Borjomi mineral water source is located at the entrance to the Central Park. It is a small pavilion with a green roof, where a bottle of Borjomi medicinal water can be filled from a tap. The water pressure there is small. In the 19th century, water was collected in the Central Park in two sources: Ekaterininsky and Evgenievsky. These were sources with a huge debit, but now this water is used for bottling the famous Borjomi water for its supplies around the world.
The Ekaterininsky spring is still the most powerful in the Borjomi Gorge. The source got its name in honor of the daughter of the Russian governor in the Caucasus, General Golovin, who suffered from stomach disease. The doctor of the Georgian Grenadier Regiment Amirov offered Ekaterina Golovina to come to Borjomi for treatment. She came here in 1841 and after a course of treatment was completely healed. After that, the fame of the Borjomi sourced spread to the whole of Russia.
The main water source of Borjomi was named Ekaterininsky, in honor of Ekaterina Golovina. The second most powerful spring nearby was named Yevgenyevsky, in honor of Major General Yevgeny Espejo, who equipped both springs and built pavilions over them during the treatment of General Golovin`s daughter. Now these sources can only be seen in photographs of Prokudin-Gorsky. To this day, the wooden pavilions over the Borjomi water sources have not been preserved.
In those years, the Borjomi water sources were lined with stones, inside of which the healing mineral water of Borjomi was bubbling. In 1894, Prince Romanov built a bottling plant for mineral waters near the sources. Production volumes in those years allowed not to overlap the main sources. Nowadays, the historical building of the Mineral Water Plant at the entrance to the Central Park has been preserved, but is still empty. Local authorities decide what to do with it.
During a visit to Borjomi in 1907, photographer Prokudin-Gorsky took several photos of this plant, thanks to which we can feel the atmosphere of those years. Work at this factory flourished. For example, during the manual bottling of Borjomi water in bottles in the second half of the 19th century, only a few thousand bottles a year could be sent for sale. After the opening of production in 1905, the plant shipped 320 thousand bottles of Borjomi water per year, and in 1913 – 9 million. This plant worked until the middle of the 20th century.
