Population of Gori and Kaspi Districts Urge the Railway Department Once More…

“Let us travel properly…” it is the letter of the Gori and Kaspi districts residents that has been sent to the Railway Department several times already. Finally, the residents have appealed to the Human Rights Center.

Population from the villages of Kharaghaji, Doesi, Sasireti, Khovle, Grakali, Zemo and Kvemo Khandaki, Akhalkalaki, Garikhula, and Chocheti in the Kaspi district, and the villages of Tiniskhidi, Skra, Uflistsikhe, Kvakhvreli, Khidistavi, Shindisi, Zemo and Kvemo Nikozi, Zemo and Kvemo Khviti in the Gori District are collecting the signatures for the seventh time now. The villagers are demanding the head of the Railway Department to renew the itinerary of the abolished “local trains.”

The people got irritated after the head of the Railway Department, Irakli Ezugbaia, made a statement on TV. “We cannot stop the train in front of each house in the villages. It is not a taxi. We will not change the decision we have already made,” he said.

The Shida Kartli Regional Administrative Board has been waiting for the notification from Ezugbaia for a year. Last year, Mikheil Kareli, the regional governor, petitioned to Ezugbaia in the name of the district population in vain. Today, the people state that the regional governor does not care about them anymore. They said that the local authority has profited a lot from abolishing the local trains. The passengers had to travel by mini-buses and buses instead of trains and the officials could benefit from these means of transport mostly.  Previously, the villagers used to travel to Gori and Kaspi by trains for 40 tetri. However, now they have to pay one lari for the same trip.

The villagers urge the Georgian President and government for help.

Saba Tsitsikashvili, Gori