Prometheus underground

The Prometheus Cave near Kutaisi was only discovered in 1984, and hasn’t been open to visitors very long. I suppose it took the authorities a wee while to pimp that cave, since although it is very pretty, it definitely doesn’t go for a naturalistic look. Legend has it that Prometheus, tortured by the gods for bringing fire to mankind, was imprisoned here, or nearby, or confusingly, on Mt Kazbek, a four-hour drive away near the Russian border. Maybe he’s the inspiration for the trippy lighting scheme inside the caves. I think we can safely say he wasn’t imprisoned anywhere, but the scale and variety of the stalagmites and tites etc on display don’t really need a legend to make them something special.

The cave visit takes about an hour, made up of a 1060 meter walk through the cave followed by a small boat trip. Tours are offered in Georgian, English and Russian, which would have been great except it turned out they combined the tour for English speakers (about half a dozen of us) with Russian speakers (a good 60 or so of them). Yes, we had to hurry a bit to keep up with the guide, but they basically treated it as though it was a race to get through the place as fast as possible and woe betide you if you stop to take a photo on the way. One woman, instead of walking around me (which there was room to do) stood behind me shouting “idyotye! idyotye!” (Russian for go! go! - surely mere coincidence that it sounds a lot like you’re being called an idiot). It reminded me of when I visited Lenin’s mausoleum in Moscow. The rule there is no stopping - you just walk around his body in a circle and out. I tried to get around this by walking extra slowly but the woman behind me there yelled idyotye at me too. Whatever happened to stopping to smell the roses/examine crusty old corpses? I think I still managed to get some cool shots though, helped out by that psychedelic lighting. (#nofilter)

A lot of the cave looked like it wanted to eat me

Tasty Gelati

Gelati Monastery near Kutaisi in western Georgia was my favourite thing of the trip until the next one (currently Uplistsikhe holds the crown). It dates back to 1106, founded by King David the Builder, who is buried there, along with a number of other Georgian royals including the famous Tamar who we met back in Vardzia. As we explored the extensively-decorated interior, I couldn’t help thinking it would be world-renowned and absolutely flooded with tourists if this was somewhere like Florence or Paris. As it was, I was fairly selfishly pleased that it wasn’t too crowded, although there was a fair smattering of tourists. The frescoes are rather weathered, but altogether it’s a really beautiful place. I don’t have much more to say on this one, but hope you enjoy the photos! (By the way, I’m having to blog this on iPad so I hope the photos aren’t too giant and/or wonky...)

There were really strong royal associations throughout the church. I’m not entirely sure who these two funny-looking customers are, but definitely someone important

Ol’ Wonky-Eye Jesus in the dome

Quite a graphic John the Baptist post-decapitation

The royals again. David the Builder is on the far right

We also stopped in at the nearby Motsameta church. I saw on the internet a few people saying that this was better than Gelati, which is overrated. To these people, I say there is such a thing as objectively bad taste and you have it and you should feel bad. Motsameta was in a pretty location, also on top of a hill, but the tiny church has been garishly overpainted/restored on the inside, and the views are not that spectacular. The church is so small that we couldn’t really go in either, as there was a mass going on the whole time we were there and a wedding party turned up just as we were leaving. Which is fair enough, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as nice as Gelati in any case.

Motsameta’s tacky frescoes

Some guy turned up with two lambs as an offering to the church. I assume for the monks to eat rather than some sort of sacrificial thing