The South African Embassy in Tbilisi is located at 404 Ara Street.
That’s right. It does not exist, creating many problems for the South Africans here.
Officially we fall under the South African Embassy in Kyiv. That embassy last visited Georgia in 2023.
During that visit, some of us applied for passports. The passports were made, but the embassy has no funding to deliver them and will only release them to the applicant(s). So those passports are most likely stuck in Poland unless the applicants can magically somehow get Schengen visas.
Given how badly we are treated, my recommendation is that we should avoid the Embassy in Kyiv as much as possible.
If you lose your passport or it expires, you are not stuck!
The British Embassy in Tbilisi will, reluctantly, issue South Africans with a Travel Document: An emergency “passport” that is only valid for flying back to South Africa. It is possible due to South Africa still being part of the Common Wealth.
This is tricky process and I urge people in this situation to contact me first. Send me a WhatsApp on +27837659503
How to renew your passport in in Ankara
When: If you’re passport has only a year left, it’s time to renew: While the embassy in Ankara often completes the process in 3 months, it occasionally takes 10 months. When you apply ask them when you should expect an up date and when it doesn’t happen try to follow up with a friendly email every month or so.
Look up their phone number and make an appointment. Only the emergency number works. That number does have WhatApp and they usually read the messages.
Requirements: For Turkey you need a free e visa and medical insurance. Safety Wing sells travel insurance by the day (5 day minimum). Turkish immigration never asked me for either of these.
Trains and buses: There are many buses and minibuses to Batumi. Or book a train ticket on the TRE.ge app.
From Batumi you can take municipal bus 16 to Sarpi for only 30 tetri. Traffic in Batumi can be painfully slow (walking speed). On the Georgian Play Store is an app called Batumi Bus showing the routes and realtime data of the busses.
The Sarpi border is crowded and chaotic.
From Sarpi there are minibusses for 50 lira to Hopa. Cash only but they will accept lari.
From Hopa there are long distance buses to Ankara for $33 or less.
Once in Ankara, you can ride the municipal buses. Bus 114 (amonst others) goes to the embassy. Google Maps has all the routes.
The busses accept a Georgian and South African bank cards: You board at the front. When you tap your card the first time, it decline and say “Credit card”. Just tap it a second time and it will accept it.
You can find the new location of the embassy on Google maps.
Flights: Google Flights does not show all airlines that operate in the region. Searching with Skip Lagged is also recommended.
If flights between Tbilisi and Ankara are expensive, look for cheap flights between Rize and Ankara. Rize Airport runs a bus service called Havas that stops in Hopa. This bus costs 190 lira.
Once in Ankara, take municipal bus 442 into the city.
When the passport is ready, the embassy will allow collection by courier. DHL charges crazy prices for this cross border door to door service (400 gel!). I guess it will be cheaper to travel to Hopa, stay a few nights and have the passport couriered there.
Roaming: I downloaded Google maps for Ankara before leaving. But I had to use roaming for getting real time bus info and that cost me a few lari every day.
Roaming also helps for check into AirBnBs, so enable it before departure. Most phones have “Data Saver” or similar feature where you can block some apps from using mobile data.
Annoyingly Magti doesn’t have and towers in Sarpi and I also had to use roaming there.