Tbilisi this morning

The Biltmore Hotel in Tbilisi.  The former Institute of Marx, Engels and Lenin (IMELI) was renovated in the 2010s and this 32-floor tower added presenting a dissonant aspect to the architectural character of the city ..  as reflected in the blip.  The original structure (preserved after protests) was built in 1934-38 and designed by architect Alexey Shchusev, who designed Lenin’s Mausoleum in Moscow.  Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the building housed Georgia’s first independent government and later served as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, before being damaged in the civil war in the early 1990s.