Gabriadze Clock Tower, Tbilisi: Show Times, Theatre and Tickets

The Gabriadze clock tower is the crooked, tile-covered tower beside the marionette theatre in Old Tbilisi, and one of the most photographed buildings in the Old Town. An angel rings the bell every hour and a tiny puppet show plays twice a day, for free. Here's what you need to know about the show times, the theatre behind the tower, tickets and what to see nearby.

What is the Gabriadze clock tower?

It's a clock tower that Rezo Gabriadze, the Georgian artist, writer and puppet master, built in 2010 beside his marionette theatre on Shavteli Street. He designed it like a fairytale ruin: a leaning stack of brick, stone and painted tiles, a big clock face, a balcony stage for puppets and a bell at the top. It looks a few hundred years old and has been there for about 16.

Most people walk past it on the way to the river, stop because it looks unreal, and stay because something is about to happen. The tower is a working part of the theatre. Twice a day its little stage opens for a puppet show, and on every hour an angel comes out to ring the time. You don't need a ticket for either, which puts it on any list of free things to do in Tbilisi and makes it the easiest stop in the Old Town to fit around everything else.

Clock tower show times: the angel and the Circle of Life

There are two things to catch, and only one of them needs planning.

The angel is the quick one. Near the top of the tower, beside the bell, a small painted door opens and a golden-winged angel steps out and taps the bell with a little hammer. If you're in the Old Town anyway, it's easy to time a coffee or a walk past for the top of an hour.

The Circle of Life is the one people gather for. At 12:00 and 19:00 the shutters of the balcony stage in the middle of the tower open, music starts, and a cast of carved puppets acts out a whole life in a few short scenes. It is slow, gentle and very quiet, and the crowd goes quiet with it.

What happens in the Circle of Life show

The story is simple and it is the same every time: a life from first meeting to the grave, and then the next one starting. It plays out to a Georgian folk song about life, and the puppets move in small, careful steps, so give it your full attention and don't expect fireworks.

It opens with a young man and a young woman meeting. The next scene is their wedding: the groom in a cap with a bouquet, the bride in a veil holding white flowers.

Then a child arrives, held up between them, and the couple slowly ages. By the last scenes they are an old man with a cane and an old woman with an umbrella and a handbag, standing a little apart. After them come two graves with small crosses. And then their son steps into his own story, and the cycle starts again.

I like it most for what it doesn't do. There's no narration, no lights and no big finish. It's a small, sad, warm piece of theatre about the whole of a life, played to whoever happens to be standing in a cobbled square, and it feels very much like the city that made it.

Why the clock tower leans

The lean is on purpose. Gabriadze built the tower tilting forward, and a long rusted steel beam props it up from the street, like an old house that has been shored up and left standing. It's a tribute to the old Tbilisi houses around it, the ones with sagging balconies and crooked walls that the city has propped up for generations.

Look at the base of the tower before you look up. The panels of small, bright tiles were painted by Gabriadze himself, and they're full of tiny figures, faces and scenes. Above them sit the brick walls, a stone column, the big clock, the puppet stage and the bell balcony, all stacked in a way that seems to break the rules of building. Nothing on it is quite straight, and that's the point.

Who was Rezo Gabriadze?

Rezo Gabriadze was one of Georgia's best-loved artists, and he worked in almost every form there is: painting, sculpture, writing, film and theatre. Across the former Soviet Union he's remembered first as a screenwriter. He co-wrote Mimino, Kin-dza-dza! and Don't Grieve, and lines from those films are still part of everyday speech in Georgia and Russia.

In 1981 he founded his marionette theatre in Tbilisi, and over the next four decades it toured theatre festivals in Russia, Europe and the United States. He made the puppets and the sets for his plays himself, and he built the clock tower in the same spirit. He died in 2021, and the theatre carries on with his plays. A short stretch of Georgian history shows up in his work too: his shows return to postwar Kutaisi, where he grew up, and to the siege of Stalingrad.

A couple of his jokes are written into the building. The theatre's facade carries a gold Latin motto that translates roughly as "let our tears come only from cutting onions". And because he considered 13 an unlucky number, the street sign for 13 Shavteli Street reads "12+1".

