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Georgia
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Having gone from backpacker secret to mainstream darling in just a decade, Georgia today is by far the most visited country in the South Caucasus, and it’s easy to see why: its rich culture and astonishingly diverse landscapes make it an ideal destination for anyone loving history and nature on the grandest of scales.
From its green valleys spread with vineyards to its old churches and watchtowers perched in fantastic mountain scenery, Georgia (Saqartvelo, საქართველო) never disappoints. In recent years Tbilisi has emerged as one of the coolest cities in Europe, with a burgeoning club scene, world-class restaurants and a selection of natural wine bars that easily make it the hippest spot in the region. Equally special are its proud, high-spirited people: Georgia claims to be the birthplace of wine, and this is a place where guests are considered blessings and hospitality is the very stuff of life. Gaumarjos!
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Top attractions
These are our favorite local haunts, touristy spots, and hidden gems throughout Georgia.
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Gelati Monastery
This Unesco World Heritage–listed monastery complex, on a wooded hillside 8km northeast of Kutaisi, is an outstanding example of Golden Age architecture and one of Georgia's most important churches. Gelati was a cultural hub of Georgia's medieval renaissance, and many Georgian rulers were buried here, including the great 12th-century king, David the Builder. The interior of the main Cathedral of the Virgin is among the brightest and most colourful in Georgia, with fascinating frescoes. King David founded Gelati in 1106 as a centre for Christian culture and Neoplatonist learning. Medieval chroniclers described its academy as a ‘second Jerusalem’ and a 'new Athens'. In 1510 the Ottoman Turks set fire to the complex, but Bagrat III of Imereti subsequently restored it. The monks were cast out by the communists in 1922, but the churches were reconsecrated in 1988. The first building you come to as you enter the complex is the Church of St George, which contains multiple colourful frescoes. Outside the cathedral’s west door is the smaller Church of St Nicholas, built on an unusual arcaded base, and beyond that, the recently rebuilt Academy, where philosophy, theology, sciences and painting were studied, and important chronicles and translations written. David the Builder’s grave lies inside the south gate: David wanted all who entered the monastery to step on his tomb, a notably humble gesture for such a powerful man. Ironically, reverent visitors today take great care not to step on it. The frescoes in the main Cathedral of the Virgin were painted between the 12th and 18th centuries: the line of six noble figures on the wall to your left as you face the altar includes David the Builder (holding the church) and Bagrat III of Georgia (with a cross over his left shoulder). A famous 1120s mosaic of the Virgin and Child, with Archangels Michael and Gabriel to the left and right respectively, looks down from the apse ceiling. If you visit during the Sunday-morning service from around 10am, you’ll be treated to beautiful Georgian chants. Marshrutky to Gelati (1 GEL, 30 minutes) leave from outside the Dinmart Supermarket behind the Drama Theatre in Kutaisi hourly from 8am to 6pm, passing the Motsameta turn-off en route. The last one back from Gelati is at 4.30pm. If you’re visiting both places, it’s a mostly downhill road-walk of about one hour from Gelati to Motsameta, should the return marshrutka schedules not suit: you can cut 800m off the distance by heading to the left along the railway after 3.5km. A taxi round-trip from Kutaisi to Gelati typically costs 25 GEL, or 30 GEL with Motsameta too.
