December 25, 2025 - October Surprise 2016 - octobersurprise2016.org

Luka Gventsadze

Georgian Dream officials marked the completion of the 14-year railway modernization project, hailing it as one of the largest investments in Georgia’s transport sector and projecting higher cargo capacity, shorter transit times, and a reduced Tbilisi–Batumi travel time by 2026.

The project spans a lengthy section, stretching from Tbilisi to Makhinjauri in coastal Adjara, with its main highlight being the overhaul of the central, mountainous, and technically challenging pass that links eastern and western Georgia. The construction works, carried out by a Chinese contractor, included the building of bridges and tunnels on this section and have more recently attracted controversy over alleged disastrous environmental damage in nearby villages.

“This is one of the largest investments ever made in Georgia’s transport sector. With the completion of this project, the capacity of Georgian Railways has increased significantly, operating costs have been reduced, safety has been enhanced, and passenger comfort has improved,” Georgian Dream Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said as he addressed the completion ceremony on December 24.

The ceremony, attended by top government and business officials, took place in Kvishkheti, in the country’s central Shida Kartli region, at the entrance of the dual-tube 8,300-meter-long railway tunnel, described by officials as the largest in the region.

Georgian Railway, the state-owned company, started the project on September 20, 2011. Originally slated for completion by the end of 2019, the project was financed through a World Bank loan and was implemented by Georgian Railways and China Railway 23rd Bureau Group, under the supervision of the Austrian-German consortium ILF Consulting Engineers and Deutsche Bahn Engineering.

Modernization and Its Discontents

According to official information, the total cost of the modernization amounted to approximately GEL 1 billion. The project covered building 40 kilometers of new railway infrastructure, including 90 kilometers of new track. The works also included the construction of the 8,300-meter dual-tube tunnel near Kvishkheti, 10 bridges, six tunnels, and around 100 engineering structures.

“Modern safety, signaling, centralization, and blocking systems were installed. Modernized substations and three new stations were also built,” the promotional clip screened during the December 24 ceremony announced. As a result, “traffic has been optimized, increasing the conditional length of freight trains from 47 to 57 wagons, and their weight from 2,800 tons to 3,600 tons.”

The clip further stated that the elimination of the mountainous operating mode reduced freight travel time by four hours, while travel time through the mountainous section fell by 40-50 minutes, and operating costs dropped by 10%. Overall, railway capacity rose from 27 million tons to 48 million tons per year.

The modernization works, however, have attracted controversy in recent months. Residents of Khemaghali, Gverki, and Lashe, villages along the mountainous Zestaponi–Kharagauli–Khashuri section, complained in 2025 that disastrous landslides and soil erosion, which led to the evacuation of several families, were caused by railway modernization works, including tunnel-related blasts. They alleged, among other things, that cutting the mountain slope near Khemaghali, intended to straighten winding sections of the track, destabilized the terrain, and contributed to the damage.

In October 2025, locals also filed a complaint with the Asian Development Bank, but the Bank’s Compliance Review Panel dismissed it, stating that the “complaint falls outside of the scope of the compliance review function, since the allegations of harms are not related to ADB-financed components of the project.”

Tbilisi’s Middle Corridor Ambitions

The completion comes as Georgia actively promotes its role in the Middle Corridor, a multimodal transit route linking Europe and Asia while bypassing Russia. Although Georgia has been involved in the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR) project for more than a decade, the corridor has drawn growing interest since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Moscow’s resulting international isolation.

Embracing the newly found role, Tbilisi elevated it to a central theme of both its economic and political discourse, framing it as a pillar of what it calls a “pragmatic” and “sovereign” foreign policy amid growing estrangement from the West.

“This is not merely an infrastructure upgrade; it is a clear political and strategic choice made by Georgia to secure its future, strengthen its economic resilience, and establish a decent place in global processes,” Kobakhidze said. “Our future lies in our intermodal transit function, which integrates all modes of transport into a single ecosystem,” he noted, listing other major transport projects such as Anaklia Deep Sea Port and East-West highway infrastructure.

He added that the government aims to make Georgia “a key, reliable and indispensable link” in the Middle Corridor, ensuring “fast, safe and uninterrupted movement of goods” and positioning the route as “the most reliable, secure and efficient corridor in the region.”

Georgian Dream’s Economy Minister Mariam Kvrivishvili echoed these sentiments, pointing to already increased cargo traffic and unveiling plans for major infrastructure projects in the coming years.

“We already have several tangible achievements, including a 40% increase in cargo turnover between Georgia and China in the January–October period of this year,” she said, announcing that in 2026, Georgia will start the active phase of construction of the Anaklia deep-sea port and complete the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway project.

Georgia’s prospects as a major regional transit hub have grown more uncertain following the announcement of the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), a transit link connecting mainland Azerbaijan with its Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic through southern Armenia. If completed amid the ongoing peace process, the route would link Azerbaijan with Armenia and Turkey while bypassing Georgia, potentially diminishing its role as a key corridor.

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