"The city was founded in 1948 to house the workforce of a nearby metallurgical plant, constructed in 1941-1950 to process iron ore from nearby Azerbaijan. Stalin brought workers from various regions in Georgia, specifically from the rural poorer provinces of Western Georgia. It took its name from a nearby ancient town... Rustavi became a key industrial centre for the Transcaucasus region. The main industries are iron and steel milling and the manufacture of metal products and chemicals.
German POWs who were captured in World War II were enlisted to design and build Old Rustavi. Rustavi is actually divided into two parts--Dzveli Rustavi (Old Rustavi) and Akhali Rustavi (New Rustavi). Old Rustavi adheres to Stalinist architectural style..."
(The old part of Rustavi. Houses are supposed to still offer superior quality. In German, we call this type of architecture "Zuckerbäckerstil" = "Sugarbaker-stile", in English it is "Stalin Empire". Other examples can be found in East-Berlin on Karl-Marx-Allee or Warsaw, Palace of Culture. If you want to know more about this style, you might want to read this article on Wikipedia about Soviet architecture.)
"... while New Rustavi is dominated by a multitude of seemingly endless stretch of depressing Soviet era block apartments."
(Well, have a look at this video which I took in summer 2003. Please excuse the quality, it is largely due to the fact that I was filming and driving at the same time.)"The fall of the Soviet Union in 1999 proved disastrous for Rustavi, as it also caused the collapse of the integrated Soviet economy on which the city depended. Today, most of its industrial plants have been shut down..."
(See the cows grazing? This picture is from 1998 or 1999)
"...and 65% of the city's population is unemployed, with all of the attendant social problems of high crime and acute poverty that such a situation brings. The population shrank from 160,000 in the mid-1990s as residents moved elsewhere in search of work."
This picture says it all. It is one of my favorite b/w-pictures:
If you like this please Link Back to this article...
9 comments:
Thank you for posting here video and pics of Rustavi. This is my home town. I haven't been there since 1996 and miss it very much.
Hi,
thanks for leaving the comment. Your positive feedback is a little astonishing to me as my post shows the negative sides of (new) Rustavi. I should add some more (and nicer) pictures of (old) Rustavi soon.
Where do you live now? And why didn´t you see Rustavi since then?
Greetings,
Henning(i)
Please post some more photos of the Stalinist architecture of Rustavi. This is actually very interesting architecture to me, and a lot nicer looking that the prefab Plattenbauten of the last decades of the USSR...Tony Skaggs, USA
http://www.alphistia.com
A small nitpick: the soviet union fell some time before 1999, perhaps You meant 1989?
HI thank you really for leaving on your site some small but still valuable info for Rustavi this is my home town miss it very and visit your web to review, of course it is changed a bit since you have taken that video but still arises memries and calms missing.
Hello,
I would like to see some pictures of new Rustavi as you said. I was there with friends during summer. we went to one flat and we hoped we'll have great time, only food, sometimes alcohol and then sleeping. But for me it was nearer to horror then to relax time. If there is no hot water- i can stand it, but there was no water. Only early in the morning but it was dangerous to drink it, so anyway we had to buy water. We spent all money for water. There was no electrisity. Lack of everything. But it was full of mosquitos.
We had to stay there because my friend lied at home. She said we've went to Racha. :-)
I'm not writing this to show how terrible it was there.
I'm not from Georgia. When i saw Rustavi at first i was shocked by that architecture. We have buildings like this in my country too but they are smaller, cleaner..
Everything seemed so wild to me there. Sometimes i was runnig out from that flat because they were closed in it for five days. I don't understand it cause outside it was better. They didn't want to let me go outside but i wanted to talk to myself so i always ran. it was unbelievable labyrint.
Even the singing of birds was another. Wild. and when i saw your video it remainded me all things there. When i was there i was full of hate to that city.
But when i'm thinking abotu it now, it inspired me in many things.
So after all i had to stand there i admire Rustavi city, for it's specific magic Bauhaus buildings and atmosphere.
Nela
Hello I want to congratulate to them by its site of the Web of the excellent looks like entertained and very good very to me it elaborated.
Thank you for your excellent blog. I wonder what it looks like there now, almost 20 years later. Hopefully some upliftment and development took place. - South African
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