Batumi

Batumi (ბათუმი in Georgian, Batum in Turkish, Батуми in Russian) is a 169,100 inhabitants city by the Black Sea and capital of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara, in southwestern Georgia. This city is the 2nd most populated in Georgia and the country’s main summer resort. It has a charming Old Town with renovated late-19th century architecture, a beautifully maintained corniche and beach, and new hotels and tower blocks.

How do I arrive to Batumi?

  Batumi is one of the most important city in Georgia so there are many way to arrive there from all over the country. 

• Plane: there are national (reaching Tbilisi) and international flights (from cities such as Baku, Yereva, Kyiv, Minsk or Tel Avivi) to Batumi International Airport, popular among budget-airlines. To go from the airport to the city there are buses (bus 10) and taxis. It's 5 km south from the center of the city.
• Boat: there are ferries that link Batumi with the city of Sochi (twice per week; aprox. 5 hours) in Russia or Odessa (aprox. 42 hours) in Ukraine, from Jun to Sep.
  
• Train: trains are mostly slower and less frequent than road transport, although may be more enjoyable. There are train routes from Batumi to destinations like Kutaisi (once every day; aprox. 4 hours) or Tbilisi (many daily trains; aprox. 6 hours). 
• Bus: the city has frequent connections from different bus stations with all the cities of Georgia like Khulo (every 30 minutes; aprox. 2 hours), Kutaisi (hourly; aprox. 2 hours), Akhaltsikhe (twice per day; aprox. 6 hours), Tbilisi (every hour; aprox. 6 hours), or Mestia (aprox. 6 hours). There are also international connections with Rize (7 times per day; aprox. 4 hours), Trabzon (7 times per day; aprox. 4 hours) and Istambul (daily; aprox. 22 hours) in Turkey; or Yerevan (daily; aprox. 10 hours) in Armenia.
  
• Car: renting a car you can reach more destinations than with other means of transport. From Batumi you could arrive to Sarpi (aprox. 30 minutes), Machakhela National Park (aprox. 40 minutes), Kobuleti (aprox. 45 minutes), Mtirala National Park (aprox. 1 hour), Ozurgeti (aprox. 1 hour 5 minutes), Poti (aprox. 1 hour 20 minutes) in the Kolkheti National Park, Khulo (aprox. 1 hour 50 minutes), Zugdidi (aprox. 2 hours 20 minutes), Kutaisi (aprox. 3 hours), Akhaltsikhe (aprox. 5 hours), Tbilisi (aprox. 6 hours), or Mestia (aprox. 4 hours 30 minutes). Batumi can also be reached from Artvin (aprox. 1 hour 50 minutes), Rize (aprox. 2 hours) or Trabzon (aprox. 3 hours) in Turkey; or from Sukhumi (aprox. 4 hours), in the de facto Republic of Abkhazia.

Once in Batumi the best ways of moving in the city are using public transport or walking. In the old city, bus, bike or just walking are the best ways to move, because they are usually pedestrian streets and most of the places are close ones from the others.

History

Batumi is located on the site of an ancient Greek colony called Bathus in what was known as Colchis. Under the Roman emperor Hadrian, it was converted into a fortified Roman port. It was formally a possession of the kingdom of Lazica (being occupied briefly by the Arabs) and then, as most of the kingdom of Lazica, it was united to kingdom of Abkhazia (what later led the unification of Georgia in the 11th century). Batumi was governed by the eristavi of the king of Georgia from 1010 and, after the disintegration of the Georgian kingdom, Batumi passed to the princes of Guria (a principality under the sovereignty of the kings of Imereti). In the 15th century the Ottoman Turks conquered the town and its district (being recaptured by the Georgians several times) for 250 years. In that time Batumi grew into a provincial port and an Islamisation policy began, terminated and to a great degree reversed after the area was re-annexed to the Russian Empire after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. Batumi was the last Black Sea port annexed by Russia (1878) during the conquest of that area of the Caucasus in accordance with the Treaty of San Stefano, incorporated in the Government of Kutaisi. The expansion of Batumi began in 1883 with the construction of the Batumi-Tiflis-Baku railway and the finishing of the Baku-Batumi pipeline (becoming the chief Russian oil port in the Black Sea). In 1901, Joseph Stalin lived in the city and organized strikes here. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (1918) gave the city back to the Ottoman Empire but then, Kemal Atatürk ceded the area to the Bolsheviks of the Soviet Union on the condition that it be granted autonomy. When Georgia gained its independence from the Soviet Union (1989), Aslan Abashidze was appointed head of Adjara and held onto power throughout the unrest of the 1990s (fleeing to Russia during the Rose Revolution, 2004). Unlike the other autonomous regions of Georgia, Adjara remained as an integral part of Georgia's territory. Batumi today is one of the main port cities of Georgia and it has attracted international investors. The seat of the Constitutional Court of Georgia was moved from Tbilisi to Batumi in 2007 to stimulate regional development. Batumi features several casinos that attract tourists from Turkey (where gambling is illegal).

