, so we all decided to move to Georgia.

I would love to hear, you know, a little bit about what actually made that decision happen.

Yana, go.

So for.

For us, it was a purely pragmatic decision where my, my wife and I, we were looking for.

For a country to move to and for a country to.

To live in longer than just a couple of years.

So we did a whole lot of research and we did a whole lot of traveling as well before moving to Georgia.

We traveled full time for about a year and a half.

As a result, we came up with a relatively long list of countries that were the potential candidates for us to move to.

And we started making the list shorter and shorter as we went along.

And ultimately just looking at all of the things that were, were, and are important for us, Georgia did well in most of these categories.

So ultimately, for that.

For the last.

For the last six months of our travels, we were actually seriously considering between Georgia and Panama.

Out of.

Out of all the places.

Two very different places.

Quite different.

Quite different.

But.

But then Georgia, for.

For a number of reasons, Georgia ultimately came.

Came out as the winner.

And here we are eating Khinkali.

Eating khinkali, yeah.

Wouldn't be doing that in Panama, that's for sure.

Meg.

I don't know.

I guess our story is pretty much the same, but I should let you tell it, perhaps.

Yeah.

We met working on cruise ships, and then because Tom is from England and I'm from Australia, we had to sort of decide on where we were going to live.

Tried Australia for a couple of years and just decided that it wasn't exactly for us, and so packed our bags and went traveling around.

And we.

Yeah, we.

We.

We spent longer traveling.

What did we travel for, like, seven years?

Trying out different places.

We tried Mexico for a while.

You.

There's a House Hunters International episode that we did.

And so there's another little claim to planning.

Search the Internet for our names.

You might.

You might find that random episode of House Hunters.

Yeah.

Where we're like, yeah, we live in Merida.

No, we don't.

We left about a month after we filmed that.

Anyway.

Well, we'd arrange it quite a long time before the filming took place.

And then by the time the filming took place, we were like, we've already decided to move.

Did they not make you sign a contract saying that you must live there for the next 10 years?

No, they don't care.

The whole show is artificially staged.

It is reality television.

Well, I mean, you do see the actual apartment or house that the person lives in.

That is where they absolutely live.

But they're not actually buying the place.

We're going to ruin everyone's conception of this show.

This is my.

This has been my current aim.

I just travel around the world now trying to, like, disillusion people from House Hunters and tell them the real story.

There's literally no way that someone could complete on a house in five days in the time it takes them to film the episode.

So they can't find a house and complete in five days.

Unless you're in Georgia.

Unless you're in Georgia, which literally just completed a real estate purchase in eight days, which was pretty amazing.

But more on that in a real estate episode.

Different episode.

Anyway, so we tried Mexico, and then we were like, okay, bit hot and I'm getting really fat.

Because all the Food is really delicious and I can't stop drinking mezcal.

And it's deep fried.

Everything's deep fried.

And so we came back to Europe because we missed wine and cheese and thought we were going to live in Portugal.

And then Portugal didn't work out and then we were like, oh, where, where, where, where?

And then something just kept drawing us back.

Khinkali.

Khinkali was one of the things.

Definitely I love Khinkali.

I don't think I'll ever get sick of Khinkali.

It's fantastic.

Also, the wine here in Georgia was a very good factor.

They have fantastic cheese.

It ticked a lot of boxes for us.

You mentioned, Yana, that there was like certain criteria that you were looking for in a place that you wanted to move to.

And yeah, you just go to a place and if it ticks enough boxes, then you're like, okay, let's give this a try.

So did you guys come to Georgia with the intention to move here or.

We were going to go back to Portugal after the summer.

We just needed a break and decided, let's, let's go to Georgia for a bit.

It draws you in, it captures you and there's something about, I don't know, the people and the life and everything that sort of draws you in and it just, I don't know, it gets in your brain and you're like, wait.

To those, to those listeners who aren't in Georgia or haven't been in Georgia for long, this is a very frequent story.

Tom and Meg are by no means exceptions here.

There's a significant portion of the expert community who are people who plan to come here for a month or perhaps even for a couple of weeks.

A couple of weeks, Couple of months, doesn't matter.

And then years later they find themselves still in Georgia.

It really helps that there's a one year visa, well, visa free entry on arrival.

So if you're from a certain list of countries, which is all of the people probably listening to this show, or most people listening to this show will be from those countries, EU, US, UK, etc.

Australia, you get a whole year and you can just stay here.

So it's very easy.

