Tbilisi Botanical Garden Development and Panorama Tbilisi
By Levan Khutsishvili
Wednesday, March 14
According to the Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze, the project envisages setting up of the adventure route, bicycle and pedestrian trails and visitors center in Botanical Garden. The project will ascribe additional functions to the garden and make it more appealing to tourist and locals.
"In general, the Botanical Garden is very important with its function and location. Many developed cities would wish to have this kind of place in the center of the city and we have such a good opportunity to develop it even more. We are starting to implement a very important project that covers the Tsavkisistskali gorge in the botanical garden. Project aims the arrangement of Hiking and Bicycle roads, also Adventure and Visitor Center. With the implementation of the project, the botanical garden will have an alternative entrance, where parking space will be created. Also, bikers will have the opportunity to ride the four kilometer bike path in a beautiful gorge in the center of the city. Many people will be happy with the implemented project,” stated Tbilisi Mayor.
Kakha Kaladze thanked former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili for the gift that Cartu Foundation will give to the city, as the Tsavkisitskali Gorge development project will be fully financed by the Foundation.
"Cartu Foundation" has been providing financial support to the Tbilisi Botanical Garden during the last 20 years. With our funding, a lot of projects were implemented in the garden. Implementation of this project will increase the tourism potential of the garden and the Tbilisi residents and guests of the city will be able to get all the benefits that garden can provide. The project will also increase the income of the garden and the number of visitors," said Nikoloz Chkhetiani, chairman of the Charity Foundation Cartu.
In 2016, part of the Botanical Garden - 4 hectare became the property of the company “Finservice”, which is affiliated with Bidzina Ivanishvili. In return Botanical Garden got 4 Hectare territory on Tabori Mountain Ringe. According to the administration of the garden, the received territory is far better for garden development than the one that was given to “Finservice”, which was just a landscape with rocks.
However, 4 hectares of stony land in Botanical Garden will become the part of “Panorama Tbilisi” project. According to the authors of the project, it will connect 7 star hotel on Pushkini Square with the huge center on Sololaki Mountain Ringe, and the main works will be conducted in Legvtakhevi, which is at the end of the Tsavkisistskali gorge, that was covering some parts of the Botanical Garden several years ago.
It is planned to develop recreational infrastructure in Tsavkisistskali gorge, as a part of “Panorama Tbilisi” project. It is noteworthy that the development plan of the recreation infrastructure, described in an official video by Irakli Karseladze, director of “Panorama Tbilisi” project, looks like the development plan of the “Botanical Garden” by Cartu Foundation. Both territories are next to each other, so it is possible that they will take similar development pattern, or that the development of the “Botanical Garden” is the part of the “Panorama Tbilisi” project.
Botanical Garden Development concept and its plan is not available yet, so its possible connection with “Panorama Tbilisi” can only be an assumption. However, both projects are affiliated with Bidzina Ivanishvili and Cartu Foundation, both developments will be carried out on the territory Tsavikistskali gorge. Since “Panorama Tbilisi” project is promoted to gain some support among Tbilisi citizens, City Mayor highlighted several times that the project is a gift to the city from Cartu Foundation. The possible connection of the two development plans could be an attempt to increase a number of “Panorama Tbilisi” supporters in society, major part of which has been slamming and protesting the project actively in recent times.