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Residents of the Georgian-Ossetian Village of Khurvaleti Recieve no Support for their Demands for Water

October 30, 2007
The Public School in the village of Khurvaleti in the Gori district risks closure as the number of pupils in the school decreases. Ossetian children attend Ossetian schools because they receive presents there.

“We do not have drinking water in the school,” says Neli Kachmazova, a resident of the village.  “We have to bring water to school in buckets which are not really clean enough. There are three common wells in the village and it is not enough. Many families have private wells, too. If they were tested, however, the results would show that water from all of them is not clean or healthy. We do not have enough money to take legal action somewhere.”

“The number of children has reduced,” one of the teachers says. “There is an Ossetian settlement next to the village and children go to school there because the conditions are better and they receive presents. Those Ossetian villages are Jukaant Kari and Tsinagara. Last year we had 81 pupils and now we only have 70. Many of them will probably move to the Ossetian school as well. Our school also needs repairs. They said that our school didn’t have enough pupils to deserve renovation and we could not collect enough vouchers.”

Public transport does not run in the village, with the exception of one old bus via Khurvaleti. That bus travels to the Ossetian village of Tsinagara and runs through all the villages in the area. The transportation fee to Gori is 1. 50 lari. “I have to pay 3 lari to travel to Gori and back. What would I do that is as expensive as three lari in the city?” asked local people.

“A social agent visits us but he cannot see anything. They granted allowances to some families that we were surprised,” said Vara Khubuluri.

The rest of the village population is proud of living in historical territory, though they have not benefited from those places yet.

“Khurvaleti was church territory,” village resident Zhora Khuroshvili explains. “It belonged to Samtavisi church in the past. There are three districts in the village-Church: Tela and Didi Khurvaleti. The name originated with the hot place (“khurvaleti” means “hot place” in English). There have never been any trees in the area and we are easily viewed from the central highway. There are 370 families in the village and most of them are mixed. There are many Ossetian people, like Khubuluris, Djeiranashvili, Kochmazovs. In the past the noble families of Amirejibi, Maghalashvili and Mamatsashvilis also lived in the area. The village permanently moved down to the territory where there was water. There used to be the Tirifon irrigation system coming from Tskhinvali. The system runs through several villages. The best solution to our problem would be for Nadarbazevi Lake to fill up and use that as our water supply. We do not have problems with pipes in the village-- we have them. The irrigation system in our village uses 300-400 lari worth of electricity in a 24-hour period. It is a unique system in Georgia that we managed to maintain even after the Soviet Union collapsed. None of the motors were stolen here. We kept everything,”

“I am so glad you have arrived and we have chance to complain about our problems with you, said Nikoloz Khubuluri. “We have many problems. There are five members in my family. I receive 38 lari as a pension and cannot buy a sack of wheat with that money. I hate complaining but I cannot help it.”

A new road is being built to the village under the initiatives sponsored by the Regional and District Governors. “A new project is being implemented in Khurvaleti which encompasses the rehabilitation of roads in twenty villages, Ramaz Chochishvili, the Gori Municipality Governor, says. “The construction will last for a month and will cover 90 kilometers of road. 450,000 sq. meters of road must be renovated and 600,000 lari is apportioned from the President’s fund. The work will be implemented by the Gori Municipality.”

Lado Gegelashvili, the Regional Governor, said that village development begins with infrastructure development. “We will gradually resolve other problems, too. I know that people have a big problem with the irrigation system. As for Nadarbazevi Lake, the funding is appropriated by someone and we will arrange everything time-by-time so these people can be supplied,” the Governor said.

Saba Tsitsikashvili, Gori 


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