If you don't come for a month, you go, I'll stay for another month.

Yeah, I'll stay for the whole year.

Oh, then I can just cross the border and come back and get another year.

Obviously some stuff you need to sort out with that, like taxes and things like that are a concern and we'll talk about those in another episode.

But yeah, it's very easy to just stay here, whether accidentally or on purpose.

Yeah, absolutely.

So there's, I don't know, there's just something in the air that captures you and you end up just falling in love with this place.

And I don't know, we just couldn't get it out of our head.

And we tried definitely a lot of different places to live in and Georgia definitely was the place that we went.

It's the winner.

We're still here.

We're still here.

Longest we've lived anywhere since leaving Australia.

Yeah.

So, yeah, it's pretty crazy, but I'm actually originally from the uk.

I lived in Australia for three years.

Yeah.

But yeah, okay, so that's some random stuff about stories.

Let's talk a little bit about the businesses that we all set up here because we're wanting to, you know, give back to the community and be a part of like Georgian life here and set up our lives and everything.

So let's talk a little bit about the businesses and why we are actually doing this podcast.

So, Tom.

Yeah, this is actually one of the reasons that we once, when we did come here, after a few months of being here, I was like, there is a massive gap in the market for a really good, authentic, but moderately high end tour company, especially focusing on wine.

And.

What is the name of your tour company?

Eat this.

Eat this Tours.

We make people eat stuff, we make people drink stuff.

They love it.

We're not actually force feeding people, but in some ways, you know, we are.

It's great.

There's a lot of food in one of them.

Go to that grandma that slaved over your khachapuri all afternoon and like handmade, your khinkali.

No, eat that.

Eat it.

But our tours focus on something that's a Georgian word.

Shmo meschama, which means I ate everything by accident because it was so good, I couldn't stop eating it.

Essentially, it's one.

One long word that has a very long meaning to it.

But yeah, that's our goal.

We spent a very long time traveling around Georgia, going to a lot of artisan wineries, meeting the winemakers in person, setting up a really good network of food and wine locations, and then built some amazing tours.

I'm just tooting my own horn, but they are good.

I did ask you.

We only get five star reviews.

We've never had anything but a five star review.

We really have.

I take this very passionately and personally to make sure that everything that we put on our tours is really authentic and really special.

So everyone gets a great experience on those.

What would you say is the most special thing about going on a tour?

I think meeting the winemakers in person.

It's actually one of our sort of key mottos for our company.

Every single tour we do, you will meet and sit down and have a drink with at least one winemaker and drink his wine with them.

That's like our major thing.

So maybe you're eating his wife's food.

Maybe she's cooking for you guys.

Well, we have female winemakers as well.

You can sit down with them.

Depends where you go.

Lots of different people that you'll meet.

And that's really it because then you get to learn about the culture from those people themselves, rather than just from the tour guide.

You actually learn the culture directly from.

From winemakers and cooks.

So, yeah, it really is a big focus on authenticity by having that sort of experience.

Tom, you've been running this company for close to two years now, I think.

How many wineries have you been to within this two years?

That's a good question.

I have been so busy and been to so many that I haven't collected the list together to find out.

I know it's over 100.

It could be closer to 150 now.

That's a really good question.

We need to tally up.

Yeah, I mean, to tally up.

But it's going to take me an hour or more to actually go through everything.

I was tracking it for the first year or so and then I just got too crazy busy.

I'm aiming to visit 1000 wineries before I die in Georgia.

That's the plan.

How many wineries are there in Georgia?

So many that no one would know.

Because this is another cool thing about Georgia is everyone makes wine at home.

If you live in the countryside, people have their own grapes in their garden.

They make wine.

Maybe they don't make good wine.

A lot of people don't make good wine.

So what we've done is filtered out the people who don't make very good wine and the ones who actually do make very nice wines.

But, yeah, thousands.

Thousands and thousands.

When you include all those home winemakers, even the sort of semi commercial artisan ones, it's still in the thousands.

So I will never visit them all, but I'm going to try and visit as many as I can and hit that one.

It's a good challenge.

Yeah.

I mean, my liver is going to explode.

But it's worth it.

It's really worth it.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

Jana, let's talk about I know we both run a business together here, but I'm going to let you talk about it as I just talked a lot about the tour company, so.

Yeah, sure.

So my story is a little bit different because I didn't come to Georgia to do any business here.

My background is mostly it's a weird blend of finance and tech.

My main business interest has been in mergers and acquisitions for the last many, many years.

