Tskaltubo

Tskaltubo (Georgian: წყალტუბო) is a spa resort in west-central Georgia. It is located at around 42°20′23″N 42°35′57″E / 42.33972°N 42.59917°E / 42.33972; 42.59917. It is the main town of the Tsqaltubo Municipality of the Imereti province. It is famous for its radon-carbonate mineral springs, whose natural temperature of 33–35 °C (91–95 °F) enables the water to be used without preliminary heating.

The resort's focus is on balneotherapy for circulatory, nervous, musculo-skeletal, gynaecological and skin diseases, but since the 1970s its repertoire has included "speleotherapy", in which the cool dust-free environment of local caves is said to benefit pulmonary diseases.

Tskaltubo was especially popular in the Soviet era, attracting around 125,000 visitors a year. Bathhouse 9 features a frieze of Stalin, and visitors can see the private pool where he bathed on his visits.

Currently the spa receives only some 700 visitors a year, and since 1993 many of the sanatorium complexes have been devoted to housing some 9000 refugees, primarily women and children, displaced from their homes by ethnic conflict in Abkhazia.

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