Batumi Central is the railway station serving

Batumi Batumi (; ka, ბათუმი ) is the second largest city of Georgia and the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara, located on the coast of the Black Sea in Georgia's southwest. It is situated in a subtropical zone at the foot of th ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

. Despite its name, the station is located on the outskirts of the city, some 4 km away from the Old Town. The four-storey station building is combined with a bus terminal and a shopping centre, with the total

floor area In architecture, construction, and real estate, floor area, floor space, or floorspace is the area (measured as square feet or square metres) taken up by a building or part of it. The ways of defining "floor area" depend on what factors of the buil ...

of 22,500 sq.m.

History

Batumi station was the original terminus of the Batumi-

Tiflis Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Kura River with a population of approximately 1.5 million pe ...

Baku Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world a ...

railway, whose construction completed in 1900. The historic railway station was located in the very centre of Batumi, on Chavchavadze st. near

Batumi Cathedral of the Mother of God The Church of the Mother of God ( ka, ბათუმის ღვთისმშობლის სახელობის ეკლესია, ''batumis ghvtismshoblis sakhelobis eklesia'') in Batumi is a Georgian Orthodox cathedral, origina ...

. It had one platform and three tracks, connected with a single-track running along Chavchavadze st. to the freight station near the port, then further north-east. In the 1990s, following the collapse of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

Georgian Railway Georgian Railway LLC ( ka, საქართველოს რკინიგზა, tr) is the national railway company of Georgia. A vital artery linking the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, it sits on the shortest route between Europe and Ce ...

was in decline, and the services to Batumi station ceased by the end of 1996. To make a better use of the lucrative land in the city centre, the tracks along Chavchavadze st. were lifted in 1999, and the line ended with a

buffer stop A buffer stop, bumper, bumping post, bumper block or stopblock (US), is a device to prevent railway vehicles from going past the end of a physical section of track. The design of the buffer stop is dependent, in part, on the kind of couplings ...

on Mayakovsky st. The old railway station building stood abandoned until 2008, when it was taken over by

TBC Bank , logo = TBC Bank logo.svg , logo_size = 100 , image = TBC Bank building.jpg , image_size = 250 , image_caption = TBC headquarters at Marjanishvili avenue, Tbilisi , type = Joint Stock Company , traded_as = , industry ...

for its main office in Batumi. When railway services to Batumi were renewed in the 2000s, they terminated at

Makhinjauri Makhinjauri ( ka, მახინჯაური ) is a small town ('' daba'') in Adjara, Georgia, with the population of 735 according to the 2014 census. It is located on the Black Sea coast, 5 km north of Batumi, the capital of Adjara, and ...

station, over 6 km away from Batumi city centre. The current station was opened on 5 July 2015, and named Batumi Central to highlight its location within the city boundaries, unlike Makhinjauri station which was Batumi's only railway connection during the preceding decade.

Services

As of 2018, Batumi Central has three daily long-distance services to

Tbilisi railway station Tbilisi Railway station ( ka, თბილისის ცენტრალური სადგური, ''tbilisis tsent'raluri sadguri'') is a railway station located in Tbilisi, Georgia. Originally built in 1872, Tbilisi Railway station h ...

, as well as slower trains to

Ozurgeti Ozurgeti ( ka, ოზურგეთი ) is the capital of the western Georgian province of Guria. It was formerly known as Macharadze or Makharadze (named in honor of Filipp Makharadze). It is a regional center of tea and hazelnut processing. Oz ...

and

Kutaisi Kutaisi (, ka, ქუთაისი ) is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and the third-most populous city in Georgia, traditionally, second in importance, after the capital city of Tbilisi. Situated west of Tbilis ...

, one daily service to each of the two.

References

{{Georgia transit Railway stations in Georgia (country) Buildings and structures in Batumi