Batumi Boom Town, Georgia 2024

As we got closer to the city, big advertising signs on the side of the road displayed brand-new apartments for sale. As the hillside opened up and the road led through the first outskirts of the city, tall construction sites on the upper side of the road presented themselves to us. Yet, we were still guessing what all this meant because, so far, we had experienced the Georgian building scapes as only minimally maintained post-Soviet towns with chaotic road layouts. As soon as we reached the coast, where the view opened up to the main city in the distance, it became obvious why people were calling this 'the Las Vegas of the Black Sea.' Batumi really was a blinking and colorfully illuminated agglomeration of extravagant high-rises and the second-largest city in Georgia, with a population of 170,000.

We looked for accommodations on Airbnb beforehand. Our first apartment was in one of the older districts of Batumi, a four-story house with an external staircase. Because there were no other guests, we moved up one floor. Here, outside our bedroom window, we could see the new-generation high-rises towering above the tin roofs of the aged apartment blocks from the Soviet era. It promised to become an exciting stay.

1 The Night of Arrival

2 Checking out the areas close by

Batumi is an old port city in the south of Georgia, very close to the Turkish border at the Black Sea. In the past, it was a key port for the historic Silk Road and later played a significant role in distributing Azerbaijani oil to the Western world. During the USSR, the city grew into a popular resort town in the south of the Soviet Union. After the collapse of the USSR, Batumi remained in the autonomous region of Adjara, which was ruled independently from Georgia until 2004. In the early 2000s, Batumi attracted many Kazakh investors and gained a reputation as the "Las Vegas of the Black Sea," drawing gamblers from Turkey and Iran, where gambling is banned. In recent years, a sheer real estate boom has caught up with the city. Its seaside has transformed into a downtown area of tall hotel and apartment buildings. Batumi has had the fastest-growing real estate market in Georgia, but even during peak holiday seasons, it seems to lack tourists, as the buildings are not even close to being fully occupied. Today, many expats and young Russians and Ukrainians fleeing military conscription in their homelands are living here, making Russian the unofficial main language and most of the time the only language heard on the streets.

3 Moving to a Boom Town Apartment (28GEL/10€ per night special discount)

Through our second accommodation, we wanted to get a better picture of Batumi's current real estate boom. We stayed in a one-room apartment in the Batumi Beach Tower, located in the city’s downtown area. The building was one of the many modern apart-hotels—a hybrid of individually owned apartments, concierge services, and hotel amenities. At the reception desk, we got our key.

Inside our room, everything was tidy and clean, but there were loose cables hanging from the wall, a suspiciously shaky balcony railing, and algae in the shower. I must admit, the bed was the most comfortable of our entire trip, but we could constantly hear the sounds of the elevators arriving in the corridor outside our room. Later, we realised that the entire ground floor of the building was only half-utilised. One side had been transformed into the hotel lobby, while the other half was a vacant construction site with bare concrete walls. It turned out that all floors above the 24th were completely empty. And if you happened to press the "Roof" button, the elevator would stop exposed to the open sky with only a grid door preventing a fall.

4 INVEST NOW!

After our first few days, we were still overwhelmed by the dynamism of Batumi’s construction sector. I viewed the numerous billboards around the city, which promised even taller apartment towers and luxurious lifestyles, with suspicion. To me, the building of our second accommodation exemplified Batumi’s current redevelopment very well. Throughout our trip, we made several of these observations: the initial grand vision doesn't quite match the reality.

5 Conquering the Black Sea Pearl

Besides accomplishing our self-set goal of climbing the most fashionable skyscraper in this town, located in the prestigious New Boulevard area, we discovered many interesting things about this dreamlike boomtown.

6 Quick Fact Sheet (further elaboration is desired)

1. The whole city is full of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras, in public on every street corner as well as in private areas.
2. Yes, the cameras are working and are monitored!
3. High-rise buildings and neon signs seem to be a kind of urban culture in Batumi.
4. Public ATM machines run by the city government, where you can cash out your bitcoins.
5. You can gamble and place sports bets on the same machines.
6. You can pay your traffic fines on the same machines.
7. Even compared to other Georgian cities, there are a whole lot more police cars patrolling.