Sanatorium Imereti Tskaltubo

Architects Vladimir Alexi-Meskhishvili and L. Janelidze built this ‘Sanatorium Imereti’ in 1961. The city of Tskaltubo became an important spa-resort in the Soviet Union. A total of 23 large holiday hotels, sanatoriums, and their bath houses were built during this period.

Eventually, it took 11 years to finish building this sanatorium. By the time, the buildings’ capacity was 305 beds. It is impressive because of its high architectural and artistic value. In fact, Imereti is a beautiful example of the Stalinist architecture style. In particular, the large round room that housed a concert room with an arched ceiling and an internal circle of narrow columns. Additionally, the sanatorium is surrounded by a garden with pines, palm trees and many bushes.

Since 1993 ‘Imereti’ is devoted to housing families, that are displaced from their homes by the conflict in Abkhazia. Therefore, this old sanatorium housed 83 internal dislocated persons, or IDPs, in 2014. Sadly, at the present time ‘Sanatorium Imereti’ is in a bad state. For example, the balconies, verandas, openings, and windows of the building are in very poor condition. Some wings are already collapsed, a sad state for this once so distinguished building. I visited the Tskaltubo region with its derelict sanatoriums in 2019.