Back when Georgia — a country bordered by the Black Sea and the Caucasus Mountains — was behind the Iron Curtain, it was fancied the California of the U.S.S.R. Slightly smaller in size than South Carolina, but with impressively diverse terrain, this fertile country had a reputation for producing exceptional fruits and vegetables, superb wines and talented filmmakers. “When I was studying in Leningrad in the ’70s,” says Ambassador Ian C. Kelly, currently stationed in Georgia, “a group of us were taken to Tbilisi. Arriving there was like arriving in Oz — suddenly everything went from black and white to color.”

The Georgia-born designer Demna Gvasalia lent a glamourized cool to the country last year when he was appointed the director of Balenciaga, but what’s increasingly attracting visitors is Georgia’s gutsy little capital. Having survived civil war in the early ’90s, then a peaceful, pro-Western revolution in the aughts, Tbilisi has rebounded mightily, and newfound ambition is visible everywhere. You can see it on the leafy, Paris-style boulevards that parallel the Kura River, now spanned by Michele De Lucchi’s bow-shaped showpiece, the Bridge of Peace; in the proliferation of new restaurants featuring the country’s Persian- and Asian-inspired dishes; and in an electronic music scene that some say rivals Berlin’s. (Homophobia remains a serious issue, but the flood of young, international tourists is increasing open-mindedness.)