Landscape after Saakashvili

By Georgy Kalatozishvili, Tbilisi. Exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza

Batumi, the main Georgian resort, has a natural trait: in spring, late fall and winter, the climate here is a lot better than in August and September, when the rains are heavy. The old government put a lot of effort into making Batumi an interesting and attractive place throughout the year. Mikheil Saakashvili spent the ten years of his presidency under the slogan of transforming the Georgian Black Sea pearl into “the Caucasus Cannes.” Saakashvili spent more time in Adjara than in Tbilisi, insisting that Batumi was much better than Nice, not to mention Sochi.

In order to understand how close the statements are to the bitter reality, one needs to try one of the tourism attractions of the Adjaran capital, the cableway over the city to the mountain. The cable car was launched long before the switch of government. Many of Saakashvili’s supporters thought the project was a mistake. Some say that they tried to convince the president of the pointlessness of constructing the cableway and an observation platform on the mountain.

Having reached the Argo the platform on the Argo cable car and observed Batumi from above, one can see how petty the changes in the city are in comparison with the poor housing and devastated post-Soviet infrastructure.

European cities may be able to afford to beautify the roofs of their cities with a certain pleasant colour and set a common standard for chimneys so that the city would look enthralling from above. This is impossible in Batumi though: the dilapidation is just too eye-striking and new buildings drown among “khrushchovkas.”

They are hard to see when you walk around the beautiful boulevards and gaze at the skyscrapers. But when you have a look from above, everything becomes obvious: there’s the enormous skyscraper of the Technological University visible near the sea. The building looks very impressive when seen from the coastal boulevard, especially considering that the architects managed to build a Ferris wheel at the very top.

We continue looking: there’s the Mother of Language monument, of the Georgian alphabet. Saakashvili wanted to astonish Europeans with Georgia's unique alphabet. There’s the Sheraton Hotel, which used to be the highest building in Batumi. Construction of the Trump Tower skyscraper nearby has never started. Only a large foundation pit was dug. The large Piazza Tower of Batumi seems to drown in countless old dilapidated buildings when seen from above.

What catches the eye from the top of the mountain are the standard Soviet five-storey and two-storey houses, old factories taken apart for scrap metal in the first years of independence, rows of old carriages at the local railway depot and so on.

The new buildings of Saakashvili resemble islands of welfare and development in a sea of old rags and backwardness. It is a very accurate and obvious illustration of the results of the third Georgian president in Batumi and the country as a whole, where the islands of successful reforms are sinking in the ocean of unresolved problems that have only worsened in the last 10 years.