If you take a walk in the center of Natanebi, you will notice that the settlement differs from the typical Georgian villages, mainly by the solid signs of once lively rural life.
On the main street in Kvemo Natanebi, there are buildings still functioning and on the verge of demolition - a school, a kindergarten, a municipality building, a musical centre, a sports palace.
As time goes by, the traces of the previous decade slowly disappear into the ruins of Soviet brutalism.At the entrance, you will see an abandoned department store building. According to the locals, Soviet products could be purchased here in short supply, making the place popular throughout western Georgia.
The chairman of the collective farm had the ambition to make Natanebi a competitive, rich and distinguished village.
The historic part of the building is dysfunctional.
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The building stands alone as a piece of art, with its rooms decorated in glass mosaic and baths covered in ceramic
The ceiling decorated in plastic figures
Part of the Kindergarten is renovated and still functioning.
"The area we are occupying is enough for educational purposes, given that the rehabilitation and maintenance of the historic part is associated with considerable costs," explains the director of the kindergarten, Tea Samkharadze.
The forms and methods of Soviet rule are definitely not the subject of Nostalgia for the population of Natanebi. But they associate the current dysfunctional/demolished buildings as the signs of once active rural life and the current hopeless economical situation.
various sections, hotel rooms, showers, is now non-functional.
Lia Giguashvili, a local resident of Natanebi, says that the sports complex does not attract the attention of the local government even during the elections period.
Nowadays, the majority of the population is engaged in agriculture in Natanebi. Like other villages, unemployment remains a major challenge, leading to an outflow of population from the countryside.
According to the National Statistics Office, the rural population in Georgia is declining year by year, mainly due to lack of infrastructure and jobs.
