MARTIN RANDALL TRAVEL

ART • ARCHITECTURE • GASTRONOMY • ARCHAEOLOGY • HISTORY • MUSIC • LITERATURE

Georgia Uncovered Treasures of the Southern Caucasus

11–21 September 2021 (mh 892) 11 days • £4,180 Lecturer: Ian Colvin

Churches and monasteries dating from the sixth century and earlier. Exquisite jewellery and metalwork from the Bronze Age and Antiquity. Spectacular mountain landscapes. A delicious and varied regional cuisine in a land that is the cradle of wine. Option to combine this tour with Sacred Armenia, 3–11 September 2021.

Georgia is a country that evokes many mythical and historical associations and yet, paradoxically, is little known in the West. This is partly geopolitical circumstance. For centuries Georgia was cut off from Europe, Tbilisi, wood engraving c. 1880. first by the Islamic caliphate and the Ottoman Turks, and then by Imperial Russia and the its beautiful and unique alphabet was created Batumi, Tiflis and Baku and with the notorious USSR. Opportunities for travel there were few. in the early fifth century to help evangelize the Tiflis bank robbery of 1907. When war and the Set on the borders of Europe and Asia, a people. Georgian and Armenian