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This striking example of Soviet housing architecture stands in the southern foothills of the Greater Caucasus, discovered during our journey through Georgia's remote hinterlands. Chiatura is Georgia’s oldest mining town, and its workers played a key role at the beginning of the October Revolution. Chiatura had drawn us with rumors of its legendary yet aging cable car system, which links the mines to the miners' accommodations. A brief detour was in order. By the time we arrived, daylight was already fading. What captivated us most were the numerous Soviet-era workers' housing units clinging to the steep mountainsides along the road. We parked our car in the valley headed towards the most intriguing structure of all—a striking blue building above the town’s eastern edge.
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The colorful building immediately caught my eye. After a six-minute ride from the newly modernized cable car station in the center, a brief stop at a small amusement park, and a ten-minute walk, we found ourselves at our targeted building. Some residents were having a kind of street BBQ on the small grassy area in front of the building, casting sidelong glances at us. Since the building didn’t have an entry door, I took the opportunity to enter a dark corridor leading to the staircase. My friend, who had been bitten by a stray dog a few days earlier and was suffering from the side effects of a rabies injection, waited outside to back me up. Unable to speak or understand either Georgian or Russian, I carefully avoided crossing anyone’s path, as I wouldn’t have known how to explain my reason for being in their crumbling building.
The staircase was pitch-black, apparently without electricity, and the old elevator must have been out of order for years. There were occasional holes in the floor. The building was occupied up to the tenth floor, with two staircases and four flats on each level. Everything above was vacant and decayed.
