Akhalkalaki, Samtskhe-Javakheti, Georgia

🇬🇪 Akhalkalaki is a town in Georgia's southern region of Samtskhe–Javakheti and the administrative centre of the Akhalkalaki Municipality. Akhalkalaki lies on the edge of the Javakheti Plateau. The city is located about 30 km from the border with Turkey. The town's recorded history goes back to the 11th century. The town has a population with around 93% Armenian majority.

Etymology The name Akhalkalaki, first recorded in the 11th-century Georgian chronicle, means "a new town". The 19th-century ethnographic accounts have another Armenian name for the town, Nor-Kaghak, also meaning "a new town".

History Akhalkalaki was founded by Bagrat IV of Georgia in 1064. In 1066, the city was destroyed during the Seljuq invasions of the Kingdom of Georgia. In the 11th century, Akhalkalaki became one of the political and economical centres of Javakheti. In the 16th century, the city came under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and became a sanjak centre in Çıldır Eyaleti. Under the Ottoman rule, the town was known as "Ahılkelek". The city was passed from the Ottomans to the Russians after the Russo-Turkish War in 1828–1829. On January 4, 1900, an earthquake destroyed much of the town and killed 1,000 people in the area. The citizens predominantly dwelled in dugouts till the 1920s. The city was the administrative centre of the Akhalkalaki uezd of the Tiflis Governorate. In May 1918, the town and its district were occupied by the Ottoman army until their withdrawal by the Armistice of Mudros—the occupation resulted in the exodus of the local Armenian population which nearly perished due to starvation and disease.

Population By the time of the region's annexation to the Russian Empire in 1829, the population was mainly Islamicized Georgians. After the Russian takeover, most of the Muslim Georgians left the area for the Ottoman Empire, and in their place Christian Armenian refugees from Erzurum and Bayazid settled here. Since then the city and the region of Javakheti has been largely populated by Armenians.

Transport The crossroads village meets from south the streets from the border to Armenia and Turkey, from north to Borjomi–Gori and east–west from Batumi to Tiflis south of the Lesser Caucasus.

A 160 km (99 mi) long railway line was constructed between 1982 and 1986 in three parts. The junction from the line Tbilisi–Yerevan is in Marabda.

In April 2005, an agreement was signed to build a new railway connecting Turkey with Georgia and Azerbaijan, passing nearby Akhalkalaki. This would bypass an existing line through Gyumri in Armenia which has been closed by Turkey, blockading Armenia, for political reasons since the 1990s. The railway became operational on October 30, 2017. It is here where the break-of-gauge is.

In compound with the military base was constructed an airport. With military dismantling it was closed.

Bases The city was home to the Soviet-era 147th Motor Rifle Division (part of the 9th Army of the Transcaucasian Military District) up until the early 1990s. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Division became the Russian 62nd Military Base. It was officially transferred, according to the Sochi agreement, to Georgia on June 27, 2007.

On September 19, 2020, a new basic combat training centre was opened on the site of the former base in Akhalkalaki. The centre is designed to accommodate and train up to 800 military personnel and conscripts.