5 days in Georgia flew by in the blink of an eye: cave monastery David-Gareji and cave city Vardzia, ancient frescoes in Gelati and ancient temple in Djvari, elaborate stone carvings in Ananuri and sulphur baths in Tbilisi...
On our last day we made a long-wanted trip to Kakheti region famous for historical landmarks as well as wine-making traditions.
The tour was intense and, as always with Vadim, the tour combined art, history, food and wine. What else might one want?
The first stop - the ruins of Ujarma fortress situated about 45km from Tbilisi, on the hill by Tbilisi-Telavi highway running towards Gombori Pass.
What nowadays looks like two piles of brick used to be a mighty and important fortress and the capital of nearby region. Ujarmas Tsikhe was built by King Vakhtang I Gogasali, the legendary founder of Tbilisi in the 6th century. His son, Dachi of Iberia was even named Ujarmeli as he spent years at his residence here in Ujarma.
We pulled into the parking area and climbed the hill to the fortress. The fortress sits on a cliff maybe 600-700 meters high.
Historians state that the first settlements here appeared as early as III century. King Vakhtang Gorgasal fortified it, was transferred here after a battle and even died here from the wounds. He was later buried in Svetitskhoveli Cathedral in Mtskheta. The city remained one of the most important fortresses in Georgia until it was ruined by Arabs in the X century.
Amazing what the time can do - nowadays it is hard to see the traces of its glorious past.
Of course, unlike you are a Georgian history buff, Ujarma is not the place you would go specifically for. Having Vadim with us made us see its rich past behind the ruins. Still it is one of the significant monuments in Georgian history and - since it is located on the new road to Telavi - it is worth a stopover and a climb up the hill.
Even if you are not that much into history, the view over Iori valley is also worth the climb.
Our next stop was Telavi (თელავი) , the capital of Kakheti region. This city became popular all over the former Soviet Union thanks to the movie Mimino where the main character tried to call his native city Telavi from abroad and was connected to Tel-Aviv instead (he happened to be connected to one of Georgian Jews, by the way, but that's another story).
We did not know much else of it before the visit, but the city is ancient: archaeological findings date it back to the Bronze age whilst the written sources mention it as Teleda in the 2nd century AD, by Greek geographer Claudius Ptolemaeus.
Vadim, however told us a different story about its name - and we personally prefer this one. Georgian Kings have for a long time tried to attract the neighbors - Armenians, who were known for their hard work - to relocate to Georgia. When the King's messengers arrived to Armenia with the generous offer ancient Armenians would ask "Telavi?" - "Is it good?". "Telavi-Telavi", the messenger would answer.
Whatever is true, we liked this story.
Even though for years Kakheti region was not very well developed for tourist needs, now the Georgian president appointed three cities in the region to become the new faces of Georgian tourism. We visited the first of them - Sighnaghi - on our first day. Telavi is due to become the next one, followed by the wine-making city Kvareli. The renovation works started from replacing the old sewage system and the asphalt. On our second day in Georgia, on our way back by Georgian military road we were caught by heavy tropical storm. The next day we found out that it was especially devastating in Telavi.
The reconstruction works and the storm consequences overlapped and the city did not look its best: the young soldiers were collecting broken trees on the broken streets. They were broken for different reasons, but still...
The reconstruction is done using old technologies: with special Georgian brick. It is square and flat, which makes it a flexible material that can be used both to build walls and pave the floors in cellars, for example.
The consequances of the hurricane - or reconstruction works? - in Telavi.
Since Telavi was on our way, Vadim decided to stop by the local market: Kakheti is known as a fertile region so people come over to buy wine, fruits, churchkhela... We saw an old Zhiguli car with the entire back seat filled up with melons - all the way till the roof. It could easily carry 1.5 tons of melons! On the roadsides here and there you see locals selling churchkhela, melons, pears, peaches, home-made wine...
But of course, everyone flocks to Telavi market.
Look at the buckets below: they cost 2 euro each - that's about 8 kilos of juicy peaches.
One of Kakheti "export articles" is churchkela ( ჩურჩხელა) - a sweet treat made of almonds, walnuts or hazel nuts, threaded onto a string, dipped in thickened grape juice or fruit juices and dried in the shape of a sausage.
Churchkhelas do not last long - mainly because they are eaten right away, but we were looking for something to take with us. Being avid travelers, we always had problems what to bring home and as souvenirs for our friends. With the amount of places we visit, if we bring fridge magnets and figurines from every place our house would be full of garbage and dust. So awhile back we decided to bring spices: every time we use them, they remind us of the exotic places we visited and they are depleteable and do not collect dust.
From far: red paprika, Svan salt, thyme, utskho-suneli. Utskho-suneli (fenugreek) is one of the characteristic spices of Georgian cuisine. Funnily enough, its name in Georgian means "strange spice" - even though it is nothing but strange: it is very local and very common here.
