Psyrtskha Railway Station
Located just outside the town of New Athos also referred to as Akhali Atoni and even sometimes by its Russian Name Novy Afon (it gets very confusing when trying to find weather reports when staying here!) is the insanely picturesque train station of Psyrtskha and one of the main reasons we decided to go to Abkhazia.
When you first see it (from older pictures) it looks like it is built overhanging a lake and when you get there it is BUT the whole thing is manmade.
The station is abandoned but the train tracks are still in use and take a few trains a day to Sukhumi.
From what I can find out there was a monastery in Greece (Athos) which was becoming overcrowded and some of the monks ventured out to find a suitable location of a new monastery, they chose a location near to Psyrtskha, and with the funds from Tsar Alexander III constructed a new Monastery and dedicated it to St Simon the Canaanite.
They also built a small hydroelectric power station By damming the Psyrtskha river the between 1892 and 1903.
In 1924, during the Soviet persecution of religion, the monastery was closed. It was later used as a storage facility, tourist base, hospital and museum. Its return to the Orthodox Church began in 1994, after the end of the war.
If I count backwards with the facts I can find sometime in the early 1970's the hydroelectric power station broke and remained broken for the next 40 years, which probably explains some vintage "Soviet Riviera" pictures I have seen with boats and people on the lake and there are even a couple of Dolphin boats parked up out of the way today. The hydroelectric power plant was reopened on 04 June 2012 it now produces an estimated 100kW per hour which the monastery still owns.
When you first see it (from older pictures) it looks like it is built overhanging a lake and when you get there it is BUT the whole thing is manmade.
The station is abandoned but the train tracks are still in use and take a few trains a day to Sukhumi.
From what I can find out there was a monastery in Greece (Athos) which was becoming overcrowded and some of the monks ventured out to find a suitable location of a new monastery, they chose a location near to Psyrtskha, and with the funds from Tsar Alexander III constructed a new Monastery and dedicated it to St Simon the Canaanite.
They also built a small hydroelectric power station By damming the Psyrtskha river the between 1892 and 1903.
In 1924, during the Soviet persecution of religion, the monastery was closed. It was later used as a storage facility, tourist base, hospital and museum. Its return to the Orthodox Church began in 1994, after the end of the war.
If I count backwards with the facts I can find sometime in the early 1970's the hydroelectric power station broke and remained broken for the next 40 years, which probably explains some vintage "Soviet Riviera" pictures I have seen with boats and people on the lake and there are even a couple of Dolphin boats parked up out of the way today. The hydroelectric power plant was reopened on 04 June 2012 it now produces an estimated 100kW per hour which the monastery still owns.