And the main business that I'm involved with is in the US So I didn't have any intention to start anything in Georgia.

But as it happens, an opportunity came, came along and roughly two years ago in.

In July 2020, just the real 2020, not.

Not this one that we're in now.

Yeah, the Original 1.

In July 2020, Tom and I started Expat Hub.

And an Expat Hub is a business that helps expats moving to Georgia and those already in Georgia with their legal and accounting affairs.

We started off as a tax law firm with an accounting arm.

Now we're much more than that and we help expats with everything from real estate transactions to general relocation help.

And we're still continuing to expand our product portfolio.

And events.

We're moving into events now that Covid rules have changed.

Going to be doing charity events this.

Year, business networking, caters towards expats and so forth.

So basically, you guys are sort of just focusing on a lot of those things that people like to, let's be honest, ignore.

No one wants to think about tax.

No one wants to think about those things.

And our tax attorney loves thinking about tax all the time.

He keeps talking to me about it.

I'm like, I don't need to know everything.

You can consult people on this.

But it's a lot of those things people try to sort of sidestep a little bit and forget about.

And then they're like, oh, wait, I.

Want someone else to deal with it.

Yeah, that's exactly why our business has grown incredibly quickly here.

And we've gone from one employee when we opened the company to almost 35 now within the space of two years.

So it's been pretty rapid growth just because there was a huge gap in the market for quality services.

There was a serious, serious need in the marketplace, which is why we did this, because I personally had significant issues finding good, high quality advice.

What I keep saying is that to realize how big of a problem this is in Georgia, go to 10 tax attorneys, ask them all the same question, and you will almost certainly get 10 entirely different answers.

That's what the reality is here with tax law and also with accounting as well.

So there was a very clear need for reasonably priced but high quality western level service.

And this is the gap that we filled.

Yeah.

And pretty much every month we figure out something else that expats need done that isn't being done very well.

And that's why our portfolio of services has grown so quickly.

Just because there's so many things that you're like, well, I don't want to have to sort that out.

And Georgian's not an easy language to speak.

And although a lot of people here speak English or Russian to some extent as well, it's still pretty difficult to get your own stuff done in some cases.

And having people who can help you with those processes really makes a big difference if you're trying to relocate here.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I mean, just relocating somewhere in general is a big stress, let alone having to take in the language barrier and also just different laws and regulations.

So if you have someone that can help you out with that, why not get that little bit of help, right?

Yeah.

Meg, tell us about your blog.

All right.

It has been, I will admit it's been a little neglected, but I hope to change that.

So I.

Someone had a baby.

I had a baby in 2020.

See, that's why I.

Everything's back to 2020.

I've just been in a haze since then.

And the baby is also from the actual 2020, not from 2022.

2020.

Yeah.

So I had a baby.

And the blog has been a little bit neglected.

But I do hope to change that now going forward.

Doing this podcast and also just bringing out some articles that are more Georgia focused.

Yeah, when Covid happened, we've been definitely grounded here.

And yeah, I just want to get a little bit more information about Georgia and helping people with their travels and in a.

I guess in a post covered world because it's a completely different place that we're traveling to now.

And that's what I'll be working on in the future.

But mostly I think I'll be doing it through this podcast because I like podcasting.

I'm very good at talking.

It turns out you briefly had a.

Career in talking because you had two and a half years basically as an emcee on cruise ships.

So that was.

I have been paid to talk before.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

So, yeah, this podcast is the next phase of the blog.

Food and travel are my passions.

So yeah, there will be a lot of talking about food and wine throughout the series and different episodes and Getting different historians in.

I love history as well.

So, yeah, I'm a big history nerd.

I'm a big foodie.

So be prepared for a whole bunch of that sort of information for me.

But yeah, food Fun Travel's been going since 2013.

We traveled the world.

We did lots of different things, traveled to lots of different places.

95 countries in total.

Yeah, not in that period of time.

We also worked on cruise ships before, so that helped us visit a lot of extra places in a short amount of time.

But yeah, yep, we got to 95.

We were supposed to get to 100 in 2025.

Didn't happen.

Then we had a baby.

So we didn't get it.

We didn't hit the.

But I said those two years don't count.

So I'm going to try and do five countries this year, maybe.

Do it.

Do it.

Because yeah, we're in 2020 again, as we agreed.

So yeah, so yeah, that's.

That's the very simple version of me.

Foodfund travel.com it says it in the title.

Foodfundtravel.com Georgia.

