Categories
Journalistic Survey
Articles
Reportage
Analitic
Photo Reportage
Exclusive
Interview
Foreign Media about Georgia
Editorial
Position
Reader's opinion
Blog
Themes
Children's Rights
Women's Rights
Justice
Refugees/IDPs
Minorities
Media
Army
Health
Corruption
Elections
Education
Penitentiary
Religion
Others

Dream Town

February 26, 2016
Giorgi Janelidze

There are several small settlements on the way from Batumi to mountainous Adjara region. The so-called Dream Town is the most oppressive of all: people settled three years ago and over 900 adults and up to 400 children live in unbearable conditions now. The government promised to resolve problems for only part of them.

Wooden huts are standing across the vast territory of 19 hectares in Pridon Khalvashi Street #188. Besides wood and stone you can see cardboards – big part of the Dream Town inhabitants have lived in dampness and anti-sanitary for many years already. Most inhabitants are eco-migrants, disabled persons, single mothers, homeless families and families left without bread-winners.

Roin Gundadze is inhabitant of the settlement. He sheltered the Dream Town after the landslide fell in Khulo. Now he represents nongovernmental organization “Defend Children’s Rights.”

“In 2013, eco-migrants repatriated from Tsalka came here – after multiple natural disasters in the mountainous Adjara those families were moved into the abandoned houses of Greek people in Tsalka. After a while Greek owners returned and evicted them. The total space of the Dream Town is 19 hectares. We requested the government to find investor for the construction of a social house in 4 hectares of land. People living here would have worked on the construction and then moved into the newly constructed social house. The government rejected our request and stated they need the whole territory for the construction,” Roin Gundadze said.

The Dream Town is the largest among illegal settlements in Georgia. Several thousands people live in about 1000 huts in the territory. Electricity supply problem was resolved in the settlement – based on the decision of the Adjara Supreme Council electricity distribution company Energo-Pro Georgia supplies the Town with electricity. However, the Dream Town still has problems of sewage system. Roin Gundadze said there is high risk of infection spread in the settlement that will cause health problems among underage children. The locals mostly complain about no road to the settlement –in rainy weather children cannot go to school.

Inhabitants of the Dream Town intend to construct brick houses in the territory of the settlement. There are about one hundred houses in the area: the inhabitants said nobody warned them that they were breaching the law when constructing houses in the state territory. 

Roin said the owners of those houses received notice only after they finished construction that they would be fined with 3000 lari and evicted from the houses.

However, there are some people in the Dream Town, who would be happy to have at least wooden hut. A lonely woman, who did not introduce herself, said she sheltered the Dream Town after she no longer could afford flat rent alongside expensive medicines. The neighbors gathered woods and other materials for her to build a hut. “I get only social allowance. I have neither child nor other relatives or breadwinner. I urge the government for one hut only. I do not request large and comfortable house. I want to have a corner to live in,” she said.

Neither a young man from the large family, who came to the Dream Town from the mountainous Adjara, introduced himself. He said they settled in the Town after his two brothers got married and there were no place for him in the father’s house. Many people tell the same story in the settlement. 

Nugzar Putkaradze lives in the settlement in the territory of the former 25th battalion. He said half of the inhabitants do not have electricity: despite the confirmation of the Ministry of Economy the local branch of the Energo-Pro Georgia categorically refused to supply the settlement with electricity. “War veterans also live here. I and two more members of my family are veterans. Eco-migrants also live here, who came here from Tsalka, where they had moved from Khulo and Shuakhevi municipalities. We do not have individual electricity counters and still have collective ones. We all pay 1150-1200 GEL per month. People first settled here in 2012. Private investor purchased the territory in 2014. Our settlement occupies 4-5 hectares. This land was sold out so that we were not warned about it and nobody offered anything to us.”

Human rights defender Tamaz Bakuridze provides the inhabitants of the Dream Town with legal aid. “The government claims the families living in this settlement do not need social benefits from the state. Maybe similar families do live here but we urge the government to assist those people, who need and deserve help. They are socially vulnerable persons, lonely people, people without breadwinner, but the state does not acknowledge their needs. They acknowledged needs of only eco-migrants whose number is less than 30 in this settlement. The state threatens the rest with eviction that is inadmissible. We will not allow the government to do that,” Bakuridze said.

Deputy Minister for healthcare and social welfare in the Adjara Autonomous Republic Ramaz Jincharadze is in charge of the issues related with the inhabitants of the Dream Town. “We assign houses only to the victims of natural disaster. We studied the cases of the families living in the territories of the 25th and 53rd battalion and only 17 families meet our criteria. We have already assigned houses to part of the eco-migrants. There are families, whose houses need rehabilitation. We advocated their cases at the district administrations. Three social houses are being constructed in Khulo for eco-migrants. Former building of the policlinic was rehabilitated for eco-migrants in Keda. We finished constructions in Khelvachauri and eco-migrants will receive houses there too. Two residential buildings were already built in Batumi and one more is being constructed now. The state program does not envisage benefits for large families. I have never heard of a country, where the state gives house to one of two brothers. Of course we cannot do that either,” Jincharadze said. 
 
The publication was prepared in the frame of the project implemented by the Human Rights House Tbilisi with financial support of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Tbilisi. Human Rights House Tbilisi is responsible for the content of the article and the views in it might not at all express the views of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. 

News