Peasants Cannot Travel to the City

This year peasants reaped rich fruit harvest. Unlike previous year Gori District population hoped to improve their living conditions by selling out their products. However, the hope soon vanished. The villagers do not know where to take their harvest of the cherry to sell. There is no transport to get to the city.

People could not water their plots in the Gori District and the price on the fruit rose. The villagers did not grow vegetables because they could not water plants so they will not have beans, corn and onion this year.

“I can feed my family with the bean I grow on my plot. This year we could not irrigate plants. Droughty plants would not survive even if they released water now. Fortunately fruit-trees survived, but I do not know where to take cherry to sell. If I could transport it to the city, I would sell it there and buy other products instead,” complained Esthate Berikashvili, a resident of the village of Kvakhvreli.

The village of Skra in the Gori district is famous for its rich peach and cherry harvest. However, this year the residents of Skra are in the worst situation. Shaliko Muradashvili said that city dwellers should support villagers to transport their products to the city.

“I used to take cherry to sell in Tbilisi. It is useless to take products to Gori because there are a lot of fruit in Gori Market. I wonder why the government does not think about peasants. They used to condemn Shevardnadze but during his governance it was not problem to get to the city. Nowadays only one Borjomi-Tbilisi train runs in the district. It arrives at our station at 10:00 AM and gets to the city at 1:00PM. Thus, it has no use to arrive there at such a late hour. Very often we throw our products in the dust bin because we could not sell them. At the midday nobody will let you stand in the Tbilisi Central Agricultural Market. Traders have occupied all counters by that time. Toil of peasants is not valued at all,” complained Shaliko Muradashvili.

Traveling by train has become more difficult since June 19. Under Irakli Ezugbaia’s resolution, the Head of the Railway Department, several itineraries of district trains were canceled. Only two trains are running to Tbilisi by day-time: Nikozi-Tbilisi and Borjomi-Tbilisi.

Mainly Gori District population travels by Nikozi-Tbilisi train. It serves the employees of the Railway Depot. Residents of the Kareli, Khashuri and Gori districts cannot travel by that train because they live on the west of Gori. They can travel by Borjomi-Tbilisi train which is always late and over-crowded. There is not enough room for peasants’ luggage there.

Neli Tedliashvili, a resident of Gori said that it is terrible to travel to Tbilisi by train. Since 9:00 AM Khashuri-Tbilisi train was canceled, the passengers started to use only 10:00 AM Borjomi-Tbilisi.

“You cannot imagine how terrible situation on that train is. Everything is mixed up. First of all the traveling fee was increased to one lari though they did not improve the conditions on the train. There is terrible mess on it. Passengers cannot find place to put their luggage either. On the second hand, the train is old and it moves slowly. A person cannot travel in such terrible conditions for two and three hours. Conductors of the train very often insult passengers,” said Neli Tedliashvili.

All in all, the Railway Department has been carrying out an experiment regarding district trains. The number of the passengers is so large that the conductors do not have enough tickets to give out to them. Initially officials from the department stated that passenger trains delayed luggage trains. The department seems to prefer transporting petrol rather than people.

Saba Tsitsikashvili, Gori