Natural gas available for Georgian villages along occupation line

Two Georgian villages located near the occupation line with Georgia’s breakaway Tskhinvali region (South Ossetia) are now supplied with natural gas for the first time.

Slightly more than 500 households in Gori municipality who live near the administrative border, which has been contested since the Russia-Georgia war in August 2008, are now connected with a reliable gas supply.

Georgia’s Vice Prime Minister and Energy Minister Kakha Kaladze, with the local authorities and representatives of Azerbaijani gas distribution company SOCAR Georgia Gas, lit a symbolic torch today at the villages to symbolise the new gas connection. The villages were Khurvaleti and Tsitelubani.

Tsitelubali is the village where the tense situation further intensified after Russia extended its occupation two kilometres deeper into Georgian territory earlier this month.

While Khurvaleti village was where Data Vanishvili, the hero of Agenda.ge’s Easter story, lived.

SOCAR Georgia Gas built a 14km gas pipe allowing 510 families in both villages to connect to the main pipeline and access natural gas.

Normally, once the central pipe was built in a village, families must pay up to 600 GEL to ensure their home was connected to the gas main. However thanks to a special Governmental project meant for villages near the occupation zone, people here can access gas for free.

Meanwhile, more than 33 villages in Georgia’s eastern Shida Kartli region were connected with gas for free after the Central Government allocated 19 million GEL to implement this project.

When fully implemented, 58 villages in Georgia’s most troubled areas will have access to natural gas.