By Nikola Marinko · EIA Project Manager, WTP Mestia, Georgia, 2017-2018 · Updated October 2026 · 12 min read

In January 2017 I started on an Asian Development Bank-funded water treatment plant in Mestia, at about 1,440 m in Upper Svaneti. The scope was a 40 L/s modular plant designed by Ludwig Pfeiffer and Protecno, 9.2 km of insulated transmission main, three rehabilitated reservoirs with 4,000 m³ of storage and an intake at the Zargashi site. I carried the full electrical, instrumentation and automation scope, Siemens S7-1500 with WinCC, through commissioning and handover in February 2018.

The story is about what the site taught me and what the region gave back. The Enguri gorge road that only a 4x4 handles reliably, the winter mornings when a metre of snow closed the road and we walked to site to check that nothing had frozen, and the twin peaks of Ushba standing straight in front of our workplace. Then the Svan towers built between the 9th and 13th centuries, Ushguli at 2,200 m below Mount Shkhara, the Hatsvali gondola from the town centre, the Koruldi Lakes at 2,700 m and the empty slopes of Tetnuldi.

When the day was done, the answer was always Cafe Laila, where a local band often plays Georgian polyphonic folk music in the evening. Go for the towers and stay for that.

WTP Mestia project · Tetnuldi · Nakra valley · Tbilisi · Field stories

Mestia, Svaneti - Fourteen Months Building a Water Plant Under Ushba

FIELD STORY