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A
You're listening to the Monocle Daily, first broadcast on 9th October 2025 on Monocle Radio.
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Another ceasefire in Gaza. Is this the one that holds another Prime Minister in France? Ditto and a bargain opportunity for Americans to wait out the Trump years in rural England. I'm Andrew Muller. The Monocle Daily starts. Hello and welcome to the Monocle Daily, coming to you from our studios here at Midori House in London. I'm Andrew Muller. My guest Yossi Meckelberg and Mari Leconte will discuss the day's big stories. And our weekly letter from is from Georgia, not the US State, the other one. Stay tuned. All that and more coming up right here on the Monocle Daily. This is the Monocle Daily. I'm Andrew Muller and I am joined today by Yossi Meckelburg, associate fellow with the Middle east and North Africa program at Chatham House, and Mari Leconte, the political journalist and author. Hello to you both, Yossi. It probably does seem to you, and indeed to many of our listeners, like you have done little else with your week than sit here in this studio talking people through the Middle East. But we will come to that again shortly. You're not off the hook yet, but what else have you managed to find time to do?
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C
So? I mentioned to you earlier that I went to see a play called Punch, which again, it's not light entertainment, unfortunately. It's about actually the phenomena. It's based on a true story of the phenomena of one punch that actually can kill people. There is the case, it happened in Nottingham, of a guy that just got involved, punched someone that he never met before and as a result of the fall, the guy was killed and the, the, the one that punched Jacob went to jail for 14 months only for, for, for doing that. But reflected on the time there and reconciled with the family of the victim and him and the mother of the victim joined effort together actually to talk to students, school pupils all about, about the danger of, of this. So it's a very powerful, so eventually.
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B
Uplifting, but it kind of makes you.
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C
Work for it on two things that actually, as you would expect me, are connected to the Middle East.
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B
Here we go.
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C
Is the idea actually that people can actually reflect of what they do and look for forgiveness and the needs for truth and reconciliation between people. How important it is.
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B
Well, we will return to the Middle east and the faint specter at this point of such possibilities. But before we do that, Mari, you have, as I understand it, been reinventing yourself as an eccentric billionaire art dealer.
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So that is the hope in the medium term. Medium term, in the next five to 10 months, hopefully I can become a billionaire.
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B
You've ticked off eccentric and art dealer though, already, right?
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A
Exactly. How dare you? Eccentric? I mean, this normal person who's ever lived.
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B
One more to go.
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But, yes, now I've happily launched the Outsiders Arts Club in London, which is a new quarterly night where people can buy an affordable ticket and essentially get a slice of the art world. Because I think the art world is so often just quite intimidating, unwelcoming and also, let's be honest, a playground for very rich people. So this is actually fun, accessible night. So you kind of turn up, there's going to be a talk by a curator who will explain what curators actually do. And honestly, that's partially for me as well. I'm not really sure what curators do and, you know, and they'll be able to have a glass of wine and then crucially buy some art by kind of up and coming artists who don't quite have formal gallery representation yet and all of it between 200, £450. So kind of helping out artists who are starting out, but also getting cool, original pieces for, you know, people for their homes and. Yeah, and then, then hopefully everyone's happy and maybe again, I make my first billion at some point soon.
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B
Anytime now, if any listeners are enticed by this proposition, and I, for one, cannot imagine why they would not be, how do they find out more out? Find out more about. It was the sentence I was struggling to assemble. It was there somewhere. It was there, all the right words, just in the wrong order.
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A
We've all been there. No, so, I mean, incredibly, we. So we had 100 tickets up for sale. We sold all of them in 24 hours. Like, you know, within, you know, 24 hours of putting the link online, which was quite incredible. We will be having a second edition in February, so sign up to outsidersartsclub.com there are details on our social media, our newsletter, etc. So, yeah, come join the outcrowd.
