Together with my Bulgarian key expert college and his wife I went on a weekend trip to Borjomi, with the purpose of visiting some of their friends who is working for the Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park covering 76,000 hectares in the lesser Caucasus Mountains and inhabited by bear, wolfs and lynx.
Borjomi is famous for its mineral water industry its spring with hot healthy water, and the National Park. Borjomi mineral water is particularly well-known in those countries which were a part of the former USSR; the bottling of mineral water is a major source of income for the area. Because of the supposed curative powers of the area's mineral springs, it is a frequent destination for people with health problems.
Already before the Russian Revolution Borjomi was a favourite summer resort for the aristocracy, which gave it its popular name of “the pearl of Caucasus.”
The Soviet regime confiscated all aristocratic mansions and turned them into sanatoria, frequented by the Communist party elite.
Now many of the hotels and signatories is inhabited by refugees from Abkhazia (250.000 Georgians fled Abkhazia during the Georgian Abkhazian war 1992-1993 resulted in an ethnic cleansing of the Georgians in Abkhazia) , who lives a miserable life without job and future.
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