But in a city that is still establishing community traditions that transcend its divisions, the loss of its newly festive culture would be a tragedy.
The stark reality, however, is that in 21st-century Britain, where Christmas seems largely about swearing over the last trolley in Morrisons' car park, our festive culture has narrowed horribly.
The book is at once an account of the politics and poetics of crosscultural interaction between Russian and Georgian writers, poets and artists located in Tbilisi during the Russian revolution, and an account of the popular culture of the city, from street minstrelsy to the festive culture of the working classes, as it evolved during the colonial era.
The architecture and urban planning of the era remain visible in today's 21st century metropolis, while TV programmes like Ripper Street, Jekyll and Hyde and the forthcoming festive treat, Dickensian, celebrate its culture, both high and low.
4. Folk art is art originating among the common people of a nation or region and usually reflecting their traditional culture, especially everyday or festive items produced or decorated by unschooled artists.
Parking lots become festive, all-day gatherings where hippie culture is proudly on display, flaunted in the form of pins, hats, and tattoos.
The hospital's culture, such as its festive familial customs and traditions, its ideologies when dealing with patients' spiritual and religious beliefs, and its valuing of family, largely facilitated the implementation of humanized birth care in this highly specialized hospital.
Portraits of important British and Indian politicians of the day, like Warren Hastings and Asaf-ud-Daula, as well as festive cockfights including people from both cultures, are similarly coded in the language of British colonial rule.
The predawn meal is a festive social gathering in some Middle Eastern cultures, but many American Muslims can't relate.
It makes me sigh every time I see culture and literature treated like festive lanterns — hung out in extravagant displays whenever needed and then discarded when the excitement is over.
Both Gordon and West, although they are twenty years apart in age, are distinctively New Europeans, reflecting a social-democratic notion of culture: art for a homogeneous, festive public.