We'll get you to our sort of hub page for all of stuff Georgia because we've got stuff from like loads of content from Mexico when we live there, and Thailand and Greece.

Other places.

Italy as well, of course.

But yeah, sadly we haven't been to those destinations post Covid.

I do hope to change that and then we can maybe talk about going to those destinations as a family because that's a whole different ball game too.

Yeah.

Coming to Georgia as a family.

We'll be talking about that in future podcast episodes.

Having a baby here, in fact.

Yep.

During COVID It's an interesting story.

Yeah.

So yeah, I've got like a whole.

Yeah, I've got like that whole mum aspect.

So like the whole family or becoming a family sort of thing here.

I'll give people all an insight on that.

And I'm still trying to get out and get to new restaurants when they open up.

There's some pretty exciting places that have opened post Covid and we did make it to a couple of them.

Still a whole bunch more on my list.

I've been on a mission to get to as many different sulfur baths.

Sulfur baths is something we'll talk about in another episode as well.

Yeah, it's research.

Spring sulfur baths here.

It's all research.

Research.

Just go to the baths every weekend.

Yeah.

Nice.

All right, well, I think we're pretty much out of time.

I just wanted one other thing.

I wanted to mention in this episode because I don't know if it's going to come up or if we're going to get.

We're going to get emails from people about it.

Yeah.

The theme tune to the show.

There's a story behind the theme tune to the show.

We've been planning to release a podcast for about a year and we are on the lookout for something we could use, a theme tune.

It has to, of course, be something that we can talk over, because then we're introducing the show.

You've heard the theme tune.

If you're listening to this already.

It was incredibly difficult to find any licensable Georgian music, especially Georgian music that sort of was a bit more instrumental focused.

Because the tradition of Georgian music is polyphonic singing.

That's like their most favorite style here.

It was sent out on the Voyager, on the gold disc that got sent out to the stars back in the 70s.

It was almost impossible.

We spoke to local musicians about licensing music and they're like, well, I've never licensed music before.

We didn't want to just use someone's stuff without their permission.

We didn't want to use something where we had to say every episode, and this is by this performer, because that would sort of seem a bit weird during our titles to start crediting people.

So the piece of music, I wouldn't say it's fully 100% traditional.

So if you are Georgian and you're listening to this and you're going, oh, this is a Georgia podcast.

This music's not.

Not quite Georgian.

It was about the best we could get after a year to find a really interesting piece of music that worked as a title sequence and.

And was licensable so that we could actually have it legally.

So, yeah, that's it.

I wanted to say that because I know some people are going to probably write in going, is that really Georgian music?

Like, yeah, it's sort of.

It's like Georgian fusion music.

Yeah, yeah.

There was like a mix, five tracks I really wanted to use, and we just couldn't get the licensing for them.

It just.

And it's not even that, like, we couldn't because you know how you listen to a lot of podcasts and they're like, we're sorry we couldn't afford the licensing.

It wasn't even that.

It's just like they just didn't exist.

Didn'T understand what we wanted, wouldn't let us pay for it.

Maybe in the future, who knows, we'll have like a entrance and, you know, entrance song upgrade.

So it's like.

It's like chocolate khinkali.

It's not the real khinkali, but it's still delicious.

Yeah, it's still a thing.

It's still a cool thing.

I like the theme tune.

It worked out well in the end, but my God, it took a long time to actually find that track.

So, yeah, if you're a Georgian musician and you want to license us some music at a reasonable rate for a podcast, then, yeah, get in touch.

Maybe we'll talk about something custom being done for us.

Who knows?

That's in the future.

But anyway, yeah, so that's the end of this introduction episode.

Go ahead and listen to the next episode because there will be a few out already by the time you're hearing this and our businesses once again, this is Tom from eatthistours.com and you can jump on there if you want to book a tour at any time or send us an email and Yanar experthub.

Qiyi, check us out.

Come say hi.

We're both in Tbilisi and Batumi.

Yeah.

And free consultation.

Your first consultation is free in most cases.

There are some limitations on that.

So then you can meet with one of our advisors and you can get some information and get your taxes sorted out or real estate and whatever you need relating to expat services.

And meg, I am foodfundtravel.com but also I am behind this podcast.

So you can find me on Facebook and Instagram at tibilisi podcast or foodfundtravel.com.

Georgia if you want to find that Georgia content straight away rather than all of the other stuff we have on there.

Yeah, all right, great.

We'll see you in another episode.

Bye.

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