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B
Well, we will start in Gaza and with what may be the beginning of the end of two years of war, Israel and Hamas have agreed to the first phase of a deal which will include a ceasefire and the Exchange of the 20 living Israeli hostages held by Hamas since October 7, 2023, for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prison held by Israel. Israeli troops in Gaza will also withdraw from some of the positions they hold and aid will be permitted into Gaza. 400 trucks a day, initially. More if the peace stands up. What is not clear yet. Even assuming good faith on all sides is what Gaza's next couple of years will look like. YOSSI first of all, I think at the risk of tempting fate, we can say this is good news, but how good is it?
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C
This good news can be said here for so many times, ending the war is the most important thing because you can move then into looking, improving the situation. But first people are not killed. Getting also the mentality of the only way to move forward is using force so we can start moving. If the war ends, the bombing stops, release of the hostages, exchange with prisoners, more humanitarian aid, limited withdrawal, not a full withdrawal, then they go back, they need to go back to negotiation table and start working on the rest of the details. So if you have 20 points in the so called Trump plan, which is not really plan, it's more list of aspirations and principle, then you can bring some details into this because at the end of the day it will have to end with full withdrawal, new governance in Gaza, the reconstruction of Gaza security regimes in and then also to think what's going to happen with the West Bank. And as you go down, down the list of points, you see maybe a Palestinian state, but it shouldn't stay the case, but going to all the root causes. So it's just the first step. But I think if the next 72 hours we'll see the end of the bombing, the end of the war and the release of the hostages, see prisoners, release more humanitarian aid, then we can look at working on the rest.
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MURRAY in the next 72 hours, as things stand, US President Donald Trump is due to fly to Jerusalem, which does suggest that he's reasonably confident at least.
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Yes, and I think it's a very odd situation. I was talking about with an American journalist earlier today whose argument was essentially that, you know, even it's not someone who likes Trump by any kind of means, but saying that Trump at this stage was probably the only president who would have been able to do this because I think he is so unpredictable and he's so brash that actually every side here clearly had this sense of presumably, you know, actually we probably have to agree to this and do this now because he may change his mind in two weeks and that may be incredibly bad news for us and we have no idea again of seeing that coming. So I guess we have to agree. So it, I mean, sort of resentfully, but I guess, you know, good news is good news. I think that this is, this is a big win for Donald Trump.
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B
Good news is good news. Yossi and credit where due, etc. But a lot of this peace plan is not massively different from what President Joe Biden was pitching around last May. So why do we think Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to this now? Is it, as Mahri says, that he just thought, if I don't agree to this now, then who knows what happens next? Or does he feel like he's made his point?
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C
I think there is the element of Trump here that plays a very important role because what happens, and I think we're getting used to this, Trump creates his own reality and then he asks us to follow basically, or demands us to follow his own reality. When it works, it's fine. When sometimes it's such a bizarre reality, which is less welcome in this case, he realized. But it was a combination of things. A Biden was not ready to put pressure on Israel. There was no doubt about it. And there were opportunities to reach a very similar. But there was other things. There is fatigue within the Israeli military. We know that the head of the IDF was against entering into Gaza City. The bombing of Doha, which is lack of judgment on the highest scale, that really upset Washington. You know, you attack a mediator and the negotiators in a country which is ally of the United States.
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B
This is where we end up with that bizarre tableau of Netanyahu being made to read an apology.
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C
Yeah. Which is, I mean, for him is a humiliation. I mean, he had to apologize outright, but he justified originally said, we'll find Hamas people everywhere. We don't care which country they are. We'll continue to do that. So there was accumulation at the same time, Israel is more isolated internationally. The recognition of Palestinian state, Spain suspending weapons supply, Germany. So there is some accumulated effect with the pressure within Israel. So there is always in wars, there is this point, a turning point. But I think again, I agree with the Trump factor is crucial.
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B
Murray, how sorry in advance do we feel for whoever is going to be told tomorrow that they've won the Nobel Prize for peace? Assuming it's probably not President Trump.
