I remember visiting Tbilisi in the early 2010s as a volunteer English teacher and being greeted with this stupid sign as we left the airport.
What other out of place, inappropriate, boot-licking or jusr plain dumb American or other Anglo landmarks come to mind for you?
[especially when they replace the much cooler names given by the indigenous/native peoples of the area]
georgian here, AMA
(yes, I want this street to be shelled)
Not a question, but I wanted to say I love Georgian wines and I would very much like to visit someday. Kbye
❤️
Have you ever been to Chiatura, the city of cable cars?
(yes I know there has been an upgrade in recent years but the rusty old cars look so much cooler)
i haven’t, and i’d love to go, but i don’t really have a way to justify a trip just for some cable cars. it’s a mining town, so there isn’t anything else interesting about chiatura. i still want to visit someday though
“Just” cable cars? Look at this place, it’s beautiful! It looks like the Huangshan Mountains of Georgia.
most of Georgia is like this, the entire country is lined with beautiful lush green and big mountains. it’s very beautiful but it’s also something you’ll see everyday just living outside the capital
Gamarjoba!
I spent nine months in a small village near Signaghi and would love to visit Saqartvelo again someday.
My main barrier to this would be protecting my family against COVID.
How are things going with masking, vaccinations, measures to reduce transmission and the general public’s feelings over the past few years since 2020?
most people are vaccinated against COVID, although you won’t see anyone wear a mask unless they’re also sick
but how much clean power does this street generate by making stalin spin in his grave?
Unfortunately, they aren’t using his spinning body to generate power. They instead decided to attach a guitar pick to a pole affixed to his head, and have used that to play “Misirlou” on loop for years on end.
A good one is Bobby Sands street in Tehran, renamed after the IRA activist who got starved to death in prison. The best part - it’s the street that the British Embassy is on.
Denmark is currently having a culture war moment with a Square within the city, which by popular demand was to be named “Palestine Square”. Obviously the useless city government was against it for a while, with members of the county council going out and arguing that names for places in the city shouldn’t be used to make political statements.
Squints in Kiev Street or other silly things
Obvious answer would be the “Torres gemelas” (twin towers) song by Delfín Quishpe, a famous Ecuadorian singer. It’s honestly the best piece of unintentional dark humor I’ve seen. He also has a song called “qué bonito es Israel” (oh how beautiful Israel is) which says nothing about Israel or its people, instead making vague references to the fact that there too are stars and a moon above the Israeli sky.
Ecuadorian version of Tongo
Bill Clinton statue in Kosovo
statue of george w bush in fushe kruje albania
parents hometown too so whenever i visit i walk past this fucking abomination
also forgot to mention there’s a bakery named after him lmfao
Isn’t there also a statue of Ronald Reagan in Tbilisi?
this is the street that the steel beam melting factory is on (they use jet fuel)
Among all the dumb Anglo named streets there Calle Taft in San Juan is particularly goofy
Avenida Ashford also comes to mind
I could mention Ukrainas plass in Oslo, where the Russian embassy is, however Ukraine isn’t exactly Anglo or “American”.
The only “American” place name in Norway that I’m familiar with is Brooklyn Square in the village of Vanse in Agder County… But I honestly cannot bring myself to be particularly upset about this Woop Woop-ass village having a 1950s Americana-themed street in order to commemorate the area’s history of sending migrant workers to the US East Coast. Although all forms of “Americophilia” should be viewed critically, this specific example I really just find kind of charming and largely benign. Like if I were General Secretary, I would certainly take drastic and in all likelihood unpopular measures to end Seppolandic cultural imperialism in Norway and English-Norwegian diglossia — but I would not touch Brooklyn Square.
