• 001 - the logo.jpg
  • 002 - Hiroshima sunset.jpg
  • 003 - Auschwitz-Birkenau ramp.jpg
  • 004 - Chernobyl contamination.jpg
  • 005 - Darvaza flaming gas crater.jpg
  • 006 - Berlin Wall madness.jpg
  • 007 - Bulgaria - monument at the bottom of Buzludzhy park hill.jpg
  • 008 - Ijen crater.jpg
  • 009 - Aralsk, Kazakhstan.jpg
  • 010 - Paris catacombs.jpg
  • 011 - Krakatoa.jpg
  • 012 - Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, Hanoi.jpg
  • 013 - Uyuni.jpg
  • 014 - DMZ Vietnam.jpg
  • 015 - Colditz Kopie.jpg
  • 016 - Glasgow Necropolis.jpg
  • 017 - Hashima ghost island.jpg
  • 018 - Kazakhstan.jpg
  • 019 - Arlington.jpg
  • 020 - Karosta prison.jpg
  • 021 - Kamikaze.jpg
  • 022 - Chacabuco ghost town.jpg
  • 023 - Eagle's Nest, Obersalzberg, Berchtesgaden.jpg
  • 024 - Kursk.jpg
  • 025 - Bran castle, Carpathia, Romania.jpg
  • 026 - Bestattungsmuseum Wien.jpg
  • 027 - Pripyat near Chernobyl.jpg
  • 028 - Sedlec ossuary, Czech Republic.jpg
  • 029 - Pyramida Lenin.jpg
  • 030 - Falklands.jpg
  • 031 - Majdanek.jpg
  • 032 - Soufriere volcano, Montserrat.jpg
  • 033 - moai on Easter Island.jpg
  • 034 - Sidoarjo.jpg
  • 035 - Hötensleben.jpg
  • 036 - Natzweiler.jpg
  • 037 - Polygon, Semipalatinsk test site, Kazakhstan.jpg
  • 038 - Srebrenica.jpg
  • 039 - Liepaja, Latvia.jpg
  • 040 - Vemork hydroelectric power plant building, Norway.jpg
  • 041 - Enola Gay.jpg
  • 042 - Pentagon 9-11 memorial.jpg
  • 043 - Robben Island prison, South Africa.jpg
  • 044 - Tollund man.jpg
  • 045 - Marienthal tunnel.jpg
  • 046 - Aso, Japan.jpg
  • 047 - Labrador battery Singapore.jpg
  • 048 - Artyom island, Absheron, Azerbaijan.jpg
  • 049 - Treblinka.jpg
  • 050 - Titan II silo.jpg
  • 051 - dosemetering doll, Chernobyl.jpg
  • 052 - Holocaust memorial, Berlin.jpg
  • 053 - Komodo dragon.jpg
  • 054 - cemeterio general, Santiago de Chile.jpg
  • 055 - Tuol Sleng, Phnom Phen, Cambodia.jpg
  • 056 - West Virginia penitentiary.jpg
  • 057 - ovens, Dachau.jpg
  • 058 - Derry, Northern Ireland.jpg
  • 059 - Bulgaria - Buzludzha - workers of all countries unite.jpg
  • 060 - Sachsenhausen.jpg
  • 061 - Tiraspol dom sovietov.jpg
  • 062 - modern-day Pompeii - Plymouth, Montserrat.jpg
  • 063 - Pico de Fogo.jpg
  • 064 - Trinity Day.jpg
  • 065 - Zwentendorf control room.jpg
  • 066 - Wolfschanze.jpg
  • 067 - Hiroshima by night.jpg
  • 068 - mass games, North Korea.jpg
  • 069 - Harrisburg.jpg
  • 070 - Nuremberg.jpg
  • 071 - Mostar.jpg
  • 072 - Tu-22, Riga aviation museum.jpg
  • 073 - Gallipoli, Lone Pine.jpg
  • 074 - Auschwitz-Birkenau - fence.jpg
  • 075 - Darvaza flaming gas crater.jpg
  • 076 - Atatürk Mausoleum, Ankara.jpg
  • 077 - Banda Aceh boats.jpg
  • 078 - AMARG.jpg
  • 079 - Chacabuco ruins.jpg
  • 080 - Bucharest.jpg
  • 081 - Bernauer Straße.jpg
  • 082 - Death Railway, Thailand.jpg
  • 083 - Mandor killing fields.jpg
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  • 085 - Jerusalem.jpg
  • 086 - Latin Bridge, Sarajevo.jpg
  • 087 - Panmunjom, DMZ, Korea.jpg
  • 088 - Ijen blue flames.jpg
  • 089 - Derry reconsilliation monument.jpg
  • 090 - Ebensee.jpg
  • 091 - Mödlareuth barbed wire.jpg
  • 092 - skull heaps in Sedlec ossuary, Czech Republic.jpg
  • 093 - Nikel.jpg
  • 094 - Fukushima-Daiichi NPP.jpg
  • 095 - Tital launch control centre.jpg
