Great Soviet kitsch hunt

IBOW BEFORE NO DEITIES, WORSHIP NO IDOLS, yet the ‘Rock Angel’ materialises from a downpour like an enlightened vision holding answers to forbidden questions. Curiously, the divine-looking, crowned copper statue on the Chronical of Georgia is throwing ‘hand-horns’ – the international symbol of rock’n’roll – in sassy contrast to her pious gaze.

For some, perhaps, she’s confirmation that “God gave rock’n’roll to you”, as glam-rockers Kiss once prophesised.

But I consider the Rock Angel a gatekeeper of the shadowy realm of yet-to-be-rediscovered Soviet-era treasures in southern Caucasus travel-nirvana Georgia.

Creator Zurab Tsereteli’s in-joke is hidden in plain sight among the intense, immense historical scenes that unfold on the flanks of Chronicle of Georgia (1975-1985) – also known as ‘Georgia’s Stonehenge’ – a foreboding colonnade of 35-metre pillars that overpowers a hillside outside boho capital Tbilisi.

Most travellers will miss this and many other portals into Soviet eccentricity, too bedazzled by Georgia’s apolitical big-ticket highlights including arguably the world’s oldest wine region and misty alpine villages sequined with ancient stone orthodox churches.

Many travellers visit the Eastern European nation of Georgia for its bucolic mountain scenery laced with vineyards. Then there are those who come for the Soviet kitsch.