Radisson Blu Replaces Iveria - View Stays Breathtaking!

View from the Radisson Blu Iveria (N.Landru)

Radisson Blu Iveria (N.Landru)

In the Georgian capital, the prestigeous Iveria Hotel, which was the city's best one in Soviet Times, with appealing views on Tbilisi and surrounding mountains, became in the 1990's the symbol of independant Georgia's tragedy. It was built at the end of the 1970's and got the name of an ancient eastern Georgian kingdom, Iveria. Sometimes translated "Iberia", the officials prefered "Iveria", because in case the "I" would fall down, one could read "Beria", the name of stalinist purges' executor in Georgia in the 1930's! IDPs from Abkhazia were relocated here after 1993, at the very heart of the capital. Thus, the hotel embodied the country's sorrows.

Iveria in the 1990's (Source : http://ehistory.osu.edu/osu/origins/images.cfm?articleid=20)

In 2005, the dull concrete tower was purchased by investors, and its provisory inhabitants got money to move out. After years of looking like a skeleton, the Iveria was finally rebuilt by the Kazakh-owned Silk Road Group and became in 2009 the brand new Radisson Blu "Iveria" 5 stars hotel.

2006 (B.Kuch and N.Landru)

2008 (B.Kuch and N.Landru)

From the 18th floor, where is located the "Oxygene Bar", the view is still the same as in old times. One can enjoy it already from the transparent elevator while going up... And for the richer ones, sauna and swimming pool are all surrounded by a bay window, so that one can swim or sweat (naked!) in front of an aerial panorama, facing the Caucasus Kazkbek Range - and without being seen...

2010 (N.Landru)


View from Oxygene Bar (N.Landru)

"Rose Revolution Square", at the Radisson Blu Iveria's entrance (N.Landru)

For more information on the IDPs in the former Iveria Hotel, see Paul Manning's interesting paper: The Hotel/Refugee Camp Iveria: Symptom, Monster, Fetish, Homeat