  • 096 - Dallas Dealy Plaza and Sixth Floor Museum.jpg
  • 097 - Auschwitz I.jpg
  • 098 - Stalin and Lenin, Tirana, Albania.jpg
  • 099 - Malta, Fort St Elmo.jpg
  • 100 - Peenemünde.jpg
  • 101 - Tarrafal.jpg
  • 102 - Kilmainham prison, Dublin.jpg
  • 103 - North Korea.jpg
  • 104 - Mittelbau-Dora.jpg
  • 105 - St Helena.jpg
  • 106 - Stutthof, Poland.jpg
  • 107 - Merapi destruction.jpg
  • 108 - Chueung Ek killing fields, Cambodia.jpg
  • 109 - Marienborn former GDR border.jpg
  • 110 - Mig and star, Kazakhstan.jpg
  • 111 - Nagasaki WWII tunnels.jpg
  • 112 - Hellfire Pass, Thailand.jpg
  • 113 - Kiev.jpg
  • 114 - Grutas Park, Lithuania.jpg
  • 115 - Zwentendorf reactor core.jpg
  • 116 - two occupations, Tallinn.jpg
  • 117 - Trunyan burial site.jpg
  • 118 - Ushuaia prison.jpg
  • 119 - Buchenwald.jpg
  • 120 - Marienthal with ghost.jpg
  • 121 - Murmansk harbour - with an aircraft carrier.jpg
  • 122 - Berlin Olympiastadion.JPG
  • 123 - Bastille Day, Paris.jpg
  • 124 - Spassk.jpg
  • 125 - Theresienstadt.jpg
  • 126 - B-52s.jpg
  • 127 - Bledug Kuwu.jpg
  • 128 - Friedhof der Namenlosen, Vienna.jpg
  • 129 - Auschwitz-Birkenau barracks.jpg
  • 130 - mummies, Bolivia.jpg
  • 131 - Barringer meteor crater.jpg
  • 132 - Murambi, Rwanda.jpg
  • 133 - NTS.jpg
  • 134 - Mauthausen Soviet monument.jpg
  • 135 - pullution, Kazakhstan.JPG
  • 136 - palm oil madness.jpg
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  • 138 - Okawa school building ruin.jpg
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  • 140 - flying death, military museum Dresden.JPG
  • 141 - KGB gear.JPG
  • 142 - KZ jacket.JPG
  • 143 - ex-USSR.JPG
  • 144 - Indonesia fruit bats.JPG
  • 145 - Alcatraz.JPG
  • 146 - Chernobyl Museum, Kiev, Ukraine.JPG
  • 147 - Halemaumau lava lake glow, Hawaii.JPG
  • 148 - Rosinenbomber at Tempelhof, Berlin.jpg
  • 149 - Verdun, France.JPG
  • 150 - hospital, Vukovar, Croatia.JPG
  • 151 - the original tomb of Napoleon, St Helena.JPG
  • 152 - Buchenwald, Germany.JPG
  • 153 - Bhopal.JPG
  • 154 - Groß-Rosen, Poland.jpg
  • 155 - at Monino, Russia.jpg
  • 156 - blinking Komodo.jpg
  • 157 - inside Chernobyl NPP.JPG
  • 158 - Mount St Helens, USA.JPG
  • 159 - Maly Trostenec, Minsk, Belarus.jpg
  • 160 - Vucedol skulls, Croatia.JPG
  • 161 - colourful WW1 shells.JPG
  • 162 - Zeljava airbase in Croatia.JPG
  • 163 - rusting wrecks, Chernobyl.JPG
  • 164 - San Bernadine alle Ossa, Milan, Italy.jpg
  • 165 - USS Arizona Memorial, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.JPG
  • 166 - Brest Fortress, Belarus.JPG
  • 167 - thousands of bats, Dom Rep.JPG
  • 168 - Hohenschönhausen, Berlin.JPG
  • 169 - Perm-36 gulag site.JPG
  • 170 - Jasenovac, Croatia.JPG
  • 171 - Beelitz Heilstätten.JPG
  • 172 - Kremlin, Moscow.jpg
  • 173 - old arms factory, Dubnica.JPG
  • 174 - Pervomaisc ICBM base, more  missiles, including an SS-18 Satan.jpg
  • 175 - Cellular Jail, Port Blair.jpg
  • 177 - control room, Chernobyl NPP.JPG
  • 178 - Podgorica, Montenegro, small arms and light weapons sculpture.jpg
  • 179 - Vught.jpg
  • 180 - Japanese cave East Timor.jpg
  • 181 - Ani.jpg
  • 182 - Indonesia wildfire.jpg
  • 183 - Chacabuco big sky.jpg
  • 184 - Bunker Valentin, Germany.JPG
  • 185 - Lest we Forget, Ypres.JPG
  • 186 - the logo again.jpg

