workersunit 1
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workersunit 1 *
This striking example of Soviet housing architecture was found in the small city Chiatura, located in the southern foothills of the Greater Caucasus, on the second day after we had left Kutaisi.
Chiatura is Georgia’s oldest still-active mining town. What drew us here were the rumours of its ageing cable car system – built to connect the mines directly with the workers’ apartments, as well as for public transport, and still in use today.
By the time we arrived, daylight was already fading. Numerous buildings were clinging to the steep mountainsides along the road. We parked our car in the valley and headed toward the most intriguing structure of all: A striking blue tower perched above the town’s eastern edge.
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After a six-minute ride from the newly modernised cable car station in the city centre we found ourselves at the foot of the building.
Since the building didn’t even have an entry door, I took the opportunity to step inside. My friend, who had been bitten by a stray dog a few days earlier was still suffering from the side effects of the rabies vaccine (=immense butt pain + barely able to lift his legs), waited outside. While a group of people, having a street barbecue on the scruffy patch of grass out front, were already casting sidelong glance at us. Naturally, since I am neither speaking Georgian or Russian, I wasn’t too eager to cross anyone’s paths here – because how tf should I explain to them what I was doing in their house?Up to the 10th floor, the building was inhabited, with four flats on each level. Everything above was vacant and decaying. The staircase was pitch-black and crumbling. The elevator looked like it hadn’t worked in 40 years.
