When I published my first Dispatch about The Lake on May 7, 2023, it was a story about disruption. Heavy rains would flood the only road into my Tbilisi neighborhood, producing first a puddle and soon a recurring lake, one of many obstacles locals would encounter on their stressful days. Instead of fixing it, authorities chose to invent nonexistent problems. In short, the story was a bit of a political rant.
When, exactly two years later, on May 7, 2025, I published my second Dispatch about The Lake, it was a story about acceptance. Construction on four residential buildings, responsible for the damaged road, was still ongoing, so The Lake was growing and thriving. Adults now avoided it via an ad hoc pedestrian bypass, while local kids and dogs chose to interact with the water, wading int