We could only look at the abundance of fruits and vegetables - how much can one eat?
One rule that makes Georgian cuisine so healthy is not mixing vegetable and animal fats. When they fry aubergines, they use vegetable oil. When they fry meat - the use animal fat, mostly made of mutton tale.
Fat tale on sale in Telavi market.
Suluguni - one typical Georgian cheese with sour, moderately salty flavor, a dimpled texture, and an elastic consistency. They don't favor hard yellow mature cheese here. A folk etymology posits that the name sulguni comes from two Georgian words - suli (which means "soul") and guli (which means "heart").
They even have a 'RadioShack' section here:
Having stocked up churchkhela and spices, we head over to our next destination - Ikalto.
The Ikalto monastery was founded by Saint Zenon, one of the 13 Syrian Fathers along with David of Gareji, Saint Shio and Joseph of Alaverdi, in the late 6th century. It was known as one of the most significant cultural-scholastic centers of Georgia.
We meet our guide: a local old man dressed in black, he tells us about the history of the monastery and the academy. He speaks Georgian, Vadim translates and his manner of speech, big wrinkled hands that fly in the air as he talks and sleep on his crook during the translation, the unusual sound of unfamiliar language - all makes a sort of mesmerizing impression.
The academy was founded by Arsen Ikaltoeli (Ikaltoeli meaning from Ikalto) and trained its students in theology, rhetoric, astronomy, philosophy, geography, geometry chanting but also more practical skills such as pottery making, metal work, viticulture and wine making and pharmacology. Unusual is the fact that the academy was open to the kids regardless of their financial and social status: if a peasant's son passed the tests he would be accepted and even if the Duke's son did not - he would not become a student. Another unusual fact is that the girls studied here alongside the boys - which again happened so many centuries later.
The academy boasts such alumni as the famous 12th century Georgian poet Shota Rustaveli.
In 1616 the Persian invaders led by Shah Abbas I set the Ikalto Academy on fire and it ceased to exist. Along with Gelati academy Ikalto can be considered one of Europe's oldest higher education establishments.
The main church, Khvtaeba (Church of Holy Spirit), was built in the 8th–9th century on the site of an older church.
When building the temple the foundation was kept from the 6th century building along with Saint Zenon's grave. The chandelier in front of it marks the burial place of Arsen Ikaltoeli: he wanted to be buried next to
his spiritual father, but on the lower level than him and did not want his tomb to be marked - that's how humble he felt compared to Saint Zenon.
As the murals, traditional for Georgian church, did not survive, nowadays the walls are decorated with more modern icons.
We walk the monastery territory: along with Khvtaeba there are two more churches - Kvelatsminda and Sameba. We note an ancient relief with three saints and Georgian cross - even though it looks like Teutonic Iron Cross, from our visit to Djvari, we know it is some five centuries older!
There is no information whether there was a bee-keeping faculty in Ikalto, but the modern bee houses show that the conditions are favorable so they could have had one.
We approach Academy building. Historians believe it was a 2-story building that housed most faculties. Wine-making faculty had its own room with kvevris (traditional Georgian wine pitchers used both for wine-making and wine-keeping) buried in the ground. The professors would use a big scoop to draw wine from different kvevris and let the student determine what grape was used, what years and so on. This room with the kvevris still survived. No wine left, though.
Of course, wine-making faculty also had research facilities such as this giant wine press.
Looks like pottery faculty was busy too. And looks like they worked in collaboration with wine faculty - just look at these ready-to-use pitchers.
In the yard there are some tombstones...
...and another cemetery - of old kvevris. Why would they be laying here in disorder, covered with moss?
Well, Georgian life (as you might have noticed) is closely connected to wine: Saint Nina came to Georgia holding a grapevine cross, they had viticultural faculties here, in Ikalto as well as in Gelati and even Kartlis Deda - mother of Georgia in Tbilisi is holding a wine bowl in her hand.
No wonder, even religious holidays are also accompanied by wine drinking: whenever a family celebrates something - baby baptism, for example - they come to the temple with a donkey carrying a full kvevri of wine. After the ceremony has been performed the kvevri is opened and drunk on the spot (note, when you enter Khvtaeba church in Ikalto there is a sort of foyer with a table - this is where it all happens). The celebration is finished and kvevri is empty, but what will happen to the pitcher? The owner cannot take it home: it is a sacrifice to God (we usually do not ask the birthday boy to give back the box or gift-wraps, right?). So the kvevris are left here, in the church yard. Can you imagine how many kvevris have accumulated here since the 6th century? So every once in a while they crash them, cover with a layer of land and the process starts all over.
Our day in Kakheti is not over: ahead of us we have amazing cathedral in Alaverdi that used to be the highest in Georgia until a few years ago, hilltop castle Gremi and wine factory. Finally it is will time time to talk about Georgian food and wine.