Batumi

  
  - darkometer rating:  1 -
 
Batumi 03 - palm trees and grand architectureA city on the Black Sea in Georgia, near the border with Turkey. It is mostly a rather mainstream seaside tourist destination these days, especially for internal/regional tourism. But it also offers the dark tourist the odd diversion.
  
In particular there's Batumi's own little Stalin Museum (Monday to Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.). Maybe not as good as the Stalin Museum in Gori, but a substitute if you can't make it there.
   
Otherwise, there are bits that may be of interest in the Nobel Technological museum (10 a.m. to 5 p.m.), which chronicles Batumi's past as a pioneering town of the oil business (e.g. at the other end of a pipeline from Baku).
  
Unfortunately, when I was there in August 2010 for a couple of days I got food poisoning (I shouldn't have eaten that fish at this harbour restaurant …) and therefore was unable to go and check out these museums in person as planned ... I just got well enough to travel in time for the train to Tbilisi – at least.
  
I did, however, get an impression of the place on the first day, which confirmed Batumi's reputation as a pretty, spruced-up seaside resort town. In the centre, buildings have been refurbished immaculately and lots of lighting fixtures have been installed. Even on the beach.
  
Plenty of construction (and demolition) is still going on. It is clear that money is being funnelled into the further development of the place.
  
Batumi is also known as the party capital of the eastern Black Sea – and there's certainly no shortage of beach bars. The action is said to get going late at night – but I can't report on its nature from any own experience … As for restaurants, the range may not be as good as in Tbilisi, but it's decent (just don't eat the fish).
  
When I was in Batumi, however, the atmosphere was dampened a bit from what it must normally be like in summer by the unusually cold, windy and rainy weather, instead of the tropical temperatures expected here in August. Still, some beach-goers were unperturbed. Overall, though, the place felt less busy and bustling than I had anticipated – maybe the high season had already begun to come to its end …
   
The range of accommodation options is very wide indeed, if a bit short on budget options but very good in the mid-range bracket, and going up to a couple of top-end places that charge rates accordingly. Even these can become much more affordable out of the high season (up to 60% lower). Booking well ahead is advised in the busy season.
   
Getting to Batumi is easy from Tbilisi – there are both daytime and overnight sleeper trains. Again, in high season booking ahead is advisable. Buses are an alternative – especially when coming overland from Turkey. There's even an international airport, so it is possible to fly into Batumi from abroad – although the range of places where flights to Batumi depart from is a bit limited, most connections are to Ukraine, but there are also ones from/to Istanbul and from/to Tel Aviv, Israel.
  
In theory you can also get to Batumi by sea - the ferry service to Sochi in Russia using a hydrofoil speedboat was clearly back in action when I visited (though the guidebook said it had been suspended since 2007), but it may be tricky to get the right paperwork done … Other ferry connections at least used to exist to Ukraine and possibly also Bulgaria. But information is scant and unreliable. So you may be better going overland or flying.
  
Location: in the west of Georgia, on the eastern Black Sea Coast, ca. 180 miles (300 km) west of Tbilisi, but only a good ten miles (16 km) north of the border with Turkey.
  
 Google maps locator: [41.65,41.65]
      
 
  • Batumi 01 - miraculous entryBatumi 01 - miraculous entry
  • Batumi 02 - on the Black SeaBatumi 02 - on the Black Sea
  • Batumi 03 - palm trees and grand architectureBatumi 03 - palm trees and grand architecture
  • Batumi 04 - evening in the centreBatumi 04 - evening in the centre
  • Batumi 05 - beachfront at nightBatumi 05 - beachfront at night
  • Batumi 06 - lit-up palm treeBatumi 06 - lit-up palm tree
  • Batumi 07 - sunset over the Black SeaBatumi 07 - sunset over the Black Sea
  • Batumi 08 - city centre by nightBatumi 08 - city centre by night
  • Batumi 09 - ferry portBatumi 09 - ferry port
  • Batumi 10 - hydrofoil express ferryBatumi 10 - hydrofoil express ferry
  • Batumi 11 - lighthouseBatumi 11 - lighthouse
  • Batumi 12 - not very summery weatherBatumi 12 - not very summery weather
  • Batumi 13 - beach folk stubbornly carry on despite the weatherBatumi 13 - beach folk stubbornly carry on despite the weather
  • Batumi 14 - Medea monumentBatumi 14 - Medea monument
  • Batumi 15 - apartment blocks in bright colours and new buildingBatumi 15 - apartment blocks in bright colours and new building
  • Batumi 16 - demolition siteBatumi 16 - demolition site
     
  
  
  
  
  

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