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A
Oh, that's going to be. Yes. Someone probably has to collect the order and then leg it somewhere without Internet. I think.
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B
That is going to be a weird moment. But just before we move off this, I do want to talk about the. The future of Gaza. And one of the things, Murray, that has been floated is the idea of some sort of governance structure, perhaps chaired by Sir Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of this country. For all that, he does prompt a certain amount of reflexive eye rolling for obvious Enough reasons. Is it actually necessarily a terrible idea?
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A
Yes. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I think I personally find it quite hard not to be cynical when, you know, anything related to Tony Blair. Because the problem is actually, I think his record since, you know, leaving Downing street in Britain has just not been stellar. He has worked with a number of regimes, you know, who have not. Not been great, it's fair to say. So I think the idea again of having someone who does not have deep roots in either Israel or Palestine to kind of get in and try to sort something out is not an inherently bad one. I think it's just Tony Blair specifically, I'm not convinced at all is the right person for this. But yeah, there's no amount of money, however, you could offer me to suggest someone that is a job that I think would be quite tough. Oh, are you nominating yourself?
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C
And that's one of the issues who you appoint. Again, you always look in this situation of the kind of positive and negative and we know Iraq and the Quartet and all what you mentioned, but at the same time, he has opened door to Trump and I think some of the positive changes in the plan are thanks to Tony Blair. He has opened door in the Gulf and they might support more any reconstruction plan in Gaza. He was one of the key players or the key player in the peace process in Northern Ireland. So there's something actually go for him in this. What doesn't I don't want to see is what is an interim become permanent. So we'll see, you know, a British High Commissioner for the next 10 years reviving the British mandate on Palestine. So that definitely shouldn't be.
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B
Well, ask a Bosnian how long these temporary arrangements can last. But on the subject of impossible jobs to France, a nation currently not straying too far from their phones lest they get a call asking them to form a government, or now that I read that back, a nation which has perhaps flung their phones into the nearest available river for exactly the same reason. The LSA palace said yesterday that President Emmanuel Macron would name a new prime minister within 48 hours. Which means that circa this time tomorrow latest, some other poor SAP will have been issued the whip and chair and sent into the National Assembly. On the right of the chamber, the National Rally are vowing to vote down any new government, while on the left, France unbowed, demanding the resignation of Macron himself. Murray, I believe you are constitutionally eligible to be Prime Minister of France and.
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A
Only they catch me.
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B
Well, at the current rate of not your number's going to come up. Seriously, why would anybody want this job?
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A
Oh, goody. I don't know. But you know what? Actually, in a weird way, I think actually if you're not part of Macron's party, I mean, obviously it is a poison chalice and it's an incredibly tough job, but I think you're not going. You will be forgiven for failing. I think an impossible job in politics is one where, you know, you will get the blame for everything and you're put in an impossible situation. You'll get the blame. I don't think this is quite that. I think every single person with a set of eyeballs is aware that the next Prime Minister will probably fail and if they fail, it will be Emmanuel Macron's fault. So, yeah, I don't know. I mean, it depends who it is. I think the rumor at the moment in Paris seems to be that Macron will finally actually appoint a Prime minister from the left or the centre left, which, you know, obviously the left had a really good showing at the last elections. Like the left bloc was the largest block and large portion of French voters, as a result, have, you know, wondered since the election in the snap election why there hasn't been a left wing government since. So, you know, maybe that would change. So again, I think it's the left's moment. The problem is, I think the French left is not always the best at doing what's best for itself or the country or anyone. I think the amount of infighting after the snap election was incredibly unidentifying. So let's see what happens next. But yeah, but again, weirdly, I think this is not, it's not going to be a fun job. But again, I think you'd really have to be incredibly mean spirited to be that. And that is the fault of the Prime Minister, you know, that that thing's failed. Because look at the situation now.
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B
To be clear, Yossi, President Macron is not at all obliged to call an early presidential election. He can stay in the job until April 2027. But if we assume that he can't seriously just do this once a month for the next 18 months, is he hoping that the voters will get to where they start blaming the politicians and not him?
