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Borjomi (Municipality, Georgia)

ბორჯომი

Flag and arms of Borjomi - Images by The State Council of Heraldry at the Parliament of Georgia, 25 January 2011

Presentation of Borjomi
Flag of Borjomi

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Georgia

Presentation of Borjomi

The town of Borjomi (14,445 inhabitants in 2002) is located in the Samstkhe-Javakheti Region (central Georgia).
Borjomi is mostly known for its sources, the "Borjom" mineral spring water being today the first Georgian exported product. The sources, located in the Borjomi Gorge, have been supplying for ages drinking and thermal water. Abandoned in the 16th-18th centuries due to local unrest, they were rediscovered in the middle of the 19th century; in 1862, Michael Romanov, brother of the Tsar and Vice Roy of Transcaucasia, built a summer residence in Borjomi. The town became a famous spa, where a bottling factory was set up in 1890. From a yearly sale of 450 million bottles in 1988, production dropped to 5 million in 1995, following the independence of Georgia and a chaotic privatization of the company. The "Borjomi" water reemerged after the founding in 1995 of the "Georgian Glass & Mineral Waters" company. Banned from the Russian market, together with Georgian wines, because of an alleged contamination by pesticides, the "Borjomi" water was authorized again on 1 July 2010.
[Borjomi, la "Vichy du Caucase"]

The Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park (85,000 ha), created in 1995 with the support of WWF and IUCN and officially inaugurated in 2001, is the first national park set up in Caucasus; it includes Michael Romanov's personal forest and hunting reserve. The park hosts the endemic Caucasian grouse (Tetrao mlokosiewiczi Taczanowski).

Borjomi applied for the organization of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games but its bid was excluded from the short list issued on 22 June 2006.

Ivan Sache, 10 December 2010

Flag of Borjomi

The flag and arms of Borjomi are prescribed by Decree No. 24, adopted on 19 August 2009 by the Municipal Council.

The State Council of Heraldry at the Parliament of Georgia, 25 January 2011

The flag of Borjomi is quartered white-green with a countercoloured fir in each quarters, overall an red escutcheon charged with a white deer.
The flag must have been derived from the municipal arms "Per fess serrated, 1. Per pale gules a stag argent azure a water spring argent, 2. Argent two firs vert two firs argent a fir countercolored overall. The shield surmounted by a three-towered mural crown argent fimbriated sable. Under the shield a scroll argent fimbriated sable charged with the name of the town in Georgian capital letters sable".

The colors of the arms are based on historical documents from the 18th-19th centuries, especially the two atlases published in 1745-1746 by Prince Vakhushti (Vakhushti Batonishvili, 1696-1757), which use gules for the arms of the Kartli region. Azure and argent symbolize dignity, courage, generosity and nobility of the inhabitants.
The deer argent represents the struggle against evil, being also the emblem of the "Borjomi" mineral water. The firs, the symbols of courage and kindness, represent the natural environment.
[State Council of Heraldry at the Parliament of Georgia]

Ivan Sache, 30 May 2012