Batumi's top 5

If you have little or you just don't want to visit all Batumi, here's a list of the 5 places you can't miss in Batumi.

1. Batumi Boulevard.
2. Batumi Old Town.
3. Skyscrapers of Batumi.
4. State Museum of Adjara.
5. Beaches of Batumi.

What can I visit in Batumi?

Batumi is the main seaside resort in Georgia and the whole Caucasus. Some its mosts interesting districts are the historical center of Batumi or its newest district. Some of the most important sites in Batumi are Evropas Moedani (broad square that is surrounded by beautiful belle-époque buildings and where it's placed Medea Monument, a monument by Davit Khmaladze that represents a local princess who would help her future husband Jason obtain the Golden Fleece) or Batumi Piazza. The city attracts many jazz-lovers to its Black Sea Jazz Festival.

These are Batumi's main attractions:

• 

  Batumi Boulevard
  

  Batumi Boulevard: seaside amusement park that has a length of 7 km. It's one of the most important sights of Batumi, constructed in the 1880s. There are many bungalows, cafes, restaurants, shops, children's attractions and different colorful and dancing fountains in the boulevard, as well as interesting sculptures, architectural monuments and unique plants. The boulevard was enlarged with modern standards in 2009.
• Porta Batumi Tower: 200m-high skyscraper that is the tallest building in Georgia (although much of it is its needle). It was originally built under Saakashvili government to be a technological university,

  

  Batumi's skyline
  

  but sold off by the following Georgian Dream governments to be a hotel. Not far from it, it's located a the panoramic wheel, Ferris Wheel.
  
• Alphabetic Tower (10:30-24; 10₾/ 2₾  adults/ people under 18): 145m-high building that symbolizes and pays tribute to Georgian script, culture and people. Its structure designed by Alberto Domingo Cabo and Carlos Lázaro in 2010 combines the design of double helix pattern, holding 33 letters of the Georgian alphabet, and on its top there's a colossal silver ball. It can be climbed for magnificent views of Batumi.

  

  Alphabeti Tower and
  Batumi Lighthouse
  

  
  
• Batumi Lighthouse: lighthouse built by French engineers in 1882 in the place where the first lighthouse was built during Ottoman rule in 1863. It used to have white lights, but today they are red.
• Ali & Nino Statue: 7m-high metal sculpture by Tamar Kvesitadze in 2010. It moves slowly to pass through each other and gradually become one (process that happens every 10 minutes). The sculpture represents love with a woman and a man, universally known as the protagonists of the novel of Ali & Nino by Kurban Said.

  

  Ali & Nino Statue
  

  
  
• Chacha Tower: 25 m high clock tower built in 2012 that is a replica of the Clock Tower in İzmir (Turkey). It has four fountains where Georgian chacha comes out of the fountains instead of water. The tower hosts a tourism information center.
  
• Memed Abashidze House-Museum (9-18; 4₾/ 0.5₾  adults/ people under 18): museum located in the house of Memed Abashidze that shows his life. Memed was is a Georgian nobleman and public figure that fought for the national self-consciousness of Muslim Georgians (one of the architects of Adjaras autonomy within Georgia) and for the unity of Georgia. The museum owns memorial items and biography.
• St. Nikoloz Orthodox Church:

  

  St. Nikoloz Orthodox Church
  

  church that was built in 1865 for the Pontic Greeks of Batumi (on condition that the bells would never be rung in the temple), sign of ending the Turkish domination in Georgia and the oldest church in Batumi. It was closed during 12 years under the Soviet Union and after its collapse, the church was fully restored. The temple has three big icons donated by Greeks from the island of Chios in the early-20th century.
  
• St. Kristos Amenaprkich Armenian Apostolic Church: small church built in the 1880s under the design of Robert Marfeld, one of the best-known churches in Batumi.

  

  Batumi Mosque
  

  Under the Soviet Union, it was used as a storehouse and after Georgian independence, it was given back to the Armenian Apostolic Church and restored. Its decoration is simple, with one of its most characteristic feature being glass painting with eight-pointed stars.
  