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Udabno Monastery
Less of a monastery than a series of cave-hewn chapels, Udabno runs along a steep escarpment looking down to grassy plains in Azerbaijan. While many caves are ruins, some contain fascinating frescoes painted in the 10th to 13th centuries, though the neglect is shocking with many centuries-old paintings covered in graffiti. The exact line of the Georgia–Azerbaijan border up here has not yet been finally demarcated, and you may find Azerbaijan border guards patrolling here; they are not normally any hindrance to visiting the caves unless there is a flare-up of border tensions. To reach Udabno, take the path uphill beside the church shop outside Lavra monastery. Watch out for poisonous vipers, including in the caves and especially from April to June. At a watchtower overlooking Lavra, take the path straight up the hill. In about 10 minutes you reach a metal railing. Follow this to the top of the ridge, then to the left along the far side of the ridge (where the railing deteriorates to a series of posts). The caves above the path here are the Udabno monastery. The most outstanding frescoes are about halfway along the hillside. Walk along until you reach some caves numbered with green paint. Seventy metres past cave 50, a side path heads up and back to cave 36, the monastery’s refectory, where the monks had to kneel to eat at low stone tables. It’s decorated with beautiful light-toned frescoes, the principal one being an 11th-century Last Supper. Further up above here are the Annunciation Church (cave 42), with very striking frescoes showing Christ and his disciples (you need some agility to get inside it), and St George’s Church (cave 41). Return to the main path and continue 25m to the left to Udabno’s main church. Paintings here show Davit Gareja and his disciple Lukiane surrounded by deer, depicting the story that deer gave them milk when they were wandering hungry in this remote wilderness. Below them are Kakhetian princes. The path eventually climbs to a stone chapel on the clifftop, then heads down back to where you began.
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Vardzia
The remarkable cave city of Vardzia is both a cultural symbol and a spectacular natural phenomenon with a special place in Georgian hearts. King Giorgi III built a fortification here in the 12th century, and his daughter, Queen Tamar, established a cave monastery that grew into a holy city housing perhaps 2000 monks, renowned as a spiritual bastion of Christendom’s eastern frontier. Altogether there are over 400 rooms, 13 churches and 25 wine cellars, with many more still being discovered today. Its inhabitants lived in rock-hewn dwellings ranging over 13 floors, a scale almost impossible to imagine at the time. A major earthquake in 1283 shook away the outer walls of many caves and the cave city began its long decline. In 1551 the Georgians were defeated by the Persians in a battle in the caves themselves, and Vardzia was looted. Since the end of Soviet rule Vardzia has again become a working monastery, with some caves inhabited by monks (and cordoned off to protect their privacy). Guides, available at the ticket office, don’t speak English but they have keys to some passages and caves that you can’t otherwise enter. At the heart of the cave complex is the Church of the Assumption, with its two-arched, bell-hung portico. The church's facade has gone, but the inside is beautiful. Frescoes painted at the time of its construction (1184–86) portray many New Testament scenes and, on the north wall, Giorgi III and Tamar before she married (shown by the fact that she is not wearing a wimple). To be allowed in the church, women must wear long skirts and a head covering, and men must wear long trousers. The door to the left of the church door leads into a long tunnel (perhaps 150m), which climbs up steps inside the rock and emerges well above the church, a claustrophobic but rather exciting experience.You can't really get lost despite the size of the complex, and once you have explored various different levels, you'll find yourself led back down the hillside in a large loop.
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Tsminda Sameba Church
This 14th-century church 2200m above Stepantsminda has become almost a symbol of Georgia for its incomparably photogenic hilltop setting with mighty Mt Kazbek rising behind it, and for the fierce determination involved in building it on such a lofty, isolated perch. A circuitous new road leads up to the church (return trip by taxi 40 GEL to 60 GEL), but you can walk up to the church in one to 1½ hours from Stepantsminda. The views back over Stepantsminda are incredible. Vakhushti Batonishvili wrote in the 18th century that in times of danger the treasures from Mtskheta, as well as St Nino’s cross, were kept at Tsminda Sameba for safety. In 1988 the Soviet authorities constructed a cable-car line to the church, with one station right next to Tsminda Sameba. The people of Stepantsminda felt it defiled their sacred place and soon destroyed it. The beautifully weathered stone church is decorated with intriguing carvings, one on the bell tower appearing to show two dinosaurs. There are several ways of walking up from Stepantsminda. For the best distance-gradient compromise, walk up through Gergeti village to a T-junction 1.25km from the main road (80m after signs indicating the car track to the right). Go left at the T-junction, out past the last village buildings, and up beside a stream. About 120m past the last building, fork up to the right, passing to the right of a ruined stone tower; 200m after the tower take an initially lesser path diverging up to the right. This curves up round the hillside to reach the church in 1km. The new road has meant that the church is crowded these days with tour buses arriving with regularity. Come early or after 5pm to enjoy the church at its quietest.
