The Borjomi springs have been known since at least the VII century, as evidenced by archaeological finds—seven bathing pools carved directly into the rock. For unknown reasons, they fell out of use in the IX century.
Everything changed in 1829, when the Kherson Grenadier Regiment of the Russian army arrived in Borjomi.
Exhausted from campaigns against the Ottoman Empire, the soldiers accidentally stumbled upon mineral springs on the right bank of the Borjomula River (locally known as the Borjomka).
The first to try the water was Colonel Pavel Popov, who had been suffering from digestive issues.
Seeing positive results, he ordered stone walls to be built around the spring.
By 1841, the Borjomi waters had become so famous that the Tsar’s viceroy in the Caucasus, Yevgeny Golovin, brought his ailing daughter Yekaterina there.
The treatment worked quickly, and the grateful father named one of the springs after his daughter and the other “Yevgenyevsky,” in his own honor.