Abastumani

Abastumani (Georgian: აბასთუმანი) is a small town (daba) and climatic spa in Adigeni Municipality, Samtskhe-Javakheti, Georgia. It is located on the southern slopes of the Meskheti Range (Lesser Caucasus), in the small river valley of Otskhe, 25 km northeast of Adigeni and 28 km west of Akhaltsikhe. As of the 2002 census, it had a population of 1,368. The Georgian National Astrophysical Observatory is located at Abastumani.

History

In medieval Georgia, the area of modern-day Abastumani was part of the district of Odzrkhe so named after a fortress whose ruins survive near the townlet. In the 16th century, it fell to the Ottoman Empire under whose rule the area was deserted, but its hot springs were appreciated and frequented by locals. Under the Russian rule, a short-lived German colony of Friedenthal (Russian: Фрейденталь) emerged there in 1842. In the 1850s, it was recolonized by the Russians under the patronage of Viceroy of the Caucasus Mikhail Vorontsov. The new settlement acquired the name Abbas-Tuman after a nearby located village and became popular for its climate and thermal waters. Its development as a resort is chiefly associated with Grand Duke George Alexandrovich (1871–1899), a member of the Russian imperial family, who had retired there due to his ill-health. Abastumani acquired the status of an urban-type settlement (Georgian: daba) under the Soviet Union in 1926. Tourism infrastructure has been renovated since the mid-2000s.

Abastumani (disambiguation)

Abastumani may refer to:

1390 Abastumani

1390 Abastumani, provisional designation 1935 TA, is a large, rare-type asteroid from the outer region of the asteroid belt, about 102 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 3 October 1935, by Soviet–Russian female astronomer Pelageya Shajn at Simeiz Observatory on the Crimean peninsula. On the same night, the asteroid was independently discovered by South African astronomer Cyril Jackson at Johannesburg Observatory. It was one of the last large-sized bodies discovered in the outer belt (also see 1269 Rollandia and 1902 Shaposhnikov, discovered in 1930 and 1972, respectively).

The dark and reddish asteroid is classified as a rare P-type asteroid in the Tholen taxonomic scheme, of which only a few dozens bodies are currently known. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 3.3–3.6 AU once every 6 years and 4 months (2,326 days). Its orbit shows an eccentricity of 0.03 and an inclination of 20 degrees from the plane of the ecliptic. In 2002, a photometric light-curve observation at the U.S. Sonoran Skies Observatory (G94) in Benson, Arizona, gave it a rotation period of 7001171000000000000♠17.100±0.005 hours and an amplitude in brightness of 0.15 magnitude.