Akarmara deserves to become a point of the traveler’s route, who decided to look at the non-tourist, but therefore no less beautiful Abkhazia. Every year, dozens of lovers of atypical travel seek to visit this abandoned place in one of the most picturesque and colorful gorges of the republic, until time has wiped it off the face of the earth.
Face of akarmara
Akarmara in Abkhazia is today an abandoned mining village, a suburb of Tkuarchal. Calling it a ghost town today is a little wrong, because several dozen residents in dilapidated houses continue to live here. Among other abandoned settlements, he stands out by the architectural solution of his buildings, atypical for a modest working town. Attracts tourists here and stunning views from the shelter of an abandoned gorge village.
The abandoned village of Akarmara in Abkhazia is not only a dozen residential buildings 4 floors high, built for miner workers and their families. These are the buildings of a hotel, hospital, school, cultural center, cinema, restaurant, market and even your own boarding house. Near the city you can find the "skeleton" of the railway station, which, apparently, will never wait for new passengers.
Only a lonely grocery stall by the road, hanging clothes on one or two balconies and curtains on several windows remind of civilization here.
How to get to the abandoned city of Akarmar in Abkhazia
Akarmara is located on the territory of the autonomous republic of Abkhazia, in the Tkuarcheli district, one kilometer east of the city of Tkuarchal. Its coordinates on the map: 42.8438 north latitude, 41.8298 east longitude.
You can get from Tkuarchal to Akarmara either by road or by a disassembled railway. The last walking route will be appreciated by lovers of thrills and unique charms of ghost places: your path will pass through several underground railway tunnels, impressive mountain bridges. As a result, you will find yourself in a deserted and destroyed colorful railway station, which has retained its balustrades and columns. From there, through the bridge crossing the river called Aaldzga, you will get directly to Akarmara.
History of Akarmara in Abkhazia
The now abandoned village was built after the end of World War II by the forces of German prisoners - architects, designers, builders, hence the atypical "imperial" beauty and the accuracy of its buildings. Akarmara was considered one of the elite areas of nearby Tkuarchal, and the lines for apartments here were several years long.
At the end of the eighties of the last century, about 5 thousand miners and their families lived in the village of Akarmara in Abkhazia. The well-being of this settlement, like hundreds of thousands of others, was disrupted by the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict. The population, fleeing the consequences of hostilities, was forced to leave Akarmara and settle in safer places. A significant part of the refugees did not return to the dilapidated village after the war.
Interesting places Akarmara
Inspection of the entire village-town will not take more than one or two hours - during this time you can not only wander along its streets, take colorful pictures, but even go into abandoned buildings and apartments. The view of the mountain ranges from the last floors of buildings is fascinatingly beautiful. However, hosting should also not be here - as already mentioned, people live in Akarmar, occupying a dozen apartments by force.
Wandering around the settlement, you can see with your own eyes the buildings destroyed during the war, which cut short the welfare of this place, rusty skeletons of cars at the side of the road. Tourists are impressed by the building of the House of Culture, a covered market, a cinema - the dilapidated board of honor in front of it is also interesting.
On the way to civilization, you can supplement your collection of unusual route points with a couple more points - hot radon baths and the city of Tkuarchal.
Points of interest in the vicinity: Tkuarchal
Unlike Akarmara, Tkuarchal does not seem so abandoned. Industry (coal mining) operates here, a larger population lives, but it is also referred to as ghost towns of Abkhazia. It is also interesting in that the natural relief divides it into upper and lower parts, which are connected by a cable car and a long staircase of hundreds of steps.
As in the village of Akarmar, the appearance of this city before the military conflict of 1992-1993. contrasts sharply with modern reality. Throughout Tkuarchalu, one can meet the skeletons of abandoned enterprises and residential buildings. It attracts tourists built in a pseudo-antique style railway station littered with coal mined here, rare locomotive columns and arrows, the destroyed building of the state district power station. The state of abandonment is perfectly conveyed by the unused cable car - several gandol booths hang in the air, aggravating the feeling of time stopped in these parts.
Points of interest in the area: hot tubs
If a traveler can get acquainted with Tkuarchal directly in front of Akarmara, then the next point is waiting after a walk along it. Abandoned hot baths in Soviet times were highly valued by both local miners and tourists. This monumental structure, erected over an impressive abyss, is able to receive visitors today. But there are very few people who want to swim in its mossy concrete fonts, and the paths laid out with ceramic tiles are covered with grass. It is worth saying that even in January (here at this time it was mainly around zero degrees Celsius), the temperature of the water in the bathtubs does not drop below 30 degrees. And not far from them you can find a beautiful mountain waterfall.
Akarmara in Abkhazia is a vivid example of what war can do with a prosperous small settlement. More than a good location, well-developed infrastructure, a fabulous view of the mountains, architectural compositions atypical for a working village - all this turned out to be in the past. Today, several dozens of people live on the ruins of the previously prosperous Akarmara, connected to civilization only by a roadside kiosk, and tourists wandering in time to capture the beauty of this place, which is rapidly corroded by time.