• Batumi Mosque: mosque comissioned by the nobleman Aslan-Beg Khimshiashvili in 1866, the only surviving mosque in Batumi (also known as Orta Jame Mosque). The mosque has one minaret and a gilded dome; it's interior is finely painted with pinks, greens and blues, having Quranic calligraphy on the walls. The mosque isn't big enough to accomodate all the Muslim who come to pray on Fridays (they have been seeking permission to being another mosque but it hasn't been granted yet).
• Adjara State Art Museum

  

  Adjara State Art Museum
  

  (11-18 Tue-Sun; 3₾/ 1₾  adults/ people under 18): nice art museum that displays a small permanent collection that covers Georgian art from the late 19th and 20th century, placed in an attractive Neoclassical Soviet building designed by Kakha Javakhishvili. The museum keeps about 400 exhibits, paintings by well-known Georgian and foreign artists such as Niko Pirosmani, David Kakabadze or Lado Gudiashvili. In the museum, it can also be found temporary exhibits of local painters.
• State Museum of Adjara

  

  State Museum of Adjara
  

  (10-17 Tue-Sun; 3₾/ 1₾  adults/ people under 18): museum that shows and tells the history about Adjara, one of the oldest scientific-educational institutions in Georgia (founded in 1908). The museum has a collection of around 180,000 objects, including unique archaeological materials from 12th-9th centuries BC (also from 7th-4th centuries) such as ancient Greek black krater, engraved axes, Gonio treasures and religious sculptures of precious materials. There are also rare monuments of nature (like a fossilized 25 million-year-old tree), ethnographic and folk patterns, manuscripts

  

  Batumi Synagogue
  

  (over 2,000 rare manyscripts in languages such as Georgian, Russian, Armenian, Arabic, Turkish or Persian), applied and visual art examples from 19th-20th centuries.
  
• Batumi Synagogue: synagogue that was designed by Semyon Volkovich in 1904,  following the model of The Hague and Amsterdam ones. It was comissioned for the European Jews community (mostly Ashkenazi Jews) and functioned until 1923. The synagogue was returned to Batumi Jews in 1992 (although the Jewish community is compounded by less than 100 people), restored with assistance of the Adjarian authorities.
• Batumi Cathedral:

  

  Batumi Cathedral
  

  Georgian Orthodox cathedral that was originally built as a Catholic church in the early in the 1900s (sponsored by the businessmen that were Zubalashvili brothers). The church was closed during the Soviet Union (converted into a high-voltage laboratory) and it was transferred to the Georgian Orthodox Church in 1989. It's designed in Neo-Gothic style and is a three-aisled basilica with a façade flanked by two bell towers and an elongated pentagonal apse. Its interior is decorated with red stone and blue and gold ornaments, characteristic of Neo-Gothic architecture.
• Batumi Archaeological Museum

  

  Batumi Archaeological Museum
  

  (10-18; 3₾/ 1₾  adults/ students and people under 18): excellent museum that displays some of the many valuable archaeological discoveries made in Adjara from Stone Age to the Middle Ages, allowing the visitor to learn about the cultural evolution of western Georgia. The collection has many objects found at the Gonio Fortress (mostly objects from Greek and Roman eras such as dishes, coins, sculptures, jewelry or the so-called Gonian hoard) and a rich gold fund, where Colchian goldsmiths place an important place. The exhibitions also features remains of hominids (from around 1.7 million years ago),daggers from Bronze Age, jewels from Iron Age, Hellenistic pottery, Roman artefacts or Byzantine gold and coins.

• 

  6th of May Park
  

  St. Barbare Georgian Orthodox Church: church erected in 1888 with the support of tsar Alexander III. It was used as a warehouse in Soviet times and after the independence, it was transferred to the Georgian Orthodox Church.
  
• 6th of May Park: park with a lake that is the one of the most important leisure sites in Batumi, witness of the recent transformations of the city. Here it can be found the new aquarium, Batumi Dolphinarium (swimming with dolphins; 150₾/ 100₾/ 80₾  adults/ students and people over 13/ people under 12), which replaces the old one from Soviet times featuring a futuristic design by Henning Larsen. The park also includes a zoo, a small train, the possibility of paddling on the lake and others.
  
• Ilia Chavchavadze Museum (10-18 Mon-Fri; free): museum that houses photo and documentaries related to the life and work of Ilia Chavchavadze, a Georgian writer and public figure that was the spearhead of the revival of the Georgian national movement.

  

  Dancing Fountains
  

  It has paintings and sculptures and items depicting his life and ethnography.
  
• Batumi Beach: wonderful beach with calmed and clean water, and a pleasant water temperatura. It's made of pebbles and stones and is quite popular.
  
• Dancing Fountains (9-0 from Jun to Sep; free): fountains at an ornamental lake with an entertaining laser, music and water show.
  
