OXIDIZED CITY
OXIDIZED CITY
Rustavi, Georgia
Malkit Shoshan and Daniela Bellelli Driving east from Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, Rustavi appears unexpectedly, a massive urban landscape in between the bare hilly landscape. Descending the easy slopes, an immense industrial site lies at the horizon, its chimney and blast furnaces forming an impressive skyline. Along the road, an endless stretch of dull gray housing blocks strikes our course. The sight is impressive and it clashes with the typical small rural settlements. Once considered a model Soviet city, Rustavi is situated about 35 kilometers from Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi. It lies strategically on the track of the ancient Silk Road, at the cross roads between the South Caucasian countries with the Azeri and Armenian borders only 50 km away. One of the most important railways of the Caucasus, connecting the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, passes through Rustavi and for a long time it transported tons of iron ore from Azerbaijan to the steel mill. The flow of the Kura River and a 1.5km wide strip of wild vegetation divides Dzveli Rustavi (Old Rustavi) from Akhali Rustavi (New Rustavi) the two residential areas, built in different times to serve the industrial site. These two settlements, connected by a bridge, could hardly be more different in style and urban design, clearly representing very different moments in the realization of the Soviet Utopia. Rustavi’s master plan was made in Moscow and it embodies Stalin’s ideas about industrialization of the new Soviet society and landscape. The process of transformation of the rural areas into industrial ones happened simultaneously all over the new Soviet republics. Rustavi was one of the so-called ‘polygon towns’, a series of industrial cities linked to each other and operating like the assembly line of one factory. In consonance, the Georgian city was depended heavily on commercial agreements with the other Soviet republics. The Transcaucasia Metallurgical Plant of Rustavi introduced the petit Georgian economy and landscape to an unknown mega-scale production system. The city was initially planned for 160.000
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workers and their families that brought by Stalin’s order from rural areas. The size of the industrial site became soon twice the size of the city itself. Rustavi’s steel mills represented one of the leading industrial sites of the Soviet Union’s and a strategic node of its integrated economy, exporting its products to more than 30 countries. Later on, the explosion of the population and the need of workers resulted in the development of the New Rustavi on the northern side of the Kura River. The population reached a top of 300.000 people. However, the collapse of Soviet Union in 1991 resulted with a fatal fate of the city. Many of its old residents eventually decided to leave the city, and sometimes the country. Those who remained were often left without formal work. Rustavi’s population shrank to 100,000 in 2002. SIGHTS The city stretched from one old Soviet monument to another and it ends with an industrial area. Rustavi developed along one main road. On which, thousands of workers went to work every day following the rhythm of production while nowadays, Rustavi looks like a ghost town. STEEL HORSES Symbols and celebrative monuments of the Soviet past are still scattered a long the street. At the entrance to the city, two iron horses mark the indomitable force of the workers. The meaning contrasts with the present situation of the city where more than seventy percent of its inhabitants are unemployed.
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OLD HOTEL Alongside the steel horses, is an old Soviet Hotel that was built in the seventies. The hotel used to host inspectors and managerial staff who were coming from Moscow together with their families for business or vacation. During the last decades, refugees fleeing the armed conflicts that have bruised the Caucasian region after the collapse of the Soviet Union, have progressively occupied the hotel which now functions as a high-rise refugee camp: an ironic destiny for a building destined to mark the entrance to the ‘workers city’. BLOCKS The area between the entrance of the City and the Kura river is packed with a regular stretch of repetitive soviet blocks That was built during blocks
the seventies and eighties. A rapid construction aimed at accommodating the needed labor force of the booming city. Today, this endless housing park seems abandoned, some parts are vandalized or occupied by refugees. Between the buildings, the public space is open and the greenery is not cured. Scattered cows graze freely along the road, revealing the city’s impoverishment and a rusted gas pipeline runs on the ground along the building. GERMANS The built environment changes dramatically when crossing the bridge on the Kura River that connects the New Rustavi to the old city center. The construction of Old Rustavi started in 1948 and it is almost entirely a work of masonry, typical of the Stalinist period. The style of the buildings, with their arcades, decorated balconies and stucco work, and the typology are very different from the traditional Georgian houses, sober and with external galleries. The current residents claim that German POW (prisoners of war) were employed to carry out this labor-intensive and time-consuming work. The use of this inexpensive work-force explains the choice for the traditional construction process which