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C
It's a possibility. First, I once said it, to say that the left is divided and polarized is not breaking news. I think this has been for 150 years. One of the nature of, you know, everyone, every small group thinks that they know better than others. That's why you have so many strands in left. And that's on a serious point, why the right is better in winning election in many places, because when they need to unite, they unite. I mean, this is a possibility of keeping changing, going through the crisis, because the constitution in Macron already said, I'm not resigning. I was elected for a full term. So at the end of the day, I try to think about it with not being an expert on French politics. If I'm a voter, I would say get Iraq together. You know, there is a country to run. You're fighting over the budget on whether another year of, you know, whether we retired at 63 or 64. And is this a good enough reason that the world is falling apart and there is climate change and wars here and there. And that's why we are going through a political crisis instead of finding a prime minister that can unite in every majority within the assembly. So I think they need to take the blame again. I can't blame the opposition that wants election. That's what opposition always want, you know, because the assumption of marine appendix. And on the basis of this crisis, she's going to do better in the next election and maybe it will lead. How many times she ran for presidency?
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I mean, it felt like 74, but.
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C
Yeah, well, there are two different Lapens. 74, yeah.
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And then never ending supply.
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C
So who knows? Maybe 20 times lucky. So maybe she will.
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But she can't stand, though, in this election.
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C
Oh, she can.
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B
Not for president. No, not for president.
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A
But again, so weirdly, I think if I were Macron or someone who is not Marine Le Pen, I would not be against. Actually, I think the idea of a snap presidential election, because it's a bit like, okay, so the figurehead of the far right could not stand. They've not really had the time to present anyone. So they do have Jordan Badella, who is the leader of the party and who's the kind of, you know, anointed one. But he's still, you know, he's still very young. I think he's 31, 32. So I think that that would not be the worst play, I think, of going well. You know, let's hit. While the far right tries to recover from Marine Le Pen being unable to stand, but still a risky gam. And I guess the snap election had been a risky gamble and it did not pay off in any way. So maybe, yeah, maybe no one's got this massive appetite for risky gambles.
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C
But also the experiment of having a very young president didn't pay off exactly.
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B
A young prime minister.
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C
Well, no president.
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B
He's quite a young president. God, it's depressing. Just finally on this one, Murray, you mentioned earlier that he may give the left wing a shot at running the national assembly. And you are right. They're probably right to be aggrieved that they haven't been given a go, given that they did have quite a good. But given that Marine Le Pen has threatened to bring down any government that Macron tries to commission a prime minister to put together, what if, just for fun, he said to her, all right, you do it?
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A
I mean, I'd rather he didn't, but, I mean, I guess it is a possibility. But the problem is, you know, Macron got elected two elections in a row by saying, essentially it's the far right or me. And I just don't know how you could live with yourself if having done that. And you go, well, psych actually, is the far right and me, actually, sorry, so you maybe misheard, actually, that, you know what I was talking about it. It's actually the far right and me. And there's. I think that was the central plank essentially of his platform, especially in the last election when he just was not that popular and people didn't really want to vote for him. So, no, I don't. You know, politically, he just cannot get away with it.
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B
Well, to Russia now, which, if it has accomplished little else during its protracted Ukrainian misadventure, has at least managed to make flesh a couple of the more lurid fantasies of the West's Cold War with the Soviet Union. That is engineering land batt on the European continent involving troops from North Korea. And it is increasingly the case Cuba. Ukrainian officials believe that Cuban soldiers are on track to overhaul the North Korean contingent to become the largest of President Vladimir Putin's foreign legions. Russia is recruiting increasingly from overseas, and not only for reasons of personnel shortages. Dead Cubans, Koreans, or cannon fodder from wherever else do not oblige pensions from the Russian state or cause much grief among ordinary Russians. Yossi, we are taking Ukrainian intelligence's words for this, and they are, of course, not in the business of making Russia look good. But they are claiming that possibly 25,000 Cubans have been recruited, that is on top of the North Koreans. Plus press gangies reported from Senegal, Zimbabwe and Cameroon, among other places. It doesn't really suggest that this is going well for Russia, does it?