• Batumi Catholic Church: church that was constructed in the late 1990s by Oleg Pataridze and Giorgi Baghoshvili. It was built to replace the earlier Catholic church, used as a Georgian Orthodox church since the end of the Soviet Union.

  

  Batumi Catholic Church
  

  The temple resembles to some Modernist temples by Oscar Nemeyer and his followers, characterised by straight lines, spacious and bright interior space.
• Nobel Brothers-Batumi Technological Museum (10-18; 3₾/ 1₾  adults/ students and people under 18): museum that shows the technical technological achievements introduced to Batumi at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. It is focused on the activity of the Nobel Brothers (inventors that focused on oil transit), oil magnates such as Rotschilds and Mantashev, photos of the photographer Prokudin-Gorsky or the economic and cultural development of Batumi (like the history of tea, tobacco and wine culture).
• Sameba Georgian Orthodox Church: late-19th century church that is located on one of the hills surrounding Batumi,

  

  Makhinjauri Beach
  

  that can be seen from many points of Batumi and from having the best views of the city.It was closed and gradually destroyed, but restored after Georgia gained independence.
• On the way north from Batumi, in the way to Kobuleti, it's located Mtsvane Kontskhi (literally translated as Cape Green), a promontory that rises from the Lesser Caucasus chain. Here there are some nice stone beaches such as Makhinjauri Beach and Mtsvane Kontskhi Beach with clear water.
  
• Batumi Botanical Garden

  

  Batumi Botanical Garden
  

  (10-18:30; 15₾): botanical garden that was founded in 1912 by the botanist Andrei Krasnov over a hillside rising straight out of the sea. It has many subtropical and foreign species, and is considered to be one of the largest botanical gardens in the former Soviet Union and the most beautiful one in Georgia. It's a principal institution for the study of Caucasian maritime subtropical cultures (the garden includes 104 species of Caucasian origin).
  

Walls of Gonio Fortress

Only 12 km south from Batumi it's located Gonio Fortress (10-18 from Jun to Sep; 11-17 from Oct to May; 3₾/ 1₾  adults/ students and people under 18). This superbly preserved Roman fortification at the mouth of river Chorokhi was a well-fortified Roman city within Colchis in the 1st century AD, known for its theatre and hippodrome. It was occupied by the Byzantines in the 6th century, a short-living Genoese trade factory and by the Ottomans in the 16th century. Its name used to be  Apsyrtus in Greek and was connected with the myth of Medea and her brother Absyrtus. The grave of one of the twelve apostles, St. Matthias although this is unverifiable (the Georgian government prohibits digging near the supposed gravesite). There are some nice beaches next to the fortress.

Sarpi Beach

Keeping driving south, just in the border with Turkey, it can be found Sarpi (სარფი in Georgian), 826 inhabitants. It's the last Georgian town on the road (and it has a border post) and used to be a single town with Sarp (Turkey). This town is the only one in Georgia were Laz language is spoken (the rest of the speakers of this Kartvelian language are in Turkey). Moreover, Sarpi Beach is the most beautiful beach in all Adjara Autonomous Republic.

Cable Car in Batumi

What activities can I do in Batumi?

Batumi has an interesting cultural offer and some of the places to enjoy it are Batumi Music Center (an opera and ballet theater built in 2004).

In Batumi there's a cable car with great views of the city (specially before sunset), Batumi Cable Car (11-22; 15₾/ 5₾  adults/ kids). 

  

Where can I buy and eat in Batumi?

Batumi has a good culinary offer, although not as good as Tbilisi's one. These are the main recommendations in Batumi for a low price, such as the cafe Literaturuli (Konstantine Gamsakhurdia 18). Most of best sites to eat have medium price: the Georgian restaurants Grill Town (Rustaveli 24), Old Boulevard [ძველი ბულვარი] (Ninoshvili 23a), Uolli (Memed Abashidzis 43), Fanfan (Akhmed Melashvili), Sanapiro [სანაპირო] (Gogebashvili) or the cafe Retro [რეტრო] (Zurab Gorgiladze 54/62); the European restaurant Guests (Akhmed Melashvili 16), the Chinese restautant Uncle Feng's (Noe Zhordania 3) or the international one La Brioche (Parnavaz Mepe 25).

The area of Batumi Boulevard is the party capital in Georgia in summer, with beachside clubs and bars. Some of the most popular places are the wine bar Garage Wines (Giorgi Mazniashvili 8), Vinyl Bar [ვინილ ბარი] (Nodar Dumbadze 12) or the clubs Sector 26 (Seafront Promenade of Batumi) and Iveria Beach (Seafront Promenade of Batumi).  

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