Tsalka

Zalka (Georgian წალკა, Ծալկա Armenian, Greek Τσαλκα / Tsalka ) is a town in south Georgia, in the region of Lower Kartli ( Kvemo Kartli ). It is the administrative seat of the homonymous municipality Zalka and has about 2,000 inhabitants ( 2009).

Zalka is one of the places in Georgia where ethnic Georgians towards members of other ethnic groups, here Armenians and Greeks, are in the minority.

Location

The place is located in the south-central part of Georgia approximately 60 line kilometers west-southwest of the capital, Tbilisi, on the southern edge of the located at 1500 m to 1700 m above sea level Zalka plateau in Trialeti mountain range. Just north of the city of Kura Creek Chrami is dammed to Zalka reservoir and leaves the lake at first by the city fluent continue in a southeasterly direction through a narrow gorge.

History

As a founding year is 1829, when the authorities of the Russian Empire Pontic Greeks and Urum allowed from the Ottoman Empire, to settle there. These Greeks came from areas of the Ottoman Empire, which had been conquered in the Russian-Turkish war 1828-1829 by the Russian army, after the peace of Adrian Opel but fell back to the Ottoman Empire. The Greeks founded first five kilometers northeast of the present location Baschtascheni Zalka, shortly afterwards, a number of other places, including the place of today's Zalka the village Barmaksisi ( Georgian name form ბარმაქსიზი, of Turkish Barmaksiz ).

In connection with the establishment of Zalka Reservoir and several hydropower plants on Chrami from the 1930s the village to the logistical center for the construction was in 1932 renamed in Zalka and raised to the urban-type settlement. After establishment of several industries (mechanical engineering, textile and food industry, construction industry ) and the construction of a railway line in 1984 was the award of the town law.

Towards the end of the 1980s, and especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union have immigrated to the 1990s, a significant part of the Greek population of the area and the city Zalka to Russia (primarily in the North Caucasus ) and to Greece. The population of the city dropped to 2002 compared to 1989 to less than a quarter; the proportion of the Greek population in Rajon (corresponding to the present-day municipality ) Zalka from 61% to 22% ( 55 % Armenians, Georgians 12 %, Azeri 10%). Instead of the Greeks was a smaller number of Georgian refugees from Abkhazia and South Ossetia after Zalka and in the surrounding area considered due to its high, relatively sparsely vegetated location as one of the most inhospitable of Georgia. There is the consideration to compensate for the decline in population by returning a voluntary settlement " meschetischer Turks" from the Central Asian successor states of the Soviet Union, whose ancestors had been deported in 1944 from the former Georgian SSR.

Note: 1959-2002 census data, in 2009 calculation

Culture and sights

In Zalka a church from the 19th century has survived. In addition, in the village there is a bust of the classical Greek philosopher Aristotle.

Economy and infrastructure

Expenses incurred during the Soviet period industries are out of service. The north of the city Zalka Reservoir is used for power generation.

The leading through the city railway line, which in Marneuli of the route Tbilisi - Gyumri - branches Yerevan and leads to Akhalkalaki, whose construction began in the 1980s, was able to resume regular operations due to political and economic difficulties after the year 2000. It is planned to develop it as a section of the railway project Kars - Baku. The highway from Tbilisi to Akhalkalaki near the Turkish border runs through Zalka.