If there's one place where the soul of Georgia beats, it's Mtskheta. Just twenty minutes from Tbilisi, this small town was the capital of the kingdom for almost a thousand years. It is also where, in the 4th century, the whole country became Christian. It stands on a magical spot where the cloudy mountain waters of the Aragvi merge with the broad Mtkvari. The ancients considered this meeting of waters sacred, and the Russian poet Lermontov made it immortal in famous verses.
Above that confluence, on a bare hilltop, stands the perfect silhouette of 6th-century Jvari Monastery, one of the oldest and most beautiful churches in the Caucasus. Below, in the town, rises the imposing Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, 'the living pillar'. Tradition holds that Christ's robe is buried there, and for centuries the kings of Georgia were crowned and buried inside. Both monuments are World Heritage Sites.
This guide helps you make the most of the trip. It covers how to get there cheaply by marshrutka from Didube, how to get up to Jvari and what to see in the cathedral. It also tells the story of Saint Nino, who brought Christianity to Georgia with a cross made of grapevine branches, and explains how to combine Mtskheta with Gori or the wineries. It's the easiest getaway in the country and one of the most beautiful and meaningful.
Mtskheta was the capital of the Kingdom of Iberia (Kartli), in eastern Georgia, from the 3rd century BC until King Dachi moved the court to Tbilisi around the year 500. Its high point came in the early 4th century. Saint Nino, a young preacher from Cappadocia, converted King Mirian III and Queen Nana to Christianity. Around the year 337, Georgia became one of the first countries in the world to adopt Christianity as its official religion, just after Armenia. Jvari Monastery was built where Nino planted her cross. Svetitskhoveli Cathedral was built over the tomb of Christ's robe and became the seat of the Georgian Church and the burial place of its kings. Mtskheta lost its role as capital, but it remained the nation's religious centre throughout the Middle Ages and still is today. Its monuments were declared a World Heritage Site in 1994 and tell this founding story, which we cover in more detail on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The heart of Georgia: the capital of sulphur baths and wooden balconies, alongside Mtskheta, the old spiritual capital, and the age-old sites of the Mtkvari valley.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Long before Tbilisi existed, Mtskheta was already the centre of the Georgian world. It rose on a spot no founder chose by chance: the exact point where the Aragvi, rushing down from the mountains of the Greater Caucasus, meets the Mtkvari, the great river that crosses Georgia from end to end. That meeting of waters of different colours was already sacred to the pagan peoples of antiquity. It also marked a crossroads, where the routes linking the north with Persia and the Black Sea with the Caspian came together.
According to tradition, the city was founded around the 3rd century BC. It took its name from Mtskhetos, son of the legendary patriarch Kartlos, from whom, the Georgians say, all Kartvelians (as they call themselves) descend. Legend or not, around that time Mtskheta became the capital of the kingdom of Iberia, or Kartli. This was the state that ruled eastern Georgia, and the Greeks and Romans knew it well.
It was a rich, cosmopolitan capital. Its acropolis stood on the neighbouring hill of Armazi, with temples, palaces and baths. Archaeologists have also dug dazzling Hellenistic and Roman-era goldwork out of its royal necropolis, and these treasures are now in the National Museum in Tbilisi. The kings of Iberia traded and made treaties with both Rome and Parthian Persia, keeping a delicate balance between the two great empires of the day. But the event that would make Mtskheta eternal was neither political nor commercial. It was spiritual.
In the early 4th century a young woman preacher named Nino arrived in Iberia from Cappadocia (in present-day Turkey). Tradition says she was a relative of Saint George, and that the Virgin appeared to her and gave her a cross so that she could bring the gospel to Georgia. In the best-known version of the story, Nino made the cross from two grapevine branches and bound them with her own hair. The branches crossed so that the horizontal arms drooped slightly. This 'grapevine cross' with its sloping arms became the symbol of the Georgian Church and is still its emblem today.
Nino settled in Mtskheta and preached there, and tradition says she performed healings that made her famous. The turning point came when King Mirian III was out hunting in the forest. A sudden darkness trapped him, and in desperation he called on Nino's God. The light returned, and the king was convinced: he converted to Christianity together with Queen Nana. Around 337, Mirian proclaimed Christianity the official religion of the kingdom of Iberia. Georgia thus became one of the first states in the world to adopt the Christian faith, just after neighbouring Armenia.
