One of the chief goals of the centre is to provide scouts in Rustavi with facilities for their indoor and outdoor activities as well as a permanent office to deal with all administrative matters of the organization. The buildings are designed for this purpose. The centre is also available to other youth groups in Georgia, e.g. from the capital Tbilisi, and as a location for special events (training courses, seminars, planning weekends, etc.) In addition, the International Scout Centre Rustavi generates income by renting its facilities to third parties: The centre can be used by school and university groups as well as non-governmental organizations looking for a venue for residential study weeks and meeting. The centre offers overnight accommodations for tourists, groups and individuals.

Current activities ISCR

European Voluntary Service volunteers' Blog written by Dasa Gardosikova- EVS at International Scout Centre Rustavi

After all the Christmases and New Years Eves

After one month we´re here again! The time was full of trips and celebrations at our homes and in Georgia as well. Why is that? Georgians are not super traditional with Christmas. To my question "When do you actually celebrate Christmas?" I got around 4 different responses :D . All of them in the frame of 24th of December - 7th of January. It´s a bit more simple with New Years Eve – “classic” 31st of December and 13th of January according to the Gregorian calendar. So how is going our EVS winter so far?
Christmas supra
We have decided to prepare together with our neighbors (volunteers from another organization) our first supra. Not the traditional one though, but the main point was there: a lot of different kinds of food and toasting were not missing. It was a really great evening. We invited our friends and volunteers living in Tbilisi, so we celebrated one of the most beautiful holidays as a big EVS family :-) . 
 Forest bath and the cutest train кукушка 
Borjomi is not only the most famous mineral water of Georgia, but also a pretty nice town with more than appealing weekend activities. One of them is a possibility to take a bath in the middle of the forest. There are 3 different pools of diverse temperatures. After taking a bath in the hottest one I can highly recommend rolling in the snow!
On the way back we took a train Instead of (for us) very typical hitchhiking. But what a train! Kukushka (кукушка) is a very old small and somehow cute train going to Bakuriani from Borjomi with the maximum speed of around 25km/h. However, don´t be mistaken to imagine something boring! During the entire train ride you can enjoy a spectacular view from the train on the landscape around and with snow and people standing outside and singing, the atmosphere is really special.

Working (more-less) hard
Our casual working routine has started approximately 2 weeks ago. Apart from our typical activities, we are slowly working on our Erasmus+ projects. Boys Damian and Frederik help around the scout center as usually and we have one new thing which was not mentioned in the article before. We started to support children from the local daily centers. We prepared a few Friday activities for them since the end of November and I started to teach them English.
The part of our EVS job is also to study a foreign language. I am glad to say that no one of us gave up on Georgian and we work on our Russian skills as well.  
Reaching the symbol of Rustavi
Last but not least, I want to mention our very recent trip to the top of the hill above Rustavi. I don´t think it´s “official”, but for me the huge green cross on the hill definitely is the Rustavi symbol. At the occasion of my birthday we climbed the hill, reached the cross and finally saw our city from the top. Plus we stared on the awesome scenery which we did not expect from the “not-too-special-looking” hill next to our city.
It´s nice to realize that beautiful things are so near your home at the places where you just don´t expect them. Sometimes it´s not necessary to go far to discover lovely things.*P.S.: I almost forgot to mention that we prepared home-made khinkali! They were not exactly like in the restaurant, but they were very tasty , good-looking and Freddie created a new version with pumpkin (very delicious, even the georgian grandma might not accept it as a real khinkali, ahah)

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