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C
No. And they are not necessarily soldiers. They are probably falling under the definition of mercenaries because they are not sent as Cuban troops. But people that because of the economic situation In Cuba, you know, when the average salary is around 25, $30 per month, they are offered like $2,000. So for them, if they survive it, it means when they go back to Cuba, they are in a much better economic situation. But, but it shows when, you know, talking about 1 million Russian casualties over the war. And if, I know it sounds so morbid, but from Putin's point of view, if soldiers or mercenaries from other countries die, it doesn't have the same effect domestically on him, the pressure, it might create pressures in other countries, not that North Korea really cared about it, but on Russia, it's really on Putin, it released some of the pressure.
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B
Murray There was, of course, a certain amount of ideological, I guess, fellow feeling between Cuba and the Soviet Union when they were fighting on the same side in various theaters during the Cold War. Do you get the sense that there's anything left of that, or is this weirdly now just an entirely sort of capitalist exchange of labour for wages?
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A
I mean, it does seem to be really, really financial from what I've seen. And, you know, and one thing that was actually shocking is that apparently some cub Cuban soldiers, mercenaries, however we're calling them, have said that actually they were duped by Russia. So they were told that they were going to Russia for construction jobs and then got sent to the front line, or at least got sent to kind of fight in the war against Ukraine. So, no, I don't know again, and I think it's probably quite tough to know what kind of information regimen people have in Cuba. But no, I do think a lot of it, as Yossi was saying, seems to be financial to me.
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B
Is there an element here, though, as well, perhaps, Yossi, certainly where North Korea is concerned, perhaps less so of Cuba, maybe Iran as well, attempting to acquire actual battlefield experience.
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C
I don't think this is the case with Cuba. Cuba has really no enemies. It's an island. When it was involved with wars, like in Angola, for instance, it's war for ideological reasons. What happened in the last few years between, in 2018, a terrible hurricane that hit Cuba. Then came Covid, and before that first came Trump, and Trump came again because we know Obama visited in 2016 and there was the rapprochement between the United States and Cuba and condition, the relations with the United States improved a lot and as a result, more tourism. But if around 2018 there were 5 million tourists per year, we are talking now about 2.2 million, this hits badly. Also the number of doctors and other medical professions that are working, which is a major Income for Cuba, it went down from 50 to around 30,000. So it reflects more than anything in economics. You're not trying to get more military experience in my mind.
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B
Does it make the case though, Mari, that there is this wider conflict in play, as some have posited between. And it's a similar, I guess, Cold war dynamic, the democratic world versus the authoritarian world. That authoritarian world now being thought of as Russia, China, Iran, Iran, North Korea and apparently Cuba.
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A
The west and the rest.
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C
Exactly.
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A
I mean, yes, and I think, you know, and I think it's not, I feel like it's not a big controversial thing to say that there's clearly been a bit of a kind of political realignment, you know, over the past few years, kind of globally. But yes, and it seems concerning as well because I think you also see, for example, lots of countries in Africa not necessarily going, you know, kind of towards the west as they would have once upon a time time. But either kind of going to that kind of other. I feel like polar opposite doesn't quite work there that other pull or certainly kind of trying to keep their pounds dry. So it's not, you know, it's not entirely clear to me that this is a fight the west will win as well on the kind of longer run.
