Taking The Soviet Elektrichka Train to Borjomi from Tbilisi: The Arrival

I have been a bit busy and all over the place over the past few weeks, everything since arriving back from Borjomi feels like a fever dream, with some actual sickness and poor health appearing alongside just being busy and doing so many different things. In my last post on my trip to Borjomi, I mentioned how the day transitioned into night. The sights of watching the sun starting to set over the mountains and the beautiful pink, blue, and red tones that covered the few clouds in the horizon. I mentioned seeing citizens sitting by the rail, just letting the evening go by as they watched the train pass. Stray dogs all around them as they kept them company. I wrote about the oddity of seeing more modern development in such rural locations, mixed with Soviet apartment buildings that would come out of nowhere. In some locations, it would seem like an incredibly rural and traditional village, and then you'd see a modern football field with huge fences and stadium flood lights for the locals in the evening. I had never seen such things, and that mixture of new and old would only continue as the train pressed forward into the night. The train would stop briefly at stations in the middle of nowhere, the doors would open to nothing. Few bits of light would highlight tree branches or a few metres ahead of the train. 

At one station, the train would stop at a new modern tennis court which for some reason also served as the station in the area. Right next to the rail was the empty court, an outdoor gym with nobody there to use it. And a lone cow which stood there in the middle of it all. The cow stood there, idle in this strange environment it didn't belong in, and just looked at me at the doors. I shot a quick photograph of it in the night, quickly lowering the shutter speed to capture it in any quality. It was so dark that I didn't expect to actually capture anything. This continued form here on as the train continued into the night. At this point much of the train had emptied, we had already passed Gori and from there on it was mostly mountainous landscapes along the river, each carriage at this point had silenced, the few remaining people within them would be found half asleep, catching some rest and clearly waiting for that final destination in Borjomi. One person would find boredom to the point of pacing through the train, trying to find people to talk to while looking incredibly suspicious in the process. He'd get up, move to a new seat, sit there for a few moments, then move to another. Constantly in motion. I couldn't blame him, though. It was getting late and there was no Internet connection to be found in this region. The lights on the train were dim and there was little to see outside.

The smell of smoke from the end of the carriages had finally disappeared with the removal of much of the train's passengers. Though the smell of smoke was soon replaced with the appearance of numerous insects which had found their ways inside from the numerous stops the train had made as the doors had opened and windows had remained unclosed. Moths would circle in these areas, and at one point a large hornet had found its way into the carriage. It was getting harder and harder to take photographs at this point. I had to bump up the ISO a lot and decrease the shutter speed. I think in this instance I was using the 35mm F1.8 lens on the Sony A6000, which is a fairly decent camera but doesn't perform the best under low light. You can see some of the noise in the photographs at this point, but I had to shoot something to pass the time. From here it was about two more hours to Borjomi. And those two final hours felt incredibly long. The darkness all around, the people sleeping or simply gone. Everyone seemed quiet and tired. Everyone was ready to just get off the train. I remember looking out of the window and seeing the moonlight over a body of water, the stream passing by almost as fast as we were. Though that doesn't mean much as the train is old and quite slow anyway. 

Old buildings still were the main feature when we stopped. That old style of architecture from the Soviet Union. Large windows and their patterns. All a bit rundown and showing their age with either paint scraped off or bits crumbling here and there. Little details were mostly visible again from brief bits of light inside the buildings or from the train as it stopped. These old buildings became few and far between at this point. There wasn't much else to see around the closer we got. Upon arrival we noticed the old cobblestone roads, but it was so dark at this point, plus already over midnight. I didn't take photographs of the actual arrival until the following morning. A quick walk over the river, across an old wooden bridge to the main centre of the town. It was incredibly small. A place you could walk around within an hour or so depending on how often you stop to look at things. Though there isn't a whole lot to see. Exhausted, carrying a few bags across the street. That sound of the luggage wheels bouncing along the cobblestone flooring, making the most noise in the entire town. Impossible to not at such a moment. But the excitement to explore was already there. Somehow powered with a lack of food and water. I assume excitement to be in a new place, surrounded by trees and natural wonders. 

Anyway, this starts a new series: the Borjomi days. It took me a while to write about the experience of taking the old train there. The feelings and emotions of witnessing the life along the way. Borjomi itself was a totally different experience, and I took so many photographs and drone shots. I'm really excited to share those. But I'll end this post with the most fun shot I took during that time of night: the cow in the park. 

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