GeorgiaOfficial tourism
Tskaltubo Cave

Where Stalin's spa guests sought healing depths

Tskaltubo Cave

Why go

Tskaltubo Cave lies beneath the same hills that drew Soviet elites to Georgia's most famous sanatorium town, where thermal radon baths healed party officials from 1950 to 1991. The cave's stable 14°C temperature and 100% humidity once served as natural therapy for respiratory ailments, extending the town's wellness mythology underground. Unlike show caves elsewhere, Tskaltubo remains raw and lightly visited, its flowstone curtains, stalactite forests, and rimstone pools forming slowly over millions of years in the karst of the Imereti plateau. The connection to Tskaltubo's UNESCO-recognized sanatorium architecture—now being revived—makes this a rare pairing of Soviet modernism and deep geologic time.

On the ground See

  • The White Hall, a chamber draped in calcite formations that glow under proper lighting
  • The underground lake, its still surface reflecting ceiling formations in perfect mirror
  • The abandoned Soviet-era speleotherapy facility at the cave entrance, where patients once sat in prescribed 'cave sessions'

Practical Know before you go

Best visited May through October; arrange guided entry through Tskaltubo municipality or local guesthouses, as the cave lacks fixed infrastructure and requires headlamps.

Last reviewed 25 August 2026 · reviewed quarterly