The conversion turned Mtskheta into the holy city of the Georgians. Legend says Christ's robe was kept beneath a miraculous cedar, and on that spot the first wooden church went up, the seed of the future Svetitskhoveli Cathedral. On the hill opposite, where Nino is said to have planted her cross, the Jvari Monastery would later rise. The young preacher is venerated as Saint Nino, the 'enlightener of Georgia', and her memory is still very much alive: Nino is one of the most common women's names in the country.
The legend behind the name of Mtskheta's great cathedral is one of the best loved in Georgia. It tells of Elias, a Georgian Jew from the city, who travelled to Jerusalem and witnessed the crucifixion of Christ. There he bought the Lord's robe (his tunic) from a soldier. He brought it back to Mtskheta and gave it to his sister Sidonia, who embraced it and died of emotion. No one could prise the robe from her hands, so she was buried with it. A huge, sacred cedar grew over her grave.
When Saint Nino wanted to build the first church, she had the cedar cut down to make seven columns. Six were set in place without trouble. The seventh, made from the trunk, rose into the air on its own, and there was no way to set it down. After Nino prayed through the night, the column came down miraculously into its place, pouring out a liquid that healed the sick. Hence the name Svetitskhoveli, Georgian for 'the living pillar' or 'the life-giving column'. Christ's robe is believed to still lie buried beneath the cathedral, which makes it one of the holiest places in Eastern Christianity.
The cathedral you see today is an 11th-century masterpiece, built between 1010 and 1029 by the architect Arsukisdze under Patriarch Melkisedek. It replaced earlier, smaller churches and became the patriarchal cathedral of Georgia. For almost a thousand years Georgian kings were crowned and buried here, and several monarchs lie beneath its floor, including Erekle II and the last king, George XII. On one of the façades, an inscription and a relief of an arm holding a set square commemorate the architect. Another legend grew up around him too, a tragic one about a king jealous of his talent.
Across from the city, on top of a rocky hill above the meeting of the rivers, stands the Jvari Monastery, whose name simply means 'of the Cross'. Tradition says Saint Nino raised a large wooden cross here to mark the victory of Christianity over the old pagan cults, and the spot soon drew pilgrims. People said the cross worked miracles, and its fame spread across the Caucasus.
At the end of the 6th century, between 586 and 605, Prince Stepanoz I had a stone church built on the hill. It still stands today and is one of the oldest surviving churches in Georgia. Its design was revolutionary: a cross-shaped plan set inside a square, with four apses and a dome on an octagonal drum. The harmony of this layout was so perfect that it became the model for Georgian church architecture for centuries, and countless churches across the country copied the 'Jvari type'.
Yet what makes Jvari unforgettable, beyond its architecture, is where it stands. The church sits alone on the summit, outlined against the sky, looking down on the meeting of the Aragvi and the Mtkvari and, beyond them, the town of Mtskheta and its cathedral. In the 19th century that view inspired the Russian poet Mikhail Lermontov to write his famous Romantic poem 'Mtsyri' ('The Novice'), about a young monk held captive who dreams of the freedom of the mountains. Today many people consider Jvari the most beautiful monument in Georgia, and its outline above the rivers has become the very image of the country.
Around the year 500, King Dachi, son of Vakhtang Gorgasali, moved the political capital from Mtskheta to the new, strategic city of Tbilisi, twenty kilometres downriver. Mtskheta stopped being the seat of power, but it kept something no other city could take from it. It remained the religious centre of the nation and the seat of the Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia, head of the Georgian Orthodox Church. Throughout the Middle Ages, royal coronations and burials still took place at Svetitskhoveli, and pilgrims never stopped climbing up to Jvari.
Like the rest of the country, Mtskheta suffered the invasions that swept over Georgia across the centuries. Arabs, Mongols, the hordes of Tamerlane, Persians and Ottomans all came through the valley and left destruction behind them, and the monuments were damaged and restored again and again. Even so, its great stone churches were so solidly built that they have come down to us essentially intact, which is exceptional for monuments more than a thousand years old.
In 1994 UNESCO declared the Historical Monuments of Mtskheta a World Heritage Site: Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, the Jvari Monastery and the Samtavro convent. It recognised them as an outstanding example of medieval architecture in the Caucasus and as evidence of the city's role in spreading Christianity. Today Mtskheta is a quiet, touristy town a short hop from Tbilisi, and also the living spiritual heart of Georgia. Patriarchs are still symbolically crowned here and pilgrims still come. More than anywhere else, this is where you can touch the origins of what it means to be Georgian. Few day trips pack so much into so little space.
