It’s hard to explain exactly how I ended up in Chiatura, Georgia. I’m pretty sure it all started when I was scrolling through Atlas Obscura, one of my favorite travel websites, looking for off-the-beaten-track destinations in Georgia.

I stumbled across the entry for Chiatura and was instantly intrigued. According to Atlas Obscura, the town was home to seventeen aging Soviet-era cable car stations that were still in daily operation. Being a huge lover of many things Soviet-related, including Brutalist architecture and unconventional modes of transportation, I decided to add the Chiatura cable cars to my Georgia travel itinerary.

I knew that visiting Chiatura would not be as simple as visiting other destinations in Georgia, but little did I know exactly how strange the journey would become!

Getting to Chiatura from Tbilisi

My journey to Chiatura started in Tbilisi, the capital city of Georgia. I was staying at Envoy Hostel. I called a taxi to the Didube Bus Station (3 GEL), located on the north end of Tbilisi’s city center. As soon as I arrived, I was swarmed by local men trying to entice me into their taxis or onto their buses to more popular tourist destinations. I repeated my own destination a few times until someone directed me to the area where the Chiatura marshrutkas depart.

Technically, the bus to Chiatura isn’t a bus; it’s a marshrutka. You’ll find these all over Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Russia – vans (large or small) that have been converted into forms of public transport. While they sometimes follow a schedule, it’s more common for a marshrutka to leave when the driver thinks it’s full enough.

When traveling by marshrutka in Georgia, it can be quite helpful to have a local write down the name of your destination in the Georgian alphabet. This way, you can look at the signs on the marshrutkas to confirm that the bus you’ve selected is indeed going to your destination. In the photo above, ‘Chiatura’ is written on the top line of the bus’ sign.

I had read online that buses from Tbilisi to Chiatura depart every hour starting at 8:00 am, but I’m not entirely sure that was correct. I waited almost two full hours for the bus to leave, and it was a slow, four-hour ride to Chiatura. Along the way, the landscape changed dramatically, from the scorching hot, dry area around Tbilisi to a cooler mountainous climate with evergreen trees and fast-flowing rivers. The bus stopped twice so we could use the rustic toilets, buy snacks, and refresh with ice-cold spring water.

The bus dropped me off in the Chiatura town center. I had used my favorite offline maps app, maps.me, to plan the route to my guesthouse. Unfortunately, the app didn’t have the latest information about the state of the roads in Chiatura and led me and my forty-pound backpack straight up a mountain. After twenty minutes of trudging up, I encountered a woman who communicated through a mix of Georgian, Russian, and hand gestures that while she had no idea where my guesthouse was, she was certain it was not any further up the mountain. I turned back down to the town center, soaked in sweat.

A few confusing conversations with locals later, I finally found my guesthouse.

Choosing a Chiatura Hotel

When I visited in 2017, there were no hotels in Chiatura, Georgia. To be honest, I’m pretty sure there were no operational guesthouses either. Somehow, I managed to check into a defunct guesthouse that apparently hadn’t seen a guest in about a decade. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust, and personal items (including used tissues and a half-eaten lollipop) were scattered throughout my room. The door to my room didn’t lock properly, and there were loud banging noises on the roof above my head throughout the night.

Now, cleanliness and comfort aside, the woman managing this guesthouse was an incredible cook. I think I consumed three times my body weight in vegetables, bread, and cheese during my short stay in her home. To top it off, her entire family watched me eat every last bite. Yes, I became the entertainment for three generations of Georgians!

Although the ingredients were quite similar in each meal, the preparation was unique each time. For instance, the potatoes were fried as a side dish one day, then boiled for soup another. The fresh bread soaked up bean stew for lunch and turned into a tomato and cheese sandwich for dinner. It was delicious, especially since there weren’t any real restaurants operating in town during my stay, so I was lucky that my guesthouse served such tasty meals.

However, I can’t truly recommend my guesthouse. It was uncomfortably dirty and I doubt the family running it was prepared to accept guests. Even though I had a native Georgian speaker call to make the reservation days in advance, they didn’t seem ready to accommodate visitors at that time.

So, where can you stay in Chiatura today?

It appears that some new Chiatura hotels are now opening their doors to travelers, including proper hotels and some new guesthouses. The most promising seems to be Hotel Newland, situated close to the city center and even closer to some of the old cable car stations. If I were returning to Georgia, I would definitely stay at this hotel.

If you have a private vehicle, you might consider staying at Hotel Nikolai. It’s about two kilometers from the city center along the main road. During the day, it’s a safe and scenic walk, but it would be dangerous to walk along this unlit stretch of road in the dark.

You can always check Booking.com for the latest deals on Chiatura hotels (including new openings):

Chiatura Cable Cars

Chiatura’s main attraction is its network of rusty cable cars, originally built in the 1950s to transport workers to the manganese mines in the mountains. Unfortunately, during my visit in April 2018, the main cable car station was completely closed. This station is the most central one, from which four different cable car routes depart for the mountains above.

Fortunately, I was able to access the two available Chiatura cable cars departing from Station #1, including the rusty grey car shown at the top of this post and the blue car featured above.

Interestingly, the cable car system was predominantly operated by women. In addition to having a female operator at the base station, women worked on the cars and at the stations atop the mountains. The female operators were friendly and responsive, ready to operate the cars whenever I wanted to go up. There was no formal schedule, and unlike the marshrutkas, they never waited for the cable cars to be full.

