Two Cities, Two Days: Gori & Mtskheta

გამარჯობა! როგორ ხარ?

Hello! How are you?  Once again I found myself exploring and climbing all over Georgia this past weekend!  Since my weeks in this country are winding down I’m trying to make the most out of each trip I take outside of Apeni.  So this past weekend I went to two cities both within an hour marshrutka drive from Tbilisi: Gori and Mtskheta.

Gori (გორი):

It could be said that Gori’s only real contribution to history is that it is where the infamous Soviet Union Premier Joseph Stalin was born in 1878.  Not many people actually know Stalin was Georgian and even went to a Georgian Orthodox seminary for some time as a teenager before being expelled.  Now the town is pretty much like any other city in Georgia, yet contains a pretty sizeable museum dedicated to Stalin and his life as the leader of the Soviet Union. My fellow TLG friend Kathleen and I didn’t end up paying to go into the museum but you can still get a good look at his railway car (bearing the Russian “CCCP” abbreviation for the Soviet Union and weighing a whopping 83 tons) and the recreation of the house Stalin was born in. We just visited the souvenir shop where I bought two postcards with Stalin’s face on them and she got a book of poetry Stalin wrote translated in English, Georgian and Russian.

  

Joseph Stalin.

His railway car

His childhood home (complete with Georgian dog in front)

We basically spent the rest of our time in Gori walking around the city.  We spotted a little park area with 7-8 statues of what looked like soldiers but they were all missing one body part or another; one didn’t have legs, one was missing his face etc.  It was a little random and since there was no sign or anything to explain, it remains just an interesting sculptural piece in the middle of Gori. We eventually found ourselves the correct path up to the top of the Gori Fortress, which is just a castle-like structure on a hill in the middle of the city.  It’s apparently been here since the 13^th century and is still standing even though an earthquake in the early 1900s severely damaged it.  Once we got to the top we were surrounded with 360-views of Gori from this grassy plain; it was quite a sight to see the mountains covered in snow off in the distance!  Kathleen and I explored a part of the fortress that we thought would lead to another way down to the main city, but ended up just climbing over a bunch of rocks once we found out there was no alternative way down (I just love to climb all around Georgia apparently!). 

Interesting Statues

Gori Fortress

The mountains in the distance have snow on them!

Obviously after this we were famished and decided to have a lunch break of khinkali (you remember my last blog post don’t you?) and on our way to the restaurant we found ourselves some bullet holes on a few sides of the buildings near the main square.  Many of you might vaguely remember that Georgia and Russia actually had a small war in 2008 and Russian forces occupied Gori (and several other Georgian cities) for several weeks while negotiations were discussed over the separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.  Needless to say, it’s pretty scary to see the bullet holes now, but imagine living in Gori and being shot at (over 200 Georgians died in the short war)!  It was a somber culmination of our day-long journey to Gori.

Nothin' like some bullet holes to end the day!

Mtskheta (მცხეთა)

On Sunday, Kathleen and I once again felt adventurous and decided to take an early marshrutka to Mtskheta, a city about 20 minutes outside Tbilisi.  Mtskheta is a pretty important city to Georgia: it used to be the ancient capital of the Georgian Kingdom from the 3^rd century AD-5^th century BC (while Tbilisi became the capital in the beginning of the 6^th century, many former Georgian kings are buried in Mtskheta).  It’s also the city in which Georgia declared itself a Christian nation in 337 and remains the center of the Georgian Orthodox Church.  Again we mainly walked around the city but there are a few key monuments:

Jvari Monastery: Kathleen and I didn’t end up going here since it takes a 15 lari taxi ride there, but this monastery is on the hillside across the Aragvi and Kura Rivers overlooking Mtskheta.  It dates back to the 6^th century and is the place where the Georgian Saint Nino converted King Mirian III to Christianity. 

Jvari Monastery on top of the hill

Svetitskhoveli Cathedral: This is the second biggest cathedral in the country and is probably the holiest religious site in all of Georgia.  The cathedral was built in the 11^th century yet there are reports that the site has been used since the 4^th century. From doing a little bit of research, Christ’s robe was supposedly brought to this church (or Mtskheta in general) and is buried here.  Since I don’t really understand the beliefs of the Georgian Orthodox church, the history behind the cathedral’s importance is a little obscure and confusing, but basically this church is super important to the Georgian people.  The church is surrounded by high stone walls so it’s kind of like a fortress inside the grounds.  And if the pictures don’t do it justice, the cathedral is huge, probably the biggest church I’ve ever been in.  Kathleen and I covered ourselves up in scarves and got to look around on the inside where beautiful frescoes and pictures of saints remain; there are even several graves of old Georgian empire kings in the floor which was pretty interesting (you must be really important to be buried here!).  As it was Sunday there were many people in the church praying and blessing themselves in such a holy place.

Beautiful and HUGE

One of the views inside

Another beautiful fresco on the inside.

Bebris Castle:  There’s not much online about this place, but there’s some remains of a castle about a ten minute walk outside of Mtskheta.  All I could find was that it was built in the feudal period (anywhere between the 9^th-15^th centuries really) to protect the northern side of the town.  Kathleen and I wandered up to the top to get a great view of the town and the Aragvi and Kura Rivers.  Although it looked to be in pretty stable condition there were a few places where the castle looked as though it could fall down any moment, but luckily this didn’t happen when we were there!

Castle in the distance

Awesome views!

Overall Mtskheta was a quaint little town perfect for exploring on a great fall day since the surrounding mountains were filled with fall colors! I’m happy that I got to spend time in two great cities this weekend!  I’m off to experience my first field trip on Tuesday so I’m sure I’ll have more stories to share later in the week!

გაუმარჯოს! (cheers!)

Kelsey