Holy Mtskheta!

On Sunday we took a day trip out to Mtskheta, the unpronounceable ancient holy city about 20 km from Tbilisi. Founded in the 5th century BC, it is where Christianity was proclaimed as Georgia’s state religion in 337, and remains the headquarters of the Georgian Orthodox Church to this day. It is also a royal capital, the site of coronations and burials for most of Georgia’s kings until the end of the 19th century.

We hadn’t quite calculated the Sunday-ness of Sunday in advance, and subsequently found ourselves with some time to kill in the morning before mass ended in the city’s famous cathedral. We first walked up to the Samtavro Monastery, which has some fabulous royal tombs (photos sadly not permitted inside.) Outside, you could hear ethereal singing piped over a sound system. We were quite surprised when we went inside and found it was being produced live by about five nuns.

Still with some time to kill, we walked down to the river and enjoyed a glass of local wine with a lovely view of Jvari Monastery, our destination for later in the afternoon.

A street vineyard




Georgian reds by the river

Finally it was after 1 pm, so we were free to explore the 11th century Svetitskhoveli Cathedral. 

Legend has it that a Georgian Jew was in Jerusalem at the time of Christ’s crucifixion, bought his robe from a Roman soldier at Golgotha, and brought it back to Georgia. His sister, Sidonia, touched the robe and immediately died. As she still held it tightly in her grasp, the robe was buried along with her in what is now the cathedral. 

Worshippers praying at the spot where Christ’s robe (and Sidonia) are buried.

The cathedral is full of beautiful icons and frescoes, most of which are unfortunately damaged due to whitewashing carried out under Russian Imperial rule, ahead of a planned visit of Tsar Nicholas I. Nicholas never actually turned up, but the damage was done.

A 13th century fresco of the beasts of the apocalypse

The tomb of (I think) King George XII, last king of Georgia. I loved the cloth effect in the marble








The cathedral also houses a mini copy of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, signalling that, while the church in Jerusalem may be the holiest in all Christianity, Svetitskhoveli claims second place.

With obligatory headscarf





We caught a bride going in as we were coming out. I’m going to save this one in case I ever want to become a wedding photographer. I kind of imagined my veil doing something along these lines, but I ended up carrying it almost all the time through the grimy, wet streets of Brussels.

Post-cathedral, we negotiated a trip up to Jvari Monastery and on to Tbilisi with a taxi driver slash guy who was standing around on a street corner. More on this later, but Russian is so far pretty indispensable in Georgia. Which means it falls on me and my extremely poor Russian to do all the negotiating. After a lengthy conversation in which we established he would take us to Jvari, wait for us to take photos, then take us to Tbilisi, we were good to go. I knew there was going to be a catch somewhere though, which came when we pitched up on the outskirts of Tbilisi and were informed we had to take a metro the rest of the way home. Oh well, lucky the day had not been too strenuous, and we got to have a look at the Tbilisan metro system.

First the monastery though. They seem to like calling everything a ‘monastery’ in Georgia, even when it’s just a tiny church like this one. You don’t come to Jvari for the interior, however, you come for the fabulous view over Mtskheta. Jvari dates to the 6th century, beginning life as the site of a miracle-working cross erected by the female Saint Nino who converted one of the kings to Christianity. Nowadays it seems to mostly function as a place for Russian tourists to drape themselves in front of views of the city and rivers below.

View of Mtskheta, with Svetitskhoveli cathedral in the middle






Doing my best ‘Russian’ pose on the walls

Even with the aborted taxi ride and hanging about in the morning, we got back to Tbilisi around 4ish, so had time to relax and watch the fantastic Italian GP before a lovely dinner with even better Georgian rose wine.

On the way there, we walked through an entire neighbourhood which seemed to be both falling down and under construction.

Mother Georgia from a Tbilisi back alley



A burnt down church

Light renovations, should be done in three months

Statue of St George in Liberty Square

Cheese plate at the restaurant. Top right is Imreuli, a light brined curd cheese with a bit of chew to it. Top left and bottom right are smoked and unsmoked varieties of Sukhumi, a semi-soft cow’s milk cheese, also quite tasty. Bottom left is, confusingly enough, named Gouda (what are the odds?) 

The food, wine and service were delightful but the Gouda tasted as disturbing as it looks. It’s a traditional Georgian cheese fermented inside a buried sheep’s stomach, with the wool facing in to the cheese. This was originally designed as a way to preserve some food for hard times, but lord knows why they keep on with it nowadays. Saltier than the Dead Sea, and we keep getting served it wherever we go (at least we know what to look out for now).