Georgia: The children’s railway turned erotic theatre turned swamp
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This is a former children's train line in the Georgian city of Rustavi: a fond memory for many locals.
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It opened in 1986, and it was quite an unusual project, given the total length of the road is about five kilometres.
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The train departed from a real station with a platform. Then it went out into the fields.
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Then it moved along the bridge and across the lake called the “Cuckoo" - and went down to the Mtkvari River
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Then it veered left, went about 200 meters along the river, and went out into a forest.
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It padded a bit across a field, before diving into a tunnel almost half a kilometer in length.
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The locomotive and two open passenger cars were particularly interesting.
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At night, the engine went to a small, but real depot.
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The depot and the charm of the locomotive led to an unusual idea of entrepreneurs in the 1990s
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The devastation of the post-Soviet period began.
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The railway by this time was already abandoned, but had not yet become such an apocalyptic place as it is now.
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The locomotive and the wagons were rusty and dirty, but still strong. But as Rustavi residents say, there was a secret mini-cinema “for adults” here for some time - that is, an erotic theatre.
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Now the station has been gradually surrounded by a swamp which is slowly overtaking it.
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Only a narrow strip along the railway allowed our photographer to get closer
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There was an attempt to revive the children's train line
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In 2002, the public organization Georgian-American Club offered to make an entertainment complex here, which they were going to call Iowa Park
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Then they cleared the territory, started planting trees and even painted the station building and the locomotive with the wagons.
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But that’s where things came to a creaking halt.