Tskaltubo, a former luxurious Soviet spa town, now lies in ruins. During its prime, it was one of the Soviet Union’s top spa resorts, famous for its healing mineral springs and radon water therapy. The development of this sanatorium town started in the mid-1920s, and by the 1980s, it flourished under the Soviet policy of ensuring everyone had a “right to rest.”
The Tskaltubo health complex boasted 19 grand sanatoriums and 9 bathhouses nestled around a large park. In its heyday, the town saw four daily trains arriving from Moscow, carrying visitors on state-sponsored health retreats. The resort even drew many prominent historical figures, including Joseph Stalin, who had a special bathhouse built just for him.
In 1990, the collapse of the Soviet Union led to the abandonment of Tskaltubo, once a bustling spa town. Its grand concrete buildings were left to deteriorate. However, they didn’t remain empty for long. When war broke out in the nearby Abkhazia region in 1992, around 200,000 ethnic Georgians fled the conflict. About 8,000 refugees found temporary shelter in Tskaltubo’s vacant sanatoriums. Twenty-five years later, hundreds of families still live in these old neoclassical structures.
As of November 2019, Sanatorium Iveria has been sold and is undergoing renovations, now surrounded by fencing.
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