On our last day we made a long-wanted trip to Kakheti region famous for historical landmarks as well as wine-making traditions.
The tour was intense and, as always with Vadim, the tour combined art, history, food and wine. What else might one want?
The first stop - the ruins of Ujarma fortress situated about 45km from Tbilisi, on the hill by Tbilisi-Telavi highway running towards Gombori Pass.
What nowadays looks like two piles of brick used to be a mighty and important fortress and the capital of nearby region. Ujarmas Tsikhe was built by King Vakhtang I Gogasali, the legendary founder of Tbilisi in the 6th century. His son, Dachi of Iberia was even named Ujarmeli as he spent years at his residence here in Ujarma.
We pulled into the parking area and climbed the hill to the fortress. The fortress sits on a cliff maybe 600-700 meters high.
The fortified city of Ujarma consisted of two parts: the Upper Fortress (the Citadel) and the Lower City. The Upper Fortress was restored in XII century by King George III who used it as a treasury. You can still see the ruins of the royal palace and of the small Jvari Patiosani Church (of the Fair Cross) as well as few defensive towers. Inside the church there is a plan of how Ujarma used to look like in its prime. Vadim explained it was placed here by a local enthusiastic teacher who could not stand such an important place being neglected and brought his student to cut the grass and make at least the Upper Fortress accessible.
According to this plan, the Lower City descended to Iori river (which was the main water supply). One of the towers - supposedly the Water Tower - can still be seen (bottom left of the picture).
Historians state that the first settlements here appeared as early as III century. King Vakhtang Gorgasal fortified it, was transferred here after a battle and even died here from the wounds. He was later buried in Svetitskhoveli Cathedral in Mtskheta. The city remained one of the most important fortresses in Georgia until it was ruined by Arabs in the X century.
Amazing what the time can do - nowadays it is hard to see the traces of its glorious past.
Of course, unlike you are a Georgian history buff, Ujarma is not the place you would go specifically for. Having Vadim with us made us see its rich past behind the ruins. Still it is one of the significant monuments in Georgian history and - since it is located on the new road to Telavi - it is worth a stopover and a climb up the hill.
Even if you are not that much into history, the view over Iori valley is also worth the climb.
Our next stop was Telavi (თელავი) , the capital of Kakheti region. This city became popular all over the former Soviet Union thanks to the movie Mimino where the main character tried to call his native city Telavi from abroad and was connected to Tel-Aviv instead (he happened to be connected to one of Georgian Jews, by the way, but that's another story).
We did not know much else of it before the visit, but the city is ancient: archaeological findings date it back to the Bronze age whilst the written sources mention it as Teleda in the 2nd century AD, by Greek geographer Claudius Ptolemaeus.
Vadim, however told us a different story about its name - and we personally prefer this one. Georgian Kings have for a long time tried to attract the neighbors - Armenians, who were known for their hard work - to relocate to Georgia. When the King's messengers arrived to Armenia with the generous offer ancient Armenians would ask "Telavi?" - "Is it good?". "Telavi-Telavi", the messenger would answer.
Whatever is true, we liked this story.
Even though for years Kakheti region was not very well developed for tourist needs, now the Georgian president appointed three cities in the region to become the new faces of Georgian tourism. We visited the first of them - Sighnaghi - on our first day. Telavi is due to become the next one, followed by the wine-making city Kvareli. The renovation works started from replacing the old sewage system and the asphalt. On our second day in Georgia, on our way back by Georgian military road we were caught by heavy tropical storm. The next day we found out that it was especially devastating in Telavi.
The reconstruction works and the storm consequences overlapped and the city did not look its best: the young soldiers were collecting broken trees on the broken streets. They were broken for different reasons, but still...
The reconstruction is done using old technologies: with special Georgian brick. It is square and flat, which makes it a flexible material that can be used both to build walls and pave the floors in cellars, for example.
The consequances of the hurricane - or reconstruction works? - in Telavi.
Since Telavi was on our way, Vadim decided to stop by the local market: Kakheti is known as a fertile region so people come over to buy wine, fruits, churchkhela... We saw an old Zhiguli car with the entire back seat filled up with melons - all the way till the roof. It could easily carry 1.5 tons of melons! On the roadsides here and there you see locals selling churchkhela, melons, pears, peaches, home-made wine...
But of course, everyone flocks to Telavi market.
Look at the buckets below: they cost 2 euro each - that's about 8 kilos of juicy peaches.
One of Kakheti "export articles" is churchkela ( ჩურჩხელა) - a sweet treat made of almonds, walnuts or hazel nuts, threaded onto a string, dipped in thickened grape juice or fruit juices and dried in the shape of a sausage.
 |
| Churchkelas on Telavi market |
From far: red paprika, Svan salt, thyme, utskho-suneli. Utskho-suneli (fenugreek) is one of the characteristic spices of Georgian cuisine. Funnily enough, its name in Georgian means "strange spice" - even though it is nothing but strange: it is very local and very common here.
