Staff Writer Thomas Noonan examines the complex history and current struggles faced by refugees in Georgia, many of whom come from Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. He sheds light on the difficulties they face, and the ruined buildings that house their stories.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Georgia has hosted over a hundred thousand refugees coming from Ukraine and Belarus, but mostly it has been Russians fleeing political persecution or conscription in the armed forces. However, this is only the latest in a series of refugee crises that have affected the country since its independence after the collapse of the USSR. Successive wars against the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the 2008 Russia-Georgia war and the expansion of these regions’ borders into Georgia have created a salient problem of internally displaced persons, many of which were expelled from separatist-held regions in brutal ethnic cleansings.
Today, around 300,000 internally displaced people are still registered within Georgia. Most are struggling to integrate into and benefit from the growth of Georgia’s economy, facing difficulties accessing the job market and lacking adequate support structures. However, the collapse of the Soviet tourism industry allowed for a portion of them to be housed in abandoned hotels. Thus, roughly 800 refugees were accommodated in the heart of Tbilisi in the prestigious Intourist Hotel Iveria until its purchase by the Radisson Blu group in 2003.
Another 10,000 refugees found shelter in Tskaltubo, once a prized holiday destination for Soviet citizens seeking to enjoy the supposedly medicinal hot springs given a second life by the Abkhaz War. Abandoned rooms and suites were repurposed into temporary refugee accommodation. Three decades later, most of these temporary residents are still living in the same rooms, and an entire generation was born there.
Today, the beautifully ornate sanatoria are a popular dark tourism destination featuring on guides for urbex enthusiasts seeking to explore off the beaten track. Appealed by the grandeur of Stalinist era neo-classic architecture, tourists often come to Tskaltubo unaware that most of its sanatoria remain inhabited. To benefit from this tourism, some residents charge visitors or offer guided tours of the buildings.
Nino* charges 5 Georgian Lari (approximately £1.4) to guide visitors through the popular Sanatorium Metallurgist before letting them wander on their own through the impressive building. The central staircase allows visitors to explore the building from its flooded basement scattered with Soviet-era mementos – such as gasmasks and respirators looted from the emergency crates, stark reminders of the building’s Soviet history – through to the balcony on the top floor, where a few emptied rooms give a sense of the living conditions of the residents. Once beautiful rooms decay as residents struggle in an economy whose growth, funded by the recent influx of wealthy Russian refugees, further accentuates inequalities and social tensions.
Nino grew up in Abkhazia, she told me while sharing fond memories of the Soviet era, but the war tore her home region apart and in 1992 she had to escape the ethnic cleansing of Georgians perpetrated by the Abkhaz militias, fleeing on foot through the deadly mountains of neighbouring Svaneti.
But enterprising refugees are not the only ones who recognise the economic potential of these attractive and historical buildings. Most of the sanatoria of Tskaltubo have now been privatised in a bid to renovate the balneological park into a European spa capital. Billionaire and founder of the ruling party Bidzina Ivanishvili came into ownership of the gigantic sanatorium complex in 2019 for the symbolic price of 1GEL. However, the sanatoria privatised under this scheme are still occupied by IDP families. They are being resettled, sometimes forcefully into purpose-built accommodation on the outskirts of the town. This modus operandi is similar to other privatisation and revalorisation projects across Georgia, but is often decried by NGOs as a ghettoisation of refugees on the outskirts of society. Indeed, they are settled far from the economic and social opportunities needed to integrate into Georgian society.
The Sanatorium Medea is one of those sanatoria placed in a state of limbo. Sold into private hands as part of the planned renovations, most of its resident have left in exchange for permanent accommodation, and those remaining are facing eviction. The lack of residents means that, for the moment, the building is almost entirely abandoned and unkempt. Water has not yet been cut, which causes flooding on the ground and basement floors. Heavy water damage and mould create extremely unsanitary conditions, as the few remaining residents are forced to breathe in an air charged with spores.
The refugees remain a pressing issue for the Georgian government as it deals with the reality of their presence for the foreseeable future yet refuses to acknowledge the permanence of their situation. Indeed, the Georgian government rejects the status quo and considers Abkhazia and South Ossetia to be under Russian military occupation. Authorities of both republics have been called on multiple times by the UN, the OSCE and the European Union to allow the return of refugees to their original homes, but until this frozen conflict is settled, these IDPs are condemned to live in such conditions, regular flare-ups of hostilities making any serious attempt at resettlement without peace impossible without exposing the population to a second wave of ethnic violence.
*Names modified for anonymity