few years later had to be abandoned for more industrial ones to answer the need of mass construction. Locals still remember that the German builders imported to Rustavi not only the aesthetic style and the traditional building skills, but also the language and the food specialty like German pastry that can be still found in the local bakeries. The decorated façades have been recently renewed and repainted with colorful tints, typical of the Georgian exuberance. Even so, the renovation barely masks the penury of the city especially in the perpendicular streets. The houses are in poor state and the public space is abandoned. A typical Georgian selective renovation, as in Tbilisi, only the buildings on the main roads receive a make-over while the rest of the city remains the same. STADIUM Near the river, a long wall closes the sight of a municipal stadium. In the Soviet Union, sport was an instrument to affirm moral and material supremacy. Nowadays, also this monument is corroded. The entrance is an eclectic assemblage
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of arches decorated with a gigantic footballs and neoclassic columns. The composition is completed by two inscriptions (in Georgian and Russian), which seem to indicate the link between the stadium and the steel industry. The interior of the stadium profits from a slope in the terrain that degrades towards the river. Like in an amphitheater, people can sit on the steps consumed by time and rain. SWIMMING POOL Close by the stadium is a swimming pool. Its main room walls are decorated with a colorful mosaics, celebrating the aquatic sports. Mythical figures, like semi-divinity plays with the water. MUSEUM The museum of Rustavi is located in the old part of the city, in a residential area. It used to be the city pride, celebrating the accomplishment of the Soviet enterprise. However, these days the building looks grimy and deserted. On the walls, black and white photo’s document the birth and construction of the industrial center. The visual narration gradually portray the development of the city: from pictures of a bare landscape with a dirt road to the first tent camps of the workers with a small factory. Then the pioneering construction of the first neighborhood clusters, up to the moment when Rustavi was a city for 300,000 workers and a successful industrial area exporting its products to the rest of the Soviet Union. A rusted iron globe demonstrates the global network of the polygonal city (photo). In addition, a picture of the director of the plant standing in front of the city’s masterplan. In a glass box, pics of workers enjoying their jobs the portraits accompanied with an exhibition of their original uniforms, everyday tools, This ensemble of humble people stories and efforts gains relevance in the framework of the collective achievements. The commemoration ends suddenly with pictures taken in the 80’s. It seems that since this moment the museum is standing still. LENIN’S The statue of Lenin use to stand in the middle of Rustavi old town, on a platform placed in the central square that is defined by beautiful classic facades and green gardens. The fall of the Soviet Union ended the life of Stalin’s statue as well. It was then smashed into pieces and transformed
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into a stack of black stones which are still standing there as a reminder of the defining moment the city’s history. FACTORY At the end of the main road, the industrial area begins. In its entrance stands an enormous gate. The arrival to this place is carefully designed as an experience in itself. The built environment suddenly ends and the main road widens. A flat area of half a kilometer adorn with strips of well-groomed grass and trees. The representative function of this area becomes clear, at the end of the visual ax, the spectacular gate of the industrial site. It stands in front of is a modern ‘temple of the work power’ with an impressive 400m wide and 5-storey-tall façade. The focal point of the symmetric construction is a projecting central entrance underlined by a double order of arcades: the lower one serving as entrance and exit gate to the plant, the upper serving as setting for celebrations and representative icon of the Soviet work power. The only ornaments on the façade are statues of workers. The impact of the building is undeniable.
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In front of the building is a large empty square that permits a complete view of the building. Locals remember when the entire city was going to work at regular times and the plant functioned as an immense lung. Every day, at exact times, a huge crowd of workers retraced their steps to and from the plant, beating the biological rhythm of the city. Outside the entrance of the industrial site, groups of old workers sitting and chatting in local taverns. They are mostly above their 60s. The new executives in Tbilisi who steer the country into a vague future seemed to forget places like Rustavi. Where old people hold to the communist dream even if it is slowly, but visibly, fading away along with their city.
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Civil Railway Industrial Railway Main Street Street River
to Tbilisi
Residential Area Industrial Area Industrial Plants New Rustavi Old Rustavi Steel Horses Lenin Statue Hotel Museum Swimming pool Stadium Entrance Building Taverns/Restaurants Prisons Outdoors pool Cinema Soviet monuments
Rustavi Georgia Rustavi map
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