The Gabriadze Marionette Theatre: shows and tickets

The theatre behind the tower is tiny, with 80 seats, and it's one of the hardest tickets to get in Tbilisi. If you want an evening of theatre in the city that doesn't need any Georgian, this is the one I'd book first, ahead of anything else on the opera and theatre calendar.

The theatre also screens Do You Know, Mama, Where I've Been?, a 2017 film about Gabriadze's life, which is a good choice if the plays are sold out.

Shows are in Georgian and Russian with English subtitles, and the evening performances are listed for ages 12 and up. Tickets cost roughly 10 to 60 GEL depending on the show and the seat. You can buy them at the box office by the tower, open daily from 12:00 to 19:00, or online on the Gabriadze Theatre website, where you pick your seats.

If you have tickets for an evening show, catch the tower's Circle of Life at noon rather than at 19:00. The square fills up with the theatre crowd in the evening and the timing gets tight.

Café Gabriadze next to the tower

The theatre's own café sits right beside the tower, with a terrace that looks straight at the clock face. It serves Georgian food and wine, and it's the obvious place to wait for the show: a table on the terrace gives you a view of the tower and gets you out of the sun while the square fills up.

I'd treat it as a drink and a snack stop rather than the dinner of the trip. The location is the best thing about it, and on a summer evening, with the tower lit up and the 19:00 show done, there are few nicer places in the Old Town to sit with a glass of wine. For coffee with less of a crowd, the cafes of Tbilisi in Sololaki and Vera are a short walk away.

Where it is and how to get there

The tower stands on Shavteli Street at the northern end of the Old Town, on a small cobbled square in front of the theatre and its café. The river and the Bridge of Peace are a few minutes' walk down the hill, and Anchiskhati, the oldest surviving church in Tbilisi, is a short stroll along the same street.

Most visitors arrive on foot, because the tower sits on the natural walk between the Old Town and the river.

• From Rike Park: walk across the Bridge of Peace and head up into the Old Town; the tower is a few minutes from the end of the bridge.
• From Liberty Square: the nearest metro station is Liberty Square, and from there it's a downhill walk through the Old Town lanes toward the river.
• From Abanotubani: walk north along the river side of the Old Town from the sulfur baths, past Sioni Cathedral, to Shavteli Street.
• By taxi: ask for the Gabriadze Theatre on Shavteli Street. The lane is narrow and partly pedestrian, so you may be dropped at the end of it.

Best time to visit and where to stand

For the show, I prefer 12:00 in spring and autumn and 19:00 in summer. The noon show in July and August means standing on hot stone in full sun, while the evening show comes with softer light, the café terrace busy and the Old Town waking up for dinner. In winter, the noon show is the comfortable one.

Arrive about 10 minutes before the show. Tour groups often time their Old Town walk around it, so the square can be busy at 12:00, and the best spots across the lane go first. The show is quiet, so the front of the crowd also hears the music better.

For photos, stand back far enough to fit the whole lean and the steel beam in the frame. The tower photographs best from across the square, with the café and the theatre facade beside it. Morning light is soft on the front, while by midday the sun is high and harsh.

What to see near the clock tower

The tower is a stop on a walk, not a destination for a whole morning, so pair it with what's around it. These are all within walking distance.

My favorite way to string them together: the noon show, then Anchiskhati along the lane, across the Bridge of Peace to Rike Park, up to Narikala Fortress on the cable car, and back down on foot to the domes of the sulfur baths for a late-afternoon soak. That is a full, easy half day, and the clock tower is the start of it. Anchiskhati is the oldest of the Tbilisi churches you can walk into, and the Dry Bridge Market is the detour if you like old things and haggling.

Is the Gabriadze clock tower worth it?

Yes, as long as you know what you're getting. It's a free, 15-minute puppet show on a beautiful little square, not a big spectacle, and anyone expecting a Prague-style astronomical clock will find it modest. If you're already in the Old Town around 12:00 or 19:00, stopping is an easy call; I wouldn't cross the city for it alone.

It's very good with children, who usually love both the angel and the puppets, which makes it one of the easy wins in Tbilisi with kids. Pair the tower with the theatre if you can get tickets: the free show is a sample of Gabriadze's world, and an evening in the 80-seat theatre is the whole thing. On a two- or three-day Tbilisi itinerary, the tower belongs on the Old Town day, either at noon on the way to the river or at 19:00 before dinner.