Beyond Gori: What Else Is in Shida Kartli

Where Shida Kartli is, and what is in it

Shida Kartli is the central Georgian region that includes Gori. Two of its sites are Uplistsikhe, the rock-cut town east of Gori, and the museum in Gori built around the house where Joseph Stalin was born. Neither is the whole region.

This guide covers nine places that have a page on XTOUR: eight in Shida Kartli, and Ksani Fortress just across the boundary in Mtskheta-Mtianeti, which some sources place in the historical region of Shida Kartli. What follows describes what each one is and what survives at it. XTOUR has no opening times, ticket prices, accessibility details, road surfaces or journey times for any of them.

Uplistsikhe and the Stalin Museum

Uplistsikhe is carved rather than built. Footpaths link living quarters and communal spaces spread over almost eight hectares of cliff on the left bank of the Mtkvari, and while most chambers are plain, the central hall with its coffered, tunnel-vaulted ceiling shows how elaborately the stone could be worked. A three-nave basilica was hewn from the rock in the sixth century, and a brick three-church basilica was added beside it in the ninth or tenth. The town flourished between the ninth and eleventh centuries and was ravaged by the Mongols in the thirteenth. A tunnel runs down towards the river. UNESCO's tentative list records it as entry 5234.

The Joseph Stalin Museum occupies a 1957 complex in central Gori, built around the small house that had already been made a memorial in 1937, during Stalin's lifetime. Six halls follow his life in order through photographs, documents, gifts, a reproduction of the office he used from 1918 to 1922 and a copy of his death mask, in a collection running to roughly forty thousand items. Much of the main exhibition keeps its Soviet-era presentation, and a section on the period of repression was added in 2010. It suits travellers interested in twentieth-century history.

The citadel in the middle of Gori

Gori Fortress is an oval citadel on a rocky hill in the centre of the town, ringed by walls reaching up to ten metres. People lived on the hill in the first millennium BCE, and the fortress standing now is the product of centuries of contest for Shida Kartli between Georgian, Mongol, Persian and Ottoman forces. King Erekle II had it rebuilt; a Russian battalion was stationed there in the nineteenth century; the earthquake of 1920 did serious damage. Inside the cobblestone and cut-stone walls, patched with brick, are the ruins of a small church and a tunnel that once brought water up from a reservoir.

Two churches: Samtavisi and Ateni Sioni

Samtavisi Cathedral was built in 1030 by the architect Hilarion Samtavneli, and its east end is what to walk round to first. A large ornamented cross sits above window frames patterned with lozenges, set within a blind arcade, with a griffin relief under the right-hand arch. UNESCO's tentative-list entry for the cathedral, number 5230, records that this scheme was later developed and widely adopted. The dome and west wall were rebuilt in the fifteenth century, fragments of seventeenth-century frescoes survive inside, and the enclosure still holds the remains of a bishop's residence and a gate belfry.

Ateni Sioni is a seventh-century church of green-grey sandstone built to a design resembling Jvari, standing on a cliff edge above old vineyard terraces with the Tana River running through the valley below. Go for the interior: the Georgian National Tourism Administration singles out the eleventh-century frescoes of the Virgin, and inscriptions from the ninth to the eleventh century survive on the walls. The same valley holds Ateni Fortress and the Tsero church complex. According to the Georgian National Tourism Administration, the valley begins about ten kilometres from Gori. XTOUR has no visit durations, so plan the time yourself.

A monastery at the head of a gorge, and a hill beside the highway

Rkoni Monastery stands in the upper Tedzami gorge south of Kaspi, reached over a medieval arched stone bridge known as the Tamar bridge. The complex grew in three phases — the seventh century, the thirteenth and fourteenth, and the seventeenth — and now holds churches, a refectory, towers and a bell tower. A medieval military road linking Shida Kartli with the south once ran through this valley. Rkoni is the last village of the gorge and has only a handful of residents.

Grakliani Hill sits beside the highway between Igoeti and Samtavisi in Kaspi Municipality, and came to light while that highway was under construction. Excavation has since exposed settlement layers reaching back at least to the second or first millennium BCE, with finds including miniature qvevri and ancient jars. One find is an altar carved with a script that has not been deciphered. Pavilions built for the purpose let visitors look over part of the excavated settlement, which makes this a stop for anyone curious about early Kartli and a thin one for anyone hoping for standing buildings.

Two fortresses: Skhvilo and Ksani

Skhvilo Fortress was first recorded in the tenth century as a seat of Kartli nobles and later became the first residence of the Amilakhvari princes, who eventually moved down to Kvemo Chala. The main tower is the thing to study: windows and gun ports on every floor, murder holes and peepholes at the lowest level, and a large balcony at the top for watching the courtyard. Churches of St George and St Nicholas stand inside the walls alongside living quarters and farm buildings. The fortress was badly damaged in 1632.

Ksani Fortress was begun in the sixteenth century by Prince Bagrat of Mukhrani to control a trade route. Once fighting had left it useless for defence, his descendant Konstantine Mukhranbatoni built anew over the ruins, finishing in 1746 and naming the result Konstantinbati. Its towers are each a different shape and housed the garrison, and at the foot of one lie a water reservoir and a wine cellar with room for fifteen qvevri. It stands west of Mtskheta, in the Mukhrani area.

What this guide does not tell you

XTOUR does not publish opening hours, admission prices, whether a site is staffed, what an access road is like, whether a car will manage it, or whether any of this works in winter. XTOUR has none of these for any of the places in this guide, and this guide does not fill the gaps by guessing. That includes the approach to Rkoni and Skhvilo: ask locally on the day.