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Svetitskhoveli Cathedral
This extraordinary (and for its time, enormous) building dates from the 11th century, early in the golden age of Georgian church architecture. It has an elongated cross plan and is adorned with beautiful stone carving outside and in. Christ’s robe is believed to lie beneath the central nave, under a square pillar decorated with colourful if faded frescoes of the conversion of Kartli. The story goes that a Mtskheta Jew, Elioz, was in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus' crucifixion and returned with the robe to Mtskheta. His sister Sidonia took it from him and immediately died in a passion of faith. The robe was buried with her and as years passed, people forgot the exact site. When King Mirian built the first church at Mtskheta in the 4th century, the wooden column designed to stand in its centre could not be raised from the ground. But after an all-night prayer vigil by St Nino, the column miraculously moved of its own accord to the robe's burial site. The column subsequently worked many miracles and Svetitskhoveli means ‘Life-Giving Column’. In the 5th century Vakhtang Gorgasali replaced Mirian’s church with a stone one, and the present building was constructed between 1010 and 1029 under Patriarch Melqisedek. Now a millennium old, it's still one of the most beautiful churches in the country. Several Georgian monarchs are buried here. The tomb of Erekle II, king of Kartli and Kakheti from 1762 to 1798, lies before the icon screen (marked with his birth and death dates, 1720 and 1798). Vakhtang Gorgasali’s tomb is behind this, with his sword-holding image carved on a raised flagstone.
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Shatili Old Town
This magnificent agglomeration of koshkebi (defensive watchtowers) and atmospheric slate houses packed tightly together on a steep hillside to create one sprawling fortress is an incredible sight. Most of the houses are abandoned and are slowly collapsing, but you can still clamber around them easily enough, and most of the time you'll be totally alone here.
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Uplistsikhe
This once enormous cave city sits 10km east of Gori above the north side of the Mtkvari River. Between the 6th century BC and 1st century AD, Uplistsikhe developed into one of the chief political and religious centres of pre-Christian Kartli, with temples dedicated principally to the sun goddess. After the Arabs occupied Tbilisi in AD 645, Uplistsikhe became the residence of the Christian kings of Kartli and an important trade centre on a main caravan road from Asia to Europe. At its peak it housed 20,000 people. Its importance declined after King David the Builder retook Tbilisi in 1122 and it was irrevocably destroyed by the Mongols in 1240. What you visit today is the 40,000-sq-metre Shida Qalaqi (Inner City), less than half of the original whole. It's one of the oldest places of settlement in the Caucasus and almost everything here has been uncovered by archaeologists since 1957. To enter Uplistsikhe by its old main access track, go about 5m up the rocks opposite the cafe at the entrance, and follow the rock-cut path to the left. Metal-railed steps lead up through what was the main gate, with the excavated main tower of the Shida Qalaqi’s defensive walls to the right. Uplistsikhe's old main street winds up to the right after you've passed through the main gate, with several important cave structures either side of it. Ahead from the main gate you’ll find a cave overlooking the river with a pointed arch carved in the rock above it. Known as the Theatre, this is probably a temple from the 1st or 2nd century AD, where religious mystery plays may have been performed. Down to the right is the large pre-Christian Temple of Makvliani, with an inner recess behind an arched portico. A little further up on the left is the big hall known as Tamaris Darbazi (Hall of Queen Tamar), where an ancient stone seat sits behind two columns cut from the rock, and the stone ceiling is carved to look like wooden beams. This was almost certainly a pre-Christian temple. To its left is an area with stone niches, thought to have been a pharmacy or dovecote. A large cave building to the right of the Tamaris Darbazi was probably a sun temple used for animal sacrifices, later converted into a Christian basilica. Uplistsulis Eklesia, the triple-church basilica near the top of the hill, was built in the 10th century over what was probably Uplistsikhe’s most important pagan temple. On your way back out of the cave city, don’t miss the long tunnel running down to the Mtkvari, an emergency escape route that could also be used for carrying water up to the city. Its entrance is behind a reconstructed wall beside the old main gate. A return taxi from Gori, including one hour's waiting time, normally costs around 30 GEL. Marshrutky leave Gori bus station a few times daily for the village of Kvakhvreli (1 GEL, 20 minutes), a 2km walk from Uplistsikhe, while a new direct service to Uplistsikhe is planned but was not yet operational at the time of research.