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B
Well, to the United Kingdom, now already beset with arguments over migrants crossing the English Channel and which may not yet have come to terms with the possibility of people seeking refuge from the other direction, one enterprising homesteader in the English region of Buckinghamshire is raffling his hat house. Pitching it possibly, who knows. With a view to receiving publicity from such prestigious current affairs forums as this, the Monocle Daily as a bolt hole for Americans fleeing their country slide into idiocracy. A mere $10 could win you a pleasant looking five bedroom pile of bricks with both gardens and views. Murray, I was a bit bewildered by the. The copy which is supposed to entice people to buy tickets. It says here, six miles from Windsor Castle, ancestral home to the kings and Qu of England. I can't tell whether he's advertising proximity or sort of suggesting, look at six miles, you won't see them. That's a, that's a safe distance.
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A
How much do you really get on a week to week basis from being close to Windsor? Like, do you really go once a week? Like, do you. I feel like, you know, I live quite near. I guess I'm definitely within six miles of Buckingham Palace. I don't, you know, I don't go to Buckingham Palace. It's not. But Crucial. So I live within six miles of other things. And I really enjoyed that bit because it's good.
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C
I.
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A
But what does that give us? You know, it's a bit like saying, oh, yes. And also there are, I don't know, like geese in the neighborhood.
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B
They're basically saying, it's in the middle of bloody nowhere. I think, which may have been why he has struggled to sell it, Yossi, which I believe is what has driven him to this. But there actually is, if you read around, that in the last couple of years, there is a noticeable rise in American migration to the United Kingdom.
- [25:55]
C
First of all, there is no shortage of nowhere in the United States. If you really. You want to disappear somewhere in the United States, United States, it's easier than in the uk, But I don't think it's new. And it's one of the things. Because the conversation about migration is about not Americans, because of the racist nature in this country of migration. So they don't mention usually Americans that work in the city, you know. So there is actually.
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B
There's not been much complaint about Australians hosting their podcasts either. Strangely enough, they say it's been so.
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A
Long, they write it in every day.
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C
No one tells him about the complaints. So there's something. But actually, in 2016, when Trump won the first election, many of the people from the previous or from the Obama administration found themselves in all sorts of places here in London, in other places they went back during the Biden administration. So they look for an alternative right now. But this, I mean, what I find about this story fascinating is the idea. Put your house on raffle, you make money. Because the way you put it, it will make money anyway. Because.
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B
Well, this is what I wanted to say. And Murray, I will put this sounds like an absolutely amazing racket because if I have understood this correctly, if 150,000 tickets or more are sold, then fine, somebody draws the prize and wins the house. If he doesn't sell 150,000 tickets, he keeps the. The winner of the Raffle will get 50% of the total ticket revenue. The platform will take 10%. He'll get 40% of the money raised and still have his house.
- [27:40]
A
I mean, it sounds quite nice, but if I were him, I would stop advertising it. I'm really, really sharp it. The second it gets past or something. But, oh, well, it's done. That's that, you know. Yes. No, it's. I think. I think it's actually quite a decent thing that I was actually, while recording this segment, I was like, can I And I. Oh, no, I'm renting. I don't know. What am I thinking? Icon raffle might. That's not a thing I could do.
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B
You could buy a ticket in this raffle. I mean, is this perhaps the future of the real estate market in this country? Is this how we solve it? Everybody just buys raffle tickets until you win a house and we all somehow end up with a house which has cost us 10 quid.
- [28:16]
A
I mean, I think that's a really good sitcom kind of sitcom material. We can do that. We can. That's. You know, I feel like we can put it alongside my sitcom material of also Cubans and North Koreans having to become best buds in Ukraine. I think it'd be quite a fun, like, comedy of errors. And. Yeah, I feel like, you know. Yeah, keep them coming. I think this. Yeah. Giving us a lot here.
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C
And there is no gazumping if you do that.
- [28:35]
D
No.
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C
So there is just.
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B
Just finally on this. Are you tempted, Yossi? Are you. Are you in for £7 50 or whatever this is?
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C
It's not a bad idea, now that you put it like this. Maybe I should buy a ticket.
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B
Mari.
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C
Seven.
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B
Seven pounds. Seven pounds fifty. But if you win, you have to live in rural Buckinghamshire.
