2019 Eurasia Adventure - Georgian Monastery Madness

Oh you can take your March Madness. It is nothing compared to Georgian Monastery Madness. There have been a few of you who over the years have made the sarcastic comment that Wife and I tend to go a tad overboard on our visiting and photoing religious monuments (churches, mosques, temples, you name it). Sadly it is always those closest to you with the knife (Et Tu Brute!). But comment all you want on this post for I make no bones or apologies for excess.

So on with the show

I am not going to go into the historical detail of each place. I have done the brief history of Georgia a couple of times already. But most of the sites you will be seeing have roots to the conversion to Christianity at the end of the Roman period and had their major building during the golden age of Georgia in the 12th and 13th centuries. Let it be said that the history of almost all of these after than was one of being sacked and looted by invaders, being reconstructed, being sacked and looted again by invaders over and over until the modern era. 

Jvari Monastery

It is noted for the balance of its design and relative lack of interior decoration

As seen driving up to it

On the site

Click here for a video view of the interior

Reliefs on the exterior

Looking down at the town of Mtskheta and the Sveti-Tskhoveli Church, our next stop

On to Mtskheta (don't even think about pronouncing it. Georgian has 32 letters in its alphabet and many sounds which are not found in English). Mtskheta was the first capital of the ancient kingdom to which Georgia claims its roots to. The Jvari Monastery and this church owe their existence to that period

The universal symbol of a tourist attraction town

Looking back up to Jvari Monastery

These colorful items are nuts that are coated in thickened fruit juice

Our Driver Levan called them Georgian Snickers

Artist at work

Click here to see the grounds of the Svet-Tskhoveli Church

The interior had many examples of Orthodox Christian art

I find that the later examples of this art do not have the same originality or emotional power as the earlier Byzantine works they are based on. So I have tried to focus on things that I thought were more original and powerful

Next Stop

Saint Shivo's Monastery Complex

Coming here we were getting way off the usual bus tour route

Sadly we were not able to take pictures of the interior because their were three pictures that were really different

However, there is an older church of Saint John the Baptist that dates from the 6th century. It had a very different feel to it

Click here for the video visit to the Church of St. John the Baptist

Next stop was a church that was so out of the way we had to go over a mile of dirt road mountain road to get to it

We are not even sure what it's name is 

All we know is that if was from the same 12th to 13th century time period and is still in use even though it seems out in the middle of nowhere

 

Real Life Interlude

The nature of our photographic eye is that we look for things that will be striking

But that leads to our posts not giving a realistic picture of the countries we are in

Sure most of the major cities look good, but the real countryside and smaller cities and towns are usually with a different look. These are not great pictures taken as they were from the car but they give you a more realistic idea of what Georgia outside of Tblisi looks like

Our next stop was a couple of Roman era ruins (though actually of client states in Georgia)

Unfortunately one was completely closed.

The other seemed that way too

But Levan called a number on the entrance and a caretaker came and let us in

The write up for this place said it was royal palace with all kinds of buidings

Pretty hard for us to tell. Clearly a long way to go with the restoration

But there was a palace fairly well along

I have no idea what these are. Never saw them in any other Roman era ruin

Familiar under floor heating system

And lastly

The No Name Church

We just past this and stopped

It wasn't on our tour

Say goodbye Wife/Levan

But NO...WAIT

There is still

SIGNS OF THE WORLD

 Please Point with an Exaggerated Style when Wheelchairs go by

 No Black Soles on the Grass!