By Prof. Giorgi Pkhakadze, MD, MPH, PhD · 15/09/2026
The Kukushka — “little cuckoo” — is the slowest scheduled train in Georgia, and the only one anyone rides for pleasure. It leaves Borjomi’s small station twice a day and takes two and a half hours to cover the 37 kilometres to Bakuriani, climbing 900 metres through pine forest with the doors open and the smell of the woods coming in. It is a relic, and it is one of the loveliest things you can do in the south of the country.
Why it exists
The Romanovs built it. When Borjomi became the viceroy’s summer resort in the 1860s, the plateau above it at Bakuriani — cool, forested, snowy in winter — became the place for hunting and, later, skiing. A road was rough and slow; a railway, narrow-gauge to cope with the gradient and the curves, was cut through the forest and opened in 1902. The engineering firm of Gustave Eiffel is credited with the iron bridge over the Tsemistskali river at Tsaghveri, a graceful lattice span that is still in use. Steam engines pulled it until the 1960s; the current diesel-electric units are Czech, from the 1960s, and look it.
The ride
Out of Borjomi the line follows the river through the town’s back gardens, then turns up the side valley and begins to climb. Villages — Tsaghveri, with the Eiffel bridge and a mineral spring of its own; Tsemi, a spa in its own right; Sakochavi — pass at walking pace. The forest closes in: pine, then beech, then pine again, and in autumn the beech turns copper against the green. Local people get on and off with bags and children; in winter, skiers with their gear. The last stretch crosses the open plateau with the mountains of the Trialeti range ahead, and the train stops in Bakuriani beside the old wooden station.
The carriages are simple — wooden benches, big windows that open — and the train is often full in summer weekends; buy tickets at the station an hour ahead. Sit on the right going up for the river views.
Bakuriani
At the top: Georgia’s first ski resort, founded in the 1930s, now the family resort — gentle slopes at Didveli and Kokhta, pine air, horses, a botanical garden, and hotels from Soviet sanatorium to alpine chalet. In summer it is cool when Tbilisi is baking, and the walks into the forest start from the edge of town. The drive back down to Borjomi by car takes forty minutes, which after the train feels like cheating.
See it with GTour
The Kukushka is the morning of day two on the Borjomi, Bakuriani & Rabati tour in the seasons it runs; the driver meets you at the top with the car.
This story in Georgian — ქართულად: shenidasveneba.ge
ქართულად: „კუკუშკა“ — 37 კილომეტრი ორნახევარ საათში, განზრახ
