Radisson Blu Iveria - a luxury hotel that was a refugee camp

The Radisson Blu Iveria Hotel is located in the center of the Georgian capital. Built in 1967, it was a decent hotel in Soviet Georgia and a popular place to stay, offering great views of Tbilisi. Then, in the early 1990s, civil war broke out in Georgia.

Tbilisi was flooded with refugees from Abkhazia, where fighting and unrest continued. As more than 200,000 refugees arrived in the city, the government faced the problem of housing them. Many buildings in Tbilisi, including the Iveria Hotel, were given over to housing refugees. Thousands of displaced people huddled on the 22 floors of the hotel, which became their home for the next decade.

At that time, the building ceased to be a hotel, as its administration was unable to maintain hotel operations after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the associated collapse of Georgia's tourism industry.

The majestic Soviet building that dominated the Tbilisi skyline became a pitiful sight: broken windows covered with cellophane, broken railings, crude plywood structures on the balconies and a whole curtain of linen and old things.

A journalist who visited the hotel in 2001 wrote:

It was only after the Rose Revolution in 2003 and the resignation of President Shevardnadze that the government began to seriously consider rebuilding the hotel. Residents were given $7,000 per room to move out.

The restored hotel now has 249 rooms, restaurants, bars and a conference centre.

In addition, the old rooftop pool was removed and replaced with a spa and fitness center. The hotel reopened in 2009 as the Radisson Blu Iveria Hotel.