I rode the available cable cars multiple times, each ride somehow seeming more harrowing than the last. The windows can be fully opened so you can hang outside and take photos of the town below. Some cable cars had such worn floors that they developed quarter-sized holes through which you could see the ground below. And in a truly terrifying moment, I learned that when the winds pick up, the cable cars stop halfway down and sway in the wind until the operator feels it’s safe to resume motion. During one trip, we hung in the air for nearly ten minutes. Luckily, the cable car attendant maintained a calm demeanor, never displaying concern.

All the staff members operating the cable cars were incredibly welcoming and eager to share their community’s transportation system. In fact, when I went to ride the cable cars one morning, the workers at the station offered me some of their beer at 10:00 am. Curiously, they never charged me for any of the trips I took and rolled their eyes when I tried to pay for a ticket. I’m unsure whether this system is always free or if they might charge again when more lines open, but it was a delightful surprise to ride the cars unimpeded by fare.

The only instance of friction occurred when I attempted to photograph the internal workings of the “engine room.” Everything else seemed acceptable for photos, and there were no restrictions in standing away from the cable cars as they arrived at the stations, but the mechanical rooms at the base were clearly off-limits to photography.

What’s At the Top of the Chiatura Cable Cars?

At the top of one cable car, there was an active mine. The workers found it amusing that an English-speaking girl had arrived at their mine all alone. They invited me into the working area for a look; however, I didn’t venture in very far since I was wearing flip-flops (don’t tell OSHA!).

If asked, I’m sure they would have allowed me to ride in the mining carts as well.

At the top of the other Chiatura cable car, there was a residential area, though it was hard to confirm whether the Soviet-style apartment blocks were occupied. I heard noises coming from inside, but the main doors appeared blocked.

Some buildings were freshly painted, suggesting the area was more inhabited than it seemed.

Both stations I visited had loosely-marked viewpoints that offered clear views of the city below. They weren’t fenced or paved, so be cautious in slippery weather and keep an eye on any children you bring along.

I’ve heard there are other cable cars located outside of the city center, including one toward Hotel Nikolai, and a few others in the more forested surroundings. Accessing them would require a private vehicle or you could hire a taxi (or a person with a car who has nothing to do) in Chiatura.

Some other cable cars appear to be tiered, where you take one cable car from the base to an initial mountain station, then continue upward with a second cable car. However, it can be challenging to know which parts are operational at any given time.

What’s Else is in Chiatura, Georgia?

I arrived in Chiatura expecting to ride seventeen different cable cars, but I found that only two were accessible and operational. This left me with plenty of free time on my hands.

I spent a few hours exploring the town itself. It’s one of the most poorly situated towns I’ve ever encountered, with mountains flanking either side of the city center and a river running right through it. There are very few crossings (especially for vehicles).

Much of the city center is filled with Soviet-style apartment blocks. Often, the entrances were dimly lit, and the ground-floor windows were boarded up, though people were still living on the upper floors. I got caught in a sudden downpour and ducked into an open entrance – I could hear families going about their lives inside. Some sources estimate that the town’s population may have been over 50,000 during the heyday of the mining industry, but today fewer than 20,000 people reside in Chiatura.

The edges of the city center are full of remnants from construction projects and machinery left over from the bustling mining era.

One unique highlight of Chiatura is its daily street market, sprawling across the streets on the west side of the city center (near the police station and the water fountain). The market is literally carved into the space below an abandoned cable car station.

The fresh fruits and vegetables at the market are stunning, with enormous quantities sold at incredibly low prices. If you rent an apartment with a kitchen, you’ll be able to enjoy the local produce for every meal.

Behind the street vendors, there’s also a small indoor market, built in a Soviet style. This market closes earlier than the street sellers, so make sure to visit in the morning if you want to snag meats, grains, legumes, or homemade packaged goods (like the pickled vegetables shown above).

Chiatura actually has a real tourist attraction – the Mghvimevi Monastery located in a mountain cave about half a kilometer east of the center of Chiatura. The cave is thirty-five meters deep and is noted for its exquisitely decorated doors. Unfortunately, it closed for the day before I got the chance to enter.

Chiatura is also not too far from the Katskhi Pillar, a forty-meter rock pillar topped with a small monastery. The monastery is so tiny that only one monk lives there, and he prohibits women from climbing the pillar. Access for men appears to be flexible – sometimes they have been allowed to climb up (via ladder or rock-climbing gear) while other times the site has been completely closed to visitors. You’ll need a private car or taxi to reach the Katskhi Pillar.

Where to Go After Chiatura

Chiatura’s main bus station is just a few doors up from the police station. From here, there are infrequent buses to nearby villages and more frequent buses to Tbilisi and Kutaisi (the latter requiring a transfer in Zestaphoni, which is worth it for the name alone!). From Kutaisi, you can also catch the daily train headed to Batumi on the Black Sea coast.

My next destination was Mestia, so I took the bus to Kutaisi, stayed overnight in town, and then caught the 10:00 am marshrutka to Mestia. This particular route is one of the most popular bus routes in all of Georgia, and the 10:00 am marshrutka is often fully booked by 8:00 am, so be sure to arrive very early.

FAQ

1. How do I get to Chiatura from Tbilisi?

The best way to reach Chiatura from Tbilisi is by taking a marshrutka from the Didube Bus Station. The ride usually takes about four hours.

2. Are there hotels or guesthouses in Chiatura?

Yes, while there were limited options a few years ago, new hotels and guesthouses are now opening, including Hotel Newland, which is close to the city center.

3. What is the main attraction in Chiatura?

The main attraction in Chiatura is its network of old cable cars, which were originally built to transport workers to the manganese mines in the mountains.

4. Is Chiatura safe for tourists?

Generally, Chiatura is considered safe for tourists, but as with any travel, it’s wise to remain aware of your surroundings, particularly when exploring less populated areas.