Cultural visits

For my birthday, Gaga made me a wonderful gift: a trip to three historically important places in Georgia: Uplistsikhe, The Jvari Monastery and Mtskheta. The trip included a short stop in Gori, home of that Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili that would be known to history as Stalin. I'm not really interested in seeing his desk, his pajama and his socks, so I decided to skip the museum, but despite everything, he was a historic figure and since the town was on the path anyway, we stopped. Here, his house, where he was born in 1878, is methodically preserved.

Stalin's wagon was armour plated and it was his principal mean of transportation. Reportedly, he was afraid of flying (like all prior dictators he enjoyed a certain level of paranoia), giving up only for the 1943 conference of Tehran.

After Gori, we headed to the cave city of Uplistsikhe, a complex of houses and temples dating back to the early Iron Age, build in sandrock. Situated on the left bank of the Mtkvari (the river that also flows into Tbilisi), it became and important cultural and religious center during the kingdom of Kartli, back then called Iberia, where pagan and Christian beliefs briefly coexisted. Its strategic position, with the rivers to one side and mountains to the other, allowed it to resist several attacks, ultimately falling only to the raids of the Mongols, during the XIV Century.

  

The city is divided in several areas, with spaces that once hosted houses, shops, temples and even secret tunnels. Most of these are now destroyed, also for the relative softness of sandrock, but you can easily see how extensive they must have been. We finished the tour and we were all hungry (there was also a Filipino couple), so Gaga drove us to a fantastic restaurant on the side of the road. You already known how I love Georgian food. This, a tipical Imeretian restaurant, was simply outstanding. Stuff started to arrive and it never ended. By the time we finished, we were stuffed like squirrel cheeks after a raid in a nut shop.

After this difficult ordeal, we headed to the Jvari Monastery ("Monastery of the Cross" in Georgian), so called because, yes, you guessed right, they claim it contains a cross made with the wood of the True Cross, the one used to crucify Jesus. This makes pair with Armenian claim they have Longinus' lance in Etchmiadzin :) I love you all!

This aside, the monastery is a beautiful sight, overlooking the town of Mtskheta (the former capital of Georgia during the Kingdom of Iberia) at the confluence of two rivers, the Mtkvari and the Aragvi. It's dated to the VI Century, on the site of a previous pagan temple, where legends say, Saint Nino, who brought Christianity to Georgia, erected a the aforementioned cross.

Darkness was falling fast, so we headed to the final part of our trip, the town of Mtskheta. Founded in the V Century b.C. it's one of the oldest towns in Georgia and also the place where Christianity was declared state religion (of the Kingdom of Iberia) in 337 a.D. Currently it enjoys the title of "Holy City" in Georgia. Unfortunately it was already pretty dark, so I couldn't take good pictures.

The Svetitskhoveli Cathedral ("Church of the living pillar") is known to be the burial site of Jesus' mantle, a claim shared with Trier (Germany), Argentuil (France) and other places in Russia and Ukraine. LOL. The inside of the church is beautiful, with many interesting frescoes, some of which quite unusual, like this one above, featuring scenes from the Apocalypse. When we visited there was a wedding, which seems to be one of the favourite activities in Georgia: drinking, eating and getting married. The latter allowed the former two, so I understand why. :)