Black River, Urban Exploration of Abandoned Russian Architecture and Marooned by Thunderstorm

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Today has been my favourite day of the holiday, I know I said that yesterday, but today has surpassed it.

It was a tour west again, this time to see mostly abandoned Soviet architecture in Chiatura, plus some unusual places of interest. Our wonderful guide was Sally, plus we had a driver and just two other tourists, a couple from Amsterdam, Hanukah and Sasha who were very interesting.

As always, the traffic was bad in Tbilisi, this is because of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine resulting in 60,000 Russians moving to Georgia to get away from the war. It’s not just about avoiding fighting, but because all living conditions for the Russian people have vastly declined with the worldwide sanctions and their bank accounts are suspended. Georgia is a good place for them as it’s a neighbouring country with a lot of Russian speakers. There’s also Ukrainian refugees, they get on as they’re all opposed to the war.

We had a great conversation about languages, especially Georgian, Dutch, English and Russian. Georgians don’t have many swear words so tend to use English ones and that makes me so proud! Russian swear words are pretty good too as they tend to be short, I must learn some. The Dutch don’t have many taboo words and use diseases as swear words, mostly outdated ones such as cholera and typhoid, but sometime cancer is used. The impact seems a little lost in translation.

We were also discussing the difference between Dutch and English people, I was very interested because my new job’s HQ is based in the Netherlands. So whereas English people in emails say a lot of “sorry to bother you”, “I just wanted to say…” “I hope you don’t mind but…”, the Dutch people get straight to the point. They find all that faffing rude because it’s wasting everyone’s time. Good to know.

The Eastern people of Georgia are different to the West too. So in the West, if you are visiting a family, they will keep asking you if you want something to eat and you keep having to say “No” multiple times when you’re no longer hungry. In the East, if you say “No” once, chances are you’ll go hungry for the rest of the day.

I was told about the people of nearby Kutaisi who are known for their wry sense of humour. Yesterday there was an armed robbery in Kutaisi where locals were taken hostage. The police asked to speak to the hostages and I was given examples of some of the supposed conversation:
Police: Are the robbers armed?
Hostages: No, they have a knife and fork.
Robbers: We demand 3 million within 3 hours.
Hostages: Wait, what, we have to wait three hours?!
Is that in Euros or Laris?
Robbers: We’re live on Facebook
Hostages: How many views do you have, 2?

There are 11 regions in Georgia, some with their own dialects, some with their own languages. Other differences include work ethics, mannerisms and culture. Apparently Russians near the border are slow workers, whereas the Georgians next to them are fast and efficient.

Sally remembers the Russian invasion, she was 10 years old at the time. She recalls cousins, aunts and uncles who had been driven out of their homes escaping to them. She’s upset that no other countries sent aid, unlike how they are for the Ukraine now. We could only guess: less social media, fewer people have heard of Georgia, general indifference of things being far away.

Like us, Hanukkah and Sasha are into urban exploration and photography, so we worked well together with no hold ups. Urban exploring is basically nosing into old, decaying and abandoned buildings. It’s illegal in The Netherlands and the UK but legal in Georgia. However, you should always be careful.

The city of Chiatura has a population of 10,000 and the main employment is mining and working in the manganese factories or services for the factory workers. Both men and women work in the mines. There’s no university here and few opportunities. The people are poor and the young adults are moving away for a better life.

Our first stop was by an abandoned cable car station, there’s a lot of cable cars in the area, this is because of the many mountains. The cable cars are public transport, being a lot more efficient than using winding mountain roads to get to the top. They are faster than the tourist ones that I am accustomed to.

Nearby were two manganese factories, one abandoned, one still in use but from the outside, they both looked derelict. Lorries were in use as people were working there, so we watched from the fence. They are quite used to Sally bringing tourists to watch them.
There’s a river running alongside the factories and the water is black and polluted, even worse than UK beaches now that the Tories are pumping waste and poo into them. Manganese is washed in the factories to produce iron and stainless steel and there’s black dust all over the surrounding area. The factory owners have been fined a few times for polluting, but they just pay the fines and carry on.

The city is packed full of apartment blocks, relics of the Soviet Union and were originally white or grey, but the Georgians have since painted them many bright colours and they look all the better for it.

We stopped at a gas station where we were greeted by a tiny puppy young enough to still have blue eyes. This was a toilet stop, and this toilet was no fairytale. When I saw Sally cleaning her shoes with wet wipes upon exiting, I knew I was in for an interesting time, but needs must, It was a squat loo in an airless hut that made my eyes sting. At least it flushed and there was a tap for hand washing.

Across the road were many steps up to Mgvimevi Monastery, so naturally, as we are on holiday, that was our next destination. It was hot, so the metal railings weren’t pleasant to use. It became quite muggy and sweat was pouring down my face, stinging my eyes. But I’m grateful, because once upon a time, the only way to the entrance would have been a rickety old ladder.

