In pictures | International Women’s Day at Tbilisi’s largest flower market

Every year at midnight on 7 March, hundreds of women from all over Georgia gather next to the Samgori Metro Station with tens of thousands of flowers to greet International Women’s Day. 

For many years, Caucasian spring crocus, also known as ‘snowdrops’, has become the symbol of International Women’s Day in Georgia, and is a common gift made to commemorate the occasion. 

Even though the price of the flowers is quite low, sellers say it is getting harder and harder to collect them in the wild. 

Caucasian spring crocuses grow all over Georgia. But women from the market complain that this year, it was not easy to find and pick them. 

‘The city people definitely cannot go there, it’s so hard. We are climbing to the very end of mountain peaks to get these snowdrops’, Lena, a flower seller from Mtskheta, told OC Media. It is her second night at the Samgori market.

The culprit, at least in part, seems to be climate change. 

‘There is no more snow in that area, so it is very hard for the flowers to show up’, Lena said. ‘It is very important for them that the soil is covered in a lot of snow.’