Zqaltubo

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Zqaltubo
წყალტუბო
State : GeorgiaGeorgia Georgia
Region : Imereti
Municipality : Zqaltubo
Coordinates : 42 ° 20 '  N , 42 ° 36'  E Coordinates: 42 ° 20 '  N , 42 ° 36'  E
Height : 137  m. ü. M.
 
Residents : 11,281 (2014)
 
Time zone : Georgian Time (UTC + 4)
Telephone code : (+995) 240
Zqaltubo (Georgia)
Zqaltubo
Zqaltubo

Zqaltubo ( Georgian წყალტუბო ; also Tskaltubo , Tschaltubo and Tsqaltubo ) is a health resort and thermal bath in Georgia , which was one of the most important health resorts in the Soviet Union . After the collapse of the Union, Zqaltubo increasingly fell into disrepair and has only seen slowly increasing tourism for a few years. The tourist potential of Zqaltubo is classified as high due to its location and natural conditions.

geography

The place is located in the municipality of the same name in the western Georgian region of Imereti , 15 km northwest of Kutaisi , the second largest city in Georgia. The 137  m Tsqaltubo located above sea level has a temperate climate. In the vicinity are the extensive caves of the Prometheus Cave and the Sataplia Cave in the Sataplia Nature Park.

The place has 11,281 inhabitants (as of 2014).

Health resort and resort in the Soviet Union

The thermal springs in the place are slightly radioactive . Your water is used against rheumatism and other joint diseases . The Research Institute for Asthma, Allergies and Immunology of the Georgian Academy of Sciences is located in Zqaltubo . Zqaltubo was connected to the railway network in 1935 with the Brozeula – Zqaltubo railway. Today there is only a local transport connection to Kutaisi .

Zqaltubo was one of the largest health resorts in the republic in the Soviet era. The Soviet Union had a network of rest homes ( dom otdycha ) and sanatoriums ( sanatorija ). In the 1970s, this comprised "around 6,000 sanatoriums, prophylaxis and boarding schools, [...] [where] around 13 million people were cared for annually [...], around 90 percent on privileged conditions at state expense". Because of its slightly radioactive thermal springs, Zqaltubo had been used as a spa since the 19th century. As part of the Soviet health resort policy to maintain the socialist workforce, it was expanded between 1939 and 1955 with historicizing building complexes in the style of a neo-classicism favored by Stalin. This construction phase is to be seen in connection with the policy to develop the eastern Black Sea coast into a 'Caucasian Riviera' for those seeking relaxation. In a second high phase of the 1970s, buildings followed that were architecturally assigned to the constructivist style of so-called 'classic Soviet modernism'.

A stay in one of the Soviet sanatoriums and rest homes not only served to restore the workforce, but also to create a new type of person in the Soviet-ideological sense (cf. comments on homo sovieticus in the work of Svetlana Alexievich). “Recreation was not just leisure time, it was designed 'consciously and culturally', an activity serving the development of 'all-round educated people', including advanced training, theater, regional studies, gymnastics. […] The daily routine was focused on the handling and management of collectives […], not the requirements of individual guests. ”Thus, Zqaltubo was not only subdivided into the various medical areas such as thermal springs, bathing facilities and course rooms, the ideological Instruction and education served. The sanatoriums themselves were divided into professional groups, such as the sanatorium of miners or that of geologists. Recreational stays in Zqaltubo are therefore part of the family biography not only of many Georgians, but also of many other Soviet citizens.

Change in use and deterioration of the sanatoriums after the independence of Georgia

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, large areas of the 'Caucasian Riviera' turned into war zones. While the architecturally most important sanatoria and hotel complexes burned out in Abkhazia, around 10,000 of the approximately 250,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) who fled and displaced before the war moved into hotels, sanatoriums and rest homes in Tskaltubo.

Since the 1930s - as a result of the Soviet and Soviet-Georgian policy to change the ethnic structure of Abkhazia - ethnic Georgians had been increasingly settled in Abkhazia. Since they had already lived there for several generations at the time of the armed conflict, they lost all property with the displacement and were dependent on accommodation in spa hotels and sanatoriums in Zqaltubo, for example - also on the resources that the facilities provided beyond living offered: Spa parks were transformed into gardens and pastures, trees were felled, tables, chairs, counters and parquet floors in the dining rooms were used to cook and heat. Gradually the most magnificent of the buildings and parks also fell into disrepair.

Today the four-star hotel "Tsqaltubo SPA Resort" is operated as the only one of the hotel buildings and sanatoriums that were built in the Soviet era. This is because it had already been occupied by paramilitary units in the early 1990s, which kept the Georgian refugees pushing from Abkhazia to Tskaltubo away. All other hotel buildings in operation today are new buildings, only one of the formerly two medical application centers is currently in operation.

