You may not notice them at first, but once you’re aware of their presence, you’ll start spotting claw machines on every corner in Tbilisi. They’ve been everywhere on the city’s outskirts, where it’s apparently easier to obtain a permit. And they’ve been especially everywhere at night, lighting up dark, lonely streets in neon colors like some monuments to forgotten joy. Wong Kar-Wai meets horror.
Claw machines, or crane game machines, are those devices with a glass box full of stuffed toys where you insert a coin, move a claw with a joystick, drop the claw, grab a prize, lift the prize, prematurely drop the prize, and lose. It’s hard to say exactly when they started proliferating in Tbilisi, or at what point they eclipsed the boxing machines, the ones you punch to measure your strength, but they have become a playful and nostalgic feature of the city’s entertainment scene.