Church · Zemo Bolnisi, Bolnisi Municipality, Kvemo Kartli
Tsughrughasheni Church
წუღრუღაშენი
A compact domed church of the early 13th century on the right bank of the Bolnisistskali, built of gold, purple and blue stone and crowned by an unusually tall drum pierced by ten carved windows.
Where it is
41.3805, 44.5299
Why go
Stonework is the reason to come. Every window of the high, narrow drum has an intricately carved frame, the façades are thickly ornamented, and inside, where only fragments of painting remain, light from the drum falls across a relief cross in the dome. Inscriptions date the building to the reign of King Giorgi IV Lasha. No village stands beside it, so the churchyard looks onto open countryside. Bolnisi Sioni is close by, and the two slot easily into a day in Kvemo Kartli that continues to Dmanisi.
Near Tsughrughasheni Church
Church
Bolnisi Sioni
A three-nave basilica built in 478–493 in the village of Bolnisi in Kvemo Kartli, whose wall inscriptions are among the oldest known examples of Georgian writing.
2 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ
Archaeological site
Samshvilde
A ruined city on a promontory at the confluence of the Khrami and Chivchavi rivers in Tetritskaro municipality, with the shell of the eighth-century Sioni cathedral among its remains.
14 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ
Archaeological site
Dmanisi Archaeological Site
A promontory above the Mashavera and Pinezauri rivers where the ruins of medieval Dmanisi stand on deposits that yielded hominin fossils about 1.8 million years old.
16 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ
Museum
Open Air Museum of Ethnography
Traditional houses and household and craft objects gathered from across Georgia and set out over 52 hectares of hillside west of Turtle Lake in Tbilisi's Vake district.
40 km · straight-line distance; driving distance and time differ
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