The rest of the buildings erected during the Soviet era are state-owned, and a few have been sold to foreign investors to date. Zqaltubo initially gained international attention as a result of the activities of foreign non-governmental organizations, as the Georgian state was unable to raise the funds to cope with the refugee crisis from its own resources, which was compounded by the conflict over South Ossetia.

The living conditions of the people in the former sanatoriums, hotels and rest homes are precarious. In a series of training and art projects, the attempt is made to work on future prospects, especially for the second and third generation, who were already born in Zqaltubo, in cooperation with those involved on site.

Tourism in Tskaltubo - previous developments and prospects

The local tourism authority in Tskaltubo is trying to develop the resort again. The former spa hotel is to be sold to foreign investors by the Georgian state. Since the beginning of the 2000s, foreigners have gradually returned to Zqaltubo, and backpacking tourism has grown, as evidenced by numerous blogs with reports and photographs in many Western European languages. This tourism, which focuses on extraordinary and special encounters with people who lived under precarious conditions, experienced terrible things and lost everything - all of this on the stage of buildings that, with increasing decay, testified more and more impressively of a time gone by - can be a variant a kind of poverty tourism or dark tourism.

At the same time, under the efforts of the local tourism authority, spa tourism developed, which also advertises with Soviet nostalgia, but focuses more on the local ecological and medical resources from a recreational perspective, such as the moderate climate with mild winters, the healing properties of the springs and the extensive Prometheus caves -Cave and the Sataplia cave in the Sataplia nature park in the vicinity of Tskaltubo. A resurgence is associated above all with vacationers from Russia whose parents and grandparents were in the area during the Soviet Union.

In June 2018, the Georgian state started a new initiative to develop Zqaltubo as the “Medical and Wellness SPA Capital” as part of an international partnership fund for the “largest SPA city in Eastern Europe” and even for the “Reborn Medical and Wellness SPA Capital”. Tskaltubo is intended to satisfy both the needs of an international pool and wellness tourism in a medium price segment as well as those of a high-priced and exclusive international SPA tourism. A state “Tskaltubo Development Company” is to offer the sanatoria and hotel buildings from the Soviet era for auction and coordinate the development on site and later be transferred to a private company. The layout of the seaside resort of Tskaltubos is based on plans from 1955 and 1983.

literature

Web links

Commons : Zqaltubo  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karl Schlögel: The Soviet Century. Archeology of a Lost World . CH Beck, Munich, p. 305 .
  2. ↑ Svetlana Alexijewitsch: Secondhand time . Hanser-Verlag, Munich.
  3. ^ Karl Schlögel: The Soviet Century. Archeology of a Lost World. CH Beck, Munich, p. 314 .
  4. ^ Karl Schlögel: The Soviet Century. Archeology of a Lost World. CH Beck, Munich, p. 369 ff .
  5. ↑ Adam Archimandrite, Beradze Tamaz, Gujejiani Rozeta, Roland Topchishvili, Mariam Lordkipanidze, Lela Margiani, Tariel Putkaradze, Bezhan Khorava: Causes of War. Prospects for Peace. Proceedings Causes of War - Prospects for Peace. Georgian Orthodox Church & Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, accessed October 20, 2019 .
  6. ↑ G. Janelidze: IDPs residing in Tskaltubo request new accommodations. Human Rights House, December 10, 2014, accessed October 20, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Stefan Applis: Tskaltubo - A former health resort between poverty tourism and spa tourism. In: Tskaltubo | A former health resort between poverty tourism and spa tourism. Stefan Applis, August 25, 2018, accessed October 20, 2019 .
  8. ^ Dieter Boden: Georgia. A portrait. Ed .: Special edition for series of publications of the Federal Agency for Civic Education. tape 10267 . Christoph Links-Verlag, Berlin 2018, p. 62 ff .
  9. ^ Agenda GE: 8 IDP families receive new flats in central Georgia. Georgian State, November 11, 2017, accessed October 20, 2019 .
  10. ↑ Public Defender of Georgia: Human Rights Situation of Internally Displaced People in Georgia. 2013, accessed October 20, 2019 .
  11. ↑ report to the central bazaar Tskaltubos as an expression of the living conditions of refugees
  12. ↑ Artas Foundation: Tskaltubo Art Festival. Retrieved October 20, 2019 .
  13. ↑ Cuisines sans frontières: After the course you can work as assistant cooks. 2014, accessed October 20, 2019 .
  14. ↑ Mitchell Kanashkevich: Tskaltubo - A home away from war. Retrieved October 20, 2019 .
  15. ↑ Brutal Tours: Tskaltubo sanatorium from Stalin favorite to urbex spot. Retrieved October 20, 2019 .
  16. ^ Partnership Fund: Medical and Wellness Spa Development. Kohl & Partners, geographic, Nola 7, Georgian State, 2018, accessed October 20, 2019 .
  17. ^ Partnership Fund: Medical and Wellness Spa Development. Kohl & Partners, geographic, Nola 7, Georgian State, 2018, accessed October 20, 2019 .