Franks Blog: 22/5 Tour with J & H

Friday, May 23, 2025

22/5 Tour with J & H

A huge day touring with James & Henry.

Visited several churches, monasteries, a convent and the stalin museum.

Tbilisi

Jvari

Svetitskhoveli Cathedral

Samtavro Monastery

Gori (Stalin Museum)

Tbilisi

8:00 walked to our coffee shop "Krab"

As we were going to be engaged in an all day touring marathon I had avo on toast and Phoebe had bacon and egg.

Walked to James and Henry's hotel.

Arrived about 9:30

10:00 met the taxi driver.

The car had an interesting characteristic. As if the rear axle set appeared not really connected to the rest of the car. At speed, the car would sway and shake.

JAVARI

We drove first to a place called Jvari. It is the holiest of holy places in Georgia as the earliest monastery.

It sits on top of a hill with fantastic views.

Sadly the imagery/iconography was destroyed in the soviet period but the building still maintains a significant place for the Georgian people

It feels like Georgia has gotten onto the restoration band wagon as inside there was a wooden floor above us supporting scaffolding.

SVETITSKHOVELI

Next we visited Svetitskhoveli Cathedral. This is the mother church of the Orthodox Church in Georgia. It was architecturally stunning.

Our driver is a practicing Orthodox and these places held great significance to him. He bought candles for us to light. A priest anointed us with oil.

The cathedral was surrounded by a medieval style wall which reminded me that people have been fighting for thousands of years.

One has to wonder about the huge effort put into building it.

Was state of the art military now a tourist curiosity.

Soviets sandblasted the Frescoes. (I think).

The pointlessness of war.

Living life based on fear.

Outside the castle walls were stall holders selling icons and trinkets. A feature not seen before was "wine ice cream" essentially soft serve mixed with red wine.

SAMTAVRO

is an operating monastery with orthodox nuns.

LUNCH

Started with salad and a bean flat bread pizza thing and beer. Then suddenly dumplings, pork, chicken.

So full.

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From Henry's Facebook:

"A long drive followed to the town of Gori. This was the birthplace of Joseph Stalin. Here we visited the museum. Despite the tension and conflicts between Russia and Georgia, the museum showed Stalin in a positive light and tracked his life including his study and progression to become an Orthodox Priest. His revolutionary years and years leading the fight in WW2 were shown (again he seemed to do no wrong). There was somewhat less on the period after the war. A little galley showed aspects of the gulag system. Another long day.

Drinks were again at Fabrika."

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Saw this architecture on the way out of Tbilisi.

JAVARI

Jvari

Obviously on the tourist circuit.
In a way it's is "good" because it means there is motivation and money to restore and manage.

Not obvious are the stall holders including horse rides and wot not.

The wooden "ceiling" was actually a floor above which was scaffolding. I assume a big restoration process underway while keeping the doors open for tourists.

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Svetitskhoveli Cathedral

This is inside the outer defensive wall

Henry, James, Frank.

Taken by our driver.

Here you can see the defensive wall.

I have not been able to get a clear idea of HOW the soviets removed the frescoes. When I google this, most results refer to white washing and one response hinted that the frescoes may have been further damages by restoration efforts using sandblasting to remove the white wash. If that is the case, it's a huge mistake.