Tbilisi & the Caucasus Gateway

About this pack

A 6-day mid-range trip to Tbilisi, Georgia, taking in Narikala Fortress, Abanotubani sulfur baths, Mtatsminda cable car and Gergeti Trinity Church.

Inside the Tbilisi & the Caucasus Gateway trip

Tbilisi & the Caucasus Gateway begins at Narikala, the ancient fortress overlooking the city from a steep hill between the sulfur baths and Tbilisi's botanical gardens. Legend credits its founding to King Vakhtang I Gorgasali of the ancient kingdom of Iberia, though archaeological evidence shows the site was first fortified during the reign of King Varaz-Bakur around 364 AD, changing hands between Persian and Kartlian rulers before being considerably expanded first by the Umayyads in the 7th century and later by King David the Builder in the early 12th century. The Mongols later renamed it Narin Qala, or "Little Fortress," and most of what survives today dates from the 16th and 17th centuries, when the Safavid-appointed ruler Rostom fortified its surroundings before ceding control to Iranian forces; an 1827 earthquake damaged parts of the fortress that were subsequently demolished, and the lower court's St Nicholas church, destroyed by fire, was rebuilt in its present form only in 1996–1997.

Directly below the fortress lies Abanotubani, the ancient bath district of Tbilisi on the eastern bank of the Mtkvari River. Its name means simply "bath district" in Georgian, and local legend traces the city's very founding here: a falcon belonging to King Vakhtang Gorgasali is said to have fallen into the area's hot sulphur springs, leading to their discovery and, in turn, to the establishment of a new capital on the site. By the end of the 13th century, records show 65 baths operating in Tbilisi, and during that period bathing was offered free of charge to the city's Muslim residents — a bathing tradition that continues in Abanotubani's domed brick bathhouses today.

From the baths the route climbs Mount Mtatsminda, the "Holy Mountain" whose slopes and summit are reached today by cable car and whose lower churchyard, around St David's Church, holds the Mtatsminda Pantheon of Writers and Public Figures. Officially established in 1929 to mark the centenary of the Russian writer Alexander Griboyedov, who is buried there beside his Georgian wife Nino Chavchavadze, the Pantheon grew under Soviet administration into a resting place for prominent Georgian writers, artists and scholars, among them the poet Nikoloz Baratashvili and the writer Ilia Chavchavadze, and it remains administered by the city government as one of three such pantheons in Tbilisi. Atop the mountain, Mtatsminda Park offers panoramic views back down over the fortress, the bath district and the Mtkvari valley below.

The trip closes far outside the city at Gergeti Trinity Church, popularly known by the name of the nearby village of Gergeti though its formal dedication is to the Holy Trinity, standing on the right bank of the Chkheri river at 2,170 metres beneath the slopes of Mount Kazbek near the town of Stepantsminda. Built as a cross-in-square church with three rectangular arms and a rounded apse, its dark grey stone façade is decorated only around its doors and windows, where crosses, rosettes and quadrangles frame the entrances on the southern and western walls; a freestanding belltower stands to the south of the church itself. Little of the original interior mural work survives, but the church's isolated setting beneath one of the Caucasus's highest peaks has made it, alongside Narikala and Abanotubani, one of the defining images of a route that closes this circuit through Georgia's capital and its mountain gateway.

• Narikala — Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Abanotubani — Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Mtatsminda Pantheon — Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Gergeti Trinity Church — Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Text adapted from the linked articles under CC BY-SA 4.0; edited for length.

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