The monastery is Georgian Orthodox, partly carved into the rock with intricate carvings from the 13th century. The black monks that live there require us all to cover up. Even the menfolk who were wearing long trousers needed wraps around their waists to cover the knee area of their trousers. Glyn’s slipped, revealing one knee, the saucy minx.

It was very pretty, and wonderfully cool inside, with water dripping from above, because it is a mountain cave after all. Even though I’m a bit churched out, I enjoyed this one.

Next we walked past a very grand old Russian theatre that recently been put back into use again. In fact there was something going on inside, so we couldn’t go in. Passing a dried out water feature, we arrived at a derelict railway station. We thought we saw passengers waiting on the platform, but it was just the local youths hanging out. Trains still pass through slowly and we all got excited to photograph a passing freight train, much to the amusement of the driver.

The locals were also bemused when we photographed another derelict cable car station in town. It only shut 6 years ago, but it couldn’t have been in good condition then. A rusty cable car hung over the street and we took turns climbing up the worn steps to a wobbly platform to get a closer shot of it.

Lunch was in a family home. The area currently isn’t touristy, so they don’t have many Georgian restaurants as Georgians wouldn’t pay to eat food they have at home every day. The home was behind metal gates that had seen better days, but inside the yard was covered with grapevines and a table laden with delicious food was waiting for us. They also had a shy ginger cat. Most families make their own wine in Georgia and this family was no exception, serving homemade wine and Chacha. The food was amazing! This was the best meal I’ve had in Georgia and it kept coming!

After lunch, our minibus climbed uphill to the Chiatura Memorial which is a giant statue beside shabby apartment blocks. It’s a World War II memorial statue dedicated to the Russian soldiers who only had one rifle per two soldiers to fight the Germans.

Further along, we arrived at Katski Pillar, a natural limestone monolith around 45 metres in height that has a church and wine cellar at the top, there’s always wine involved here! Ten black monks (they wear black robes) live up there, I can imagine it’s a bit cramped as it doesn’t look that big. It was completed around the 9th to 10th century. Tourists were banned from climbing up to it in 2016 as too many were going. In all honesty, I was relieved as it’s a 25 minute climb up a narrow metal ladder and we already had to climb up a steep hill to get to the base.

On the way back, we stopped at a very new monument, shaped like a hairpin, I’m not sure what it’s called, but it was Russian in style which is odd nowadays. There were a couple of platforms from which you could look over Chiatura to the mountains on the other side. There was a lovely cool breeze that kept us there a while.

Unusually we went to a cable car station that was open. This is public transport, not a tourist attraction, so only 50 tetris (half a lari, so 15 pence) to go up. The distance is around 200 metres up, and far faster than having to drive or walk up the zigzag mountain road.

At the top was an old Sanitarium, now used as homes, plus a building site as they are building a fairground. This is the third fairground I’ve come across in Georgia that is up a mountain requiring a cable car to get there! Maybe they place them high so that being at the top of the Ferris Wheel is even higher. Currently there’s only a Merry-go-round and a Ferris Wheel, but nearby a bunch of guys worked hard with various machinery, so there’ll be more soon.

At the edge of the site we found a piece of history that won’t last for much longer, the Pioneer Palace that would have been incredibly grand during its heyday. This was the Soviet equivalent of a student summer camp and built in 1960 and is Stalinist Empire style architecture with colonnades and sweeping stairs. In 1991 it was heavily damaged by an earthquake and is in a state of near collapse. It was possible to go inside areas and try to imagine how it would have looked in the past, just avoid the cow poo!

Beyond the Merry-go-round, we could see the top of a lone apartment block. The upper floors appeared empty with broken windows, but lower down were signs of life with curtains and washing. What drew me to photograph it was the colour, the main building was green, however the occupants of each apartment had painted the outer walls a variety of hues, as far as they could reach, making it a patchwork of colour.

What was even more awesome is that the front of the new cars on the Ferris Wheel had been painted in matching colours. I love that detail that the fairground designers added.

Meanwhile, the sky was turning dark and the breeze was picking up as we started to feel a few drops of rain. It was time to go. We piled back onto the cable car alongside some locals and waited, only to be told to get off. There was a thunderstorm coming and the cable cars won’t run, I guess it’s dangerous.

Sure enough, lightning cracked the sky and thunder rattled overhead. Birds flew to the station for shelter and a stray dog stared at the sky. I don’t know what the locals were talking about, but they were having a great laugh. We watched the storm for a while, but who knew how long it would last, so Sally phoned our driver, asking him to drive up the mountain to fetch us. He didn’t know the way so a local bloke took the phone to tell him. He arrived just as the rain started to batter the land.

It’s a good job he did come and get us, because if we’d waited, we would have been there for hours. The thunderstorm followed us for most of our long journey home which was over 2.5 hours.

The storm added a bit of drama to an already awesome day, the best one I’ve had this holiday because it was fun, interesting and different to the other tours. Sally is an excellent and friendly guide (we even got a hug when we parted) and our driver was safe and a nice bloke. The food was wonderful and plentiful, plus our fellow tourists were great company.

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