Gudiashvili's murals
In the apse, painted in encaustic.
კოლხი — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Aleksey Muhranoff — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Diego Delso — CC BY-SA 4.0 · კოლხი — CC BY-SA 4.0 · კოლხი — CC BY-SA 4.0
St George's Church of Kashveti is a working Georgian Orthodox church on Rustaveli Avenue in central Tbilisi, opposite the Parliament building. It was built between 1904 and 1910 to designs by the architect Leopold Bilfeldt, who modelled it on Samtavisi Cathedral of 1030; its façades were richly carved by the Agladze stonemasons. It replaced a brick church built in 1753 with backing from the noble Amilakhvari family. The name comes from a legend about St David of Gareja, one of the thirteen Syrian fathers of the sixth century: falsely accused by a woman of fathering her child, he foretold that she would give birth to a stone, and she did. In Georgian, kva means stone and shva to give birth. The apse murals are by Lado Gudiashvili, invited by Catholicos-Patriarch Kalistrate Tsintsadze, who as a priest had overseen the church's construction. Painting in encaustic in the late 1940s, he gave the Virgin and Child a strikingly earthly look; the work cost him his Communist Party membership and, by several accounts, his teaching post at the Tbilisi Academy of Arts, and it was left unfinished. A carved marble iconostasis screens the altar; a bronze statue of the painter stands in the garden behind. It stands beside the National Gallery, a few minutes' walk from Freedom Square metro station; the Georgian National Museum and Freedom Square lie down the avenue, about 240 m and 550 m away in a straight line. Entry is free. Modest dress is expected in churches: shoulders and knees covered, and women cover their hair with a scarf.
In the apse, painted in encaustic.
Motifs taken from old Georgian churches.
In bronze, in the garden behind.
Rustaveli Avenue 9, opposite the Parliament, central Tbilisi
Georgian National Museum (Simon Janashia Museum)Georgia's leading museum of history and archaeology, officially the Simon Janash3 minutes walk4.3
Rustaveli AvenueTbilisi's main avenue, starting at Freedom Square and running for about a kilome4 minutes walk4.8
Dry Bridge MarketAn open-air market of antiques and old curiosities in central Tbilisi, around th6 minutes walk4.5
Gabriadze Theatre Clock TowerA leaning clock tower straight out of a fairy tale, on Shavteli Street in Tbilis8 minutes walk4.8
Anchiskhati BasilicaTbilisi's oldest surviving church, a small stone basilica in the heart of the ol9 minutes walkThe poet and general Grigol Orbeliani (died 1883) and General Ivane Amilakhvari (died 1905) are buried here, and the brandy maker and philanthropist David Sarajishvili and his wife were reburied beside the church in 1995.
Its patrons insisted on a Georgian model: General Ivane Amilakhvari, whose family had long been patrons of Samtavisi, made Samtavisi's plan a condition of rebuilding, and when the exarch then heading the Church in Georgia proposed an onion-domed design, Amilakhvari protested and the exarch accepted the Georgian plan.