We could only look at the abundance of fruits and vegetables - how much can one eat?
One rule that makes Georgian cuisine so healthy is not mixing vegetable and animal fats. When they fry aubergines, they use vegetable oil. When they fry meat - the use animal fat, mostly made of mutton tale.
Fat tale on sale in Telavi market.
Suluguni - one typical Georgian cheese with sour, moderately salty flavor, a dimpled texture, and an elastic consistency. They don't favor hard yellow mature cheese here. A folk etymology posits that the name sulguni comes from two Georgian words - suli (which means "soul") and guli (which means "heart").
 |
| Suluguni - Georgian heart and soul |
Having stocked up churchkhela and spices, we head over to our next destination - Ikalto.
The Ikalto monastery was founded by Saint Zenon, one of the 13 Syrian Fathers along with David of Gareji, Saint Shio and Joseph of Alaverdi, in the late 6th century. It was known as one of the most significant cultural-scholastic centers of Georgia.
 |
| The entrance to Ikalto monastery. |
We meet our guide: a local old man dressed in black, he tells us about the history of the monastery and the academy. He speaks Georgian, Vadim translates and his manner of speech, big wrinkled hands that fly in the air as he talks and sleep on his crook during the translation, the unusual sound of unfamiliar language - all makes a sort of mesmerizing impression.
The academy was founded by Arsen Ikaltoeli (Ikaltoeli meaning from Ikalto) and trained its students in theology, rhetoric, astronomy, philosophy, geography, geometry chanting but also more practical skills such as pottery making, metal work, viticulture and wine making and pharmacology. Unusual is the fact that the academy was open to the kids regardless of their financial and social status: if a peasant's son passed the tests he would be accepted and even if the Duke's son did not - he would not become a student. Another unusual fact is that the girls studied here alongside the boys - which again happened so many centuries later.
The academy boasts such alumni as the famous 12th century Georgian poet Shota Rustaveli.
In 1616 the Persian invaders led by Shah Abbas I set the Ikalto Academy on fire and it ceased to exist. Along with Gelati academy Ikalto can be considered one of Europe's oldest higher education establishments.
The main church, Khvtaeba (Church of Holy Spirit), was built in the 8th–9th century on the site of an older church.
 |
| Khvtaeba church at Ikalto monastery |
As the murals, traditional for Georgian church, did not survive, nowadays the walls are decorated with more modern icons.
We walk the monastery territory: along with Khvtaeba there are two more churches - Kvelatsminda and Sameba. We note an ancient relief with three saints and Georgian cross - even though it looks like Teutonic Iron Cross, from our visit to Djvari, we know it is some five centuries older!
There is no information whether there was a bee-keeping faculty in Ikalto, but the modern bee houses show that the conditions are favorable so they could have had one.
We approach Academy building. Historians believe it was a 2-story building that housed most faculties. Wine-making faculty had its own room with kvevris (traditional Georgian wine pitchers used both for wine-making and wine-keeping) buried in the ground. The professors would use a big scoop to draw wine from different kvevris and let the student determine what grape was used, what years and so on. This room with the kvevris still survived. No wine left, though.
 |
| Ruins of the Ikalto Academy |
Of course, wine-making faculty also had research facilities such as this giant wine press.
 |
| Wine press from the outside |
 |
| Inside the wine press |
In the yard there are some tombstones...
...and another cemetery - of old kvevris. Why would they be laying here in disorder, covered with moss?
Well, Georgian life (as you might have noticed) is closely connected to wine: Saint Nina came to Georgia holding a grapevine cross, they had viticultural faculties here, in Ikalto as well as in Gelati and even Kartlis Deda - mother of Georgia in Tbilisi is holding a wine bowl in her hand.
No wonder, even religious holidays are also accompanied by wine drinking: whenever a family celebrates something - baby baptism, for example - they come to the temple with a donkey carrying a full kvevri of wine. After the ceremony has been performed the kvevri is opened and drunk on the spot (note, when you enter Khvtaeba church in Ikalto there is a sort of foyer with a table - this is where it all happens). The celebration is finished and kvevri is empty, but what will happen to the pitcher? The owner cannot take it home: it is a sacrifice to God (we usually do not ask the birthday boy to give back the box or gift-wraps, right?). So the kvevris are left here, in the church yard. Can you imagine how many kvevris have accumulated here since the 6th century? So every once in a while they crash them, cover with a layer of land and the process starts all over.
Our day in Kakheti is not over: ahead of us we have amazing cathedral in Alaverdi that used to be the highest in Georgia until a few years ago, hilltop castle Gremi and wine factory. Finally it is will time time to talk about Georgian food and wine.
