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The News in Brief

Thursday, May 16
Chiatura Cable Car System among 5 Cultural Routes of CoE

The Council of Europe (CoE) has certified five new routes among the Cultural Routes Program and Chiatura Cable Car System is included on the list.

A cable car system of local transport was built in 1954 to serve the city in the town of Chiatura in the Western part of Georgia. It has a total length of 6 km and incorporates 17 lifts.

“The system is currently being rebuilt around a central hub with ten lines for passengers and two carrying manganese ore to be loaded into railway wagons. Visitors to Chiatura are able to view the operation of the mines and quarries from the ropeways. The cable car system has not been well-maintained and is sometimes seen as a relic of the unlamented Soviet regime, but it can also be interpreted as an imaginative attempt by engineers to apply technology to solve the problem of providing transport in a city with difficult topography,” reads the description of the site by European Route of Industrial Heritage (ERIH).

In 2017, BBC prepared a story about the touristic potential of Chiatura cable car system.

It is worth mentioning that the list also includes Nobel Brothers Batumi Technological Museum and Silk State Museum.

The Cultural Routes Program, launched by the CoE in 1987, demonstrates in a visible way, by means of a journey through space and time, how the heritage of the different countries and cultures of Europe represent a shared culture heritage.

ERIH is a network of important and interesting industrial heritage sites in Europe.



Regular flights, closer transport cooperation agreed as Georgian, Kazakh PMs meet

The Prime Minister of Georgia, Mamuka Bakhtadze and his Kazakh colleague, Askar Mamin, met in Nursultan on Wednesday. They agreed that the two countries will have regular flights, with more cities added, and closer transport cooperation.

Bakhtadze said that Georgia has “big plans” to transform the country into the regional transport hub.

“Georgia and Kazakhstan cooperate successfully. However, there are fields where boosted cooperation is possible,” Bakhtadze’s press office says.

The press office reports that Kazakh investors are interested in starting businesses in Georgia in the logistic and recycling fields.

Memorandums have been signed in the social, labour and agriculture fields, where cooperation will be encouraged.

Georgian Minister of Economy, Natia Turnava, says that Georgia and Kazakhstan play an important role in attracting cargo flows from China to Europe via the Black and Caspian seas.
(By Messenger Staff)