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A
But that's my thing. I think you would have to pay me 450k or however much to leave London. So it's not like. No, I'm not. No, I wouldn't pay to leave London.
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B
Marie Leconte and Yossi Meckelburg, thank you joining us. Finally on today's show, our weekly letter from is from Tbilisi.
- [29:13]
D
It might not feel like it when you're stuck in a queue to drop off a parcel that could not be returned by courier. But there was, of course, a time when post offices were buildings that represented the future. It's not by chance that autocratic governments like Italy's fascist dictatorship built monumental hulking structures to house their central post office. The Sicilian capital of Palermos is a case in point. Its square structure and tall frontal columns, completed in the 1930s, make it look like a temple to the cult of technology and modern efficiency. Perhaps it's because of the fact that I grew up in Italy, surrounded by architectural mementos of a past that many wish hadn't happened. But nobody can forget that I wasn't too surprised by Tbilisi's mixed urban fabric when I got to the city. In the capital of Georgia, many reminders of a complicated political history date back to Soviet times. The city is full of brutalist buildings. Some of these Imposing gray towers are clearly better kept than others. But it's perhaps again no surprise that one of the most striking iconic examples of this architecture in town should be a former post office. Set on the thunderously busy uber central Rustavelli Avenue, the building was first designed and constructed in the 1970s. Conceived by architects Lado Alexi Meshkishvili and Teimuraz Mikashaba. The former was a prolific architect in Georgia's Soviet times. His other projects in the capital include the Saucer like Sports palace and the squat linear Chess palace and Alpine Club. Like most Soviet buildings in the modernist style, the post office was a solid, square, bulky structure, all perpendicular lines. The windows sat in a neat grid and there was very little room for ornamentation. And yet there was something stately about the place, and not just because of its enormous size. Its regimented poise gave it almost the look of a museum. Helped perhaps by the fact that this was no cement construction. The exterior facade was covered in Bolnesi Tuff, the same stone that gives most of the historical buildings in the rest of the city, including the Georgian parliament nearby, their golden hue. Back when it was opened, this place was more than just a public office. It was a point of connection with the rest of the world. A hub where people who didn't yet have access to phones could come make calls and send help telegrams and experienced that technology for themselves. Residents gravitated here for errands and news until the building eventually lost its function and was slated for redevelopment in 2013. It took quite a long time for a new project to emerge from its disused skeleton. But if you head to Tbilisi today, you'll see the Tuff facade as polished and clean as it could be. As of this year, the building has begun its new life as a telegraph hotel, a luxury hotel managed by real estate arm of investment group Silk Ro Group. World famous Shanghai based architectural practice Narian Hu were called in for the spruce up. Their idea was to maintain the building's appearance as much as possible, at least on the exterior. Inside, they have brought a minimalist approach to the hotel's 239 rooms. But they were particularly keen to keep a sense of exchange that they believe was the original spirit of the place. That means floor to ceiling windows at ground level so that passersby can catch a glimpse of what's going on inside and feel enticed by its recognition. Restaurants which include an accomplished spot by Parisian based Thai born chef Rose Chalalai Singh, called Lan Thai. The team hopes that this private meets public predicament will become even truer when, as the project progresses, the square in front of the hotel will be turned into a greener, more pedestrianized space than the de facto open air parking lot it is now. Perhaps it's no coincidence that as Georgia experiences a remarkable tourism boom, this building has once again come to represent the future. Not one of cordless communications, but of real estate, investment and hospitality developments which are popping up around Tbilisi and beyond. Who knows what its next futuristic incarnation will be? For Monocle in Tbilisi, I am Chiara Rimella.
- [33:04]
B
Thank you, Chiara. That is all for this edition of the Monocle Daily. Thanks to our panelists today, Mari Laconte and Yossi Meckelburg. The show was produced by Hassan Anderson and researched by Joanna Moser. Our sound engineer was Steph Chungu. I'm Andrew Muller here in London. The Daily is back at the same time tomorrow. Thanks for listening.