Buyers face $27.3 million cost to rebuild Tskaltubo Medea

A buyer of the Medea sanatorium in Tskaltubo must commit $27.3 million in total costs. The state is asking $3.3 million for the property itself. The remaining $24 million must go toward a five-year renovation. The work must deliver at least 120 guest rooms, conference halls, and restaurants.

The government placed ten run-down Soviet-era sanatoriums on the market on October 20. The online auction closes on November 15. The other properties in the listing have starting prices between $1 million and $3.5 million. Each comes with similar mandates for private investment in repairs.

Tskaltubo was a popular Soviet resort destination. Trains ran directly from Moscow to the town. Visitors came for baths in warm, mildly radioactive mineral water. The Medea building is the most recognizable, known for its neoclassical arches that have appeared in Western media.

Frederic Le Fichoux helped prepare a 2020 feasibility study on reviving the town. He told RFE/RL that restoring single buildings may not attract visitors if the wider infrastructure remains neglected. "If you are one investor and you buy, you renovate that property that you bought, you turn it around," he said, "but then the rest of the destination is still kept as a ruin." He argued that public money is needed for roads and other access improvements alongside private building reinvestment.

The state has attempted to sell these properties before. Seven sanatoriums sold in earlier auctions, but three have returned to state ownership. Medea was taken back in 2024 after its buyer failed to meet contractual obligations. David Sichinava, a Canada-based academic who grew up in the town, described the redevelopment approach as "all or nothing." He noted that Tskaltubo is exempt from casino permit fees that can reach $1.9 million a year elsewhere in Georgia. "Balneology (the science of therapeutic use of baths) alone can't really support the kind of tourists that this town can host," he said.

Bidzina Ivanishvili, founder of the ruling Georgian Dream party, promised to buy the state-owned spas in October 2019. He called their condition "depressing" and pledged a "full-scale rehabilitation." Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze told media on October 20 that the plan was dropped due to the pandemic and "de facto sanctions" against Ivanishvili.

The sanatoriums also housed people displaced by conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia since the 1990s. Most have moved out. Sichinava estimates 100 to 200 displaced people still live in the buildings. Madonna Mushkudiani fled Abkhazia in 1992 and lived in one of the complexes until 2023. She was relocated to an apartment in the town. "We miss every minute we spent there. It was our second home," she said.