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Stalin Museum
This impressively designed museum makes no serious attempt to present a balanced account of Stalin's career or deeds. It remains, much as when it opened in 1957, a reverent homage to the Gori boy who became a key figure of 20th-century history – although displays do now at least refer to the purges, the Gulag and his 1939 pact with Hitler. The Dzhugashvili family's wood-and-mud-brick house where Stalin lived for the first four years of his life is reverentially preserved outside. The museum charts Stalin’s journey from the Gori church school to leadership of the USSR, the Yalta Conference at the end of WWII and his death in 1953. The first hall upstairs covers his childhood and adolescence, including his rather cringeworthy pastoral poetry, and then his early revolutionary activities in Georgia, his seven jail terms under the tsarist authorities (six of them in Siberia), the revolution of 1917 and Lenin’s death in 1924. The text of Lenin’s 1922 political testament that described Stalin as too coarse and power-hungry, advising Communist Party members to remove him from post of General Secretary, is on display. One room is devoted to a bronze copy of Stalin’s eerie death mask, lying in state. The next has a large collection of gifts from world leaders and other Bolsheviks. Off the staircase is a reconstruction of his first office in the Kremlin, plus personal memorabilia such as his pipes, glasses, cigars and slide rule. One small two-room section beside the foot of the stairs deals with political repression under Stalin. To one side of the museum is Stalin’s train carriage, in which he travelled to Yalta in 1945 (he didn’t like flying). Apparently bulletproof, its elegant interior includes a bathtub and a primitive air-conditioning system.
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Chavchavadze Estate
Prince Alexander Chavchavadze (1786–1846) was one of the most colourful and influential characters in Georgian history, and the palace and gardens he created at Tsinandali are a don't-miss stop on any Kakheti tour. The palace tour takes you around half a dozen rooms restored in 19th-century style and relates interesting episodes from the family story. The park is beautifully laid out in the English style, with venerable trees and exotic plants such as ginkgo, sequoia and yucca. The multi-talented Chavchavadze was born into elite circles in St Petersburg as the son of Kakheti-Kartli's ambassador to Russia. He learned seven languages and was an influential Romantic poet and translator, helping to introduce European Enlightenment ideals to Georgia – as well as the grand piano, horse-drawn carriage and billiards. He rose to lieutenant-general in the Russian army but also joined Georgian rebellions against Russian rule (for which he spent time in exile). His homes at Tsinandali and in Tbilisi hosted illustrious visitors including writers Dumas, Pushkin, Lermontov and Griboyedov – and he was a pioneer of European winemaking techniques in Georgia, helping to give Kakheti its current premier position in the Georgian wine world. In 1854 Lezgin tribesmen from Dagestan ransacked the Chavchavadze palace, kidnapping 23 women and children (what we see now is the house that was rebuilt after the Lezgin attack). Alexander’s son David had to mortgage the house to ransom the hostages. He was unable to repay the loan and the house passed to Tsar Alexander III.
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