Stadioni Vladimir Borchorishvili

The ground was cut for something like 17,000 people at a time when the mines set the size of the town, and the seats that remain — a working capacity of 6,000 — sit inside that older, wider bowl. Nothing about the arithmetic has ever matched the football played on it since: a Pirveli Liga fixture in 2016 drew 500.

The name belongs to Vladimer Bochorishvili, a coach tied to the club and a figure the town's football still measures itself against. Before that it was simply Tkibuli Central Stadium, and it was under that name, in 1972, that it took a youth international between the USSR and Bulgaria — an outside fixture arriving in a mining town in Imereti.

The best years of the tenant, FC Meshakhte Tkibuli, ran through the Georgian SSR competitions: cups in 1964 and 1976, then back-to-back championships in 1980 and 1981.

Promotion out of the 2025 season carried the club up to the Erovnuli Liga and away from the ground at the same time. The stadium did not meet the standards the top flight requires, so home matches for 2026 were moved to Tskaltubo. The plan on the table is demolition and a new UEFA-standard ground on the same plot, at 4,500 — smaller again than what stands there now, and smaller by far than what the mines once built.