Sulori resort

I want to tell you about my experiences in Sulori resort that is in West Georgia.

Vani historical importance

Sulori resort is located in the western part of Georgia, in Vani municipality. Maybe you have heard about Vani (but I don’t really think so). It’s a place where some really important archaeological findings have been discovered. There had been archaeological diggings in Vani since 1947 and the most ancient things found there date back to the 8-th century BC. Vani is located on a place where the territories of ancient Kingdom of Colchis were and its “golden age” was in III-I centuries BC.

If you visit the historical museum of Vani, you will be amazed with all the stuff presented there that have been found in Vani. Those are some splendid jewellery and ceramics and clay figures, etc. that are pretty surprising for that period of time. I mean, that was approximately 25 centuries ago and craftsmen must’ve been very good, in fact, they must’ve been excellent at their work, because the jewellery you will see in the museum is just great! These are very detailed jewellery and stuff made of very small pieces of gold. They are wonderfully done and they are really beautiful. Besides that, there are statuettes and bowls and kitchenware and masks and stuff like that.

Sulori resort

So, Sulori resort is situated 11 kilometres from the center of Vani on Sulori river, that is a branch of Rioni river. This small river is just 15 kilometres long and has only two branches, so, Sulori in Georgian means “just two”. The resort has the name of that river, therefore.

There’s a legend about discovering Sulori mineral waters. Rumor has it, that in winter when the fields were covered with snow, huntsmen noticed some steam from the embankment of the river. When they got closer, they found that there was a warm spring flowing at the bottom of a rock there. Then, when it was spring, they took a sick person there and put him in that warm spring. After a few baths he was cured. So, soon everyone around knew about the curing effect of that spring water.

Hundreds of people used to visit the resort during the Soviet Union and nowadays it still functions, but there are not as many people spending their time there as there used to be.

You can have sulfur baths there. The water is of low mineralization light sulfide, sulphate-hydrocarbonated sodium mineral water, which is used for treating musculoskeletal system, peripheral nervous system and gynecological diseases. The season is from June to October.

The resort has its own polyclinic and 32 individual bath for balneotherapeutic treatment.

My visit to Sulori resort

I visited Sulori resort twice, two years in a row once a year, during summer. Well, I wasn’t there for treatment or anything. I was there to spend some time and at the same time practice dancing.

So, I used to have dancing lessons in Georgian folk dance. We had a large group of school students. Our teacher made a great effort us to be great and love what we did. We had many concerts in the whole Georgia and then he decided that we could go somewhere together and practice in dancing and make new dances and enjoy ourselves. We gladly agreed to that and decided to go to Sulori resort for two weeks in summer.

It was my first time going somewhere without my parents as I was in the 6-th grade or something. So I was really excited and many of my friends were coming there, too, because most of us went to those dancing lessons together, so it would be fun!

There was a long ride from Tbilisi to Vani and then to Sulori, because Sulori is about 250 kilometres far from Tbilisi. I don’t really remember how we got in Vani. Just that we took a train and there were minibuses waiting for us on Vani railway station and then they took us to Sulori. Going up to the resort was pretty interesting at that time as the air got crisper and there was this chilly feeling outside. The landscapes were beautiful, too and we were just looking out of the windows with excitement.

The unpacking process was a horrible experience, but packing is much more difficult, if you want to know the truth. Well, we went to our cottages and chose our beds and stuff like that.

So, there was mainly those two buildings, one for the baths and stuff, and the other was kind of a dining building, where there were many tables and chairs and then there was the kitchen where the kitchen staff worked and prepared meals. The baths building was across the road down near the riverside, where another half-open building was located, where we used to practice dancing, because it was a large place. And then there were those wooden cottages up on a hill nearby to the dining building. Those cottages were very beautiful and comfy. We were divided into two groups, of course, _ girls and boys. And boys were placed in a different cottage, which was larger. And us girls were placed in two cottages that were smaller, but they were two!

Everything went great. We had lunch, we unpacked, rested a little and went outside to sightsee. There were some other groups besides us, two groups to be exact. They were good guys and we made some friends, too. They resided nearby us, in a many-stored building and they were footballers. The other ones were girls and they sang, if I remember correctly.

Next to the baths building, if you crossed the river, you would find a pitch and some exercising stuff like the ones that resemble stairs and you should hang on them and things like that. We really enjoyed them and would exercise there in the mornings. We also used to play on that pitch, and we played basketball and volleyball and even football and stuff. The great thing was that the boys were not all that rude and we all played together.

Our day routine at the resort

As I’ve mentioned, our purpose for being there was to practice our dancing skills and develop our dances. So, there was a schedule of our days there.

We had breakfast in the morning, and since we were too many for one dining building, we were divided into groups, some of us had breakfast at 7:30 and some of us at 8:00. Then, an hour later or so began our dancing practice. It lasted for some hours, maybe till 2 or 3 p. m., when we could rest a little and then have lunch. Then we practiced again and then had dinner in the evening and then we were free to do whatever we wanted. But those rules were not very strict, because we were only children and we could get tired or whatever and they knew that and they did not make us do things we didn’t want to.

The food was good, at least I liked it. There were tea and honey and butter and jam for breakfast, soups and meals from meat in the afternoon and tea and spaghetti or something in the evening, mainly. There were additional things every day, too, we called them “surprises”, because we didn’t know what would the cooks make for us additionally, besides what we knew they would prepare for us generally. There was this strange meal, though, that I hadn’t tasted before that. It was pasta cooked in milk and it was sweet. I didn’t like it at first, but then after some time I got used to it and I would eat it even twice. I still remember its taste, however I haven’t eaten that dish since then.

In the evenings, we would play all those games, such as badminton, volleyball, hide and seek, chess, and many others and that was so much fun that we didn’t want to go to sleep.

Sulori nature

The best thing about Sulori is the nature, if you ask me. While being there we explored many of its sites and went on a little excursion, too, which was really entertaining. The landscapes were amazing and the more we walked the more fascinated we were. The air there was so clean and didn’t even resemble this city air and stuff. You walked on those roads leading somewhere deep in the village and you were enjoying every second of it. And the river flowing somewhere nearby was just really transparent, but it was cold as it was coming from the hills up there.

There was this hill, where we went to see a church that was being built at that time. It was a small church, but the view from the hill was picturesque and we took lots of pictures there. It was a great trip and while on our way back we were tired and we were kind of out of water, we would go to houses and ask for some water and they would gladly help us. And the people living there all had very beautiful flowers in their gardens and I remember our teacher telling us that those people doesn’t like giving their flowers to others, I mean, giving their seeds of bulbs of whatever. I don’t know whether it is true or not, we didn’t check.

There’s also another thing, almost everyone there have hazelnuts grown in their yards. And since children love hazelnuts, we would pick some of them without the owners noticing. What’s more, everyone loves this thing called Alucha and it was its season, so it was ripe and many people had Alucha trees in their yards and it was crazy to see them and we would pick Aluchas and eat them. And once an owner saw us and she just ran towards us shouting “what are you doing? ” and we ran and ran…

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