I spent a lot of summers as a child in Georgia, and have fond memories of these. At least before the old transit-style vans/minibuses were replaced with proper,

I spent a lot of summers as a child in Georgia, and have fond memories of these. At least before the old transit-style vans/minibuses were replaced with proper, licensed buses. There was no occupancy limit. The limit is however many people can squeeze into the thing. Bench seats were common, so lots of squeezing. Prices were cheap beyond comparison. $0.05-$0.10 per person to get on any of the city lines, a marshrutka to a town 6 hours away might cost $2-5 At least before the internet was commonplace, there weren't any maps of marshrutka lines anywhere. People knew which lines went where or asked friends. Failing that you pull the first one you see over and ask. Tbilisi roads are insane, marshrutka drivers were on a whole other level. Minivans are really not designed to be floored from every light and thrown into corners. There's a reason nobody cycled on the road there and motorbikes were just as rare: you really do not want to share the road with marshrutka drivers. To my knowledge, there were zero regulations. Sometimes after flagging one down, you'd hear some really uncomfortable sounds coming from the brakes, or a tyre with visible ply, or a driver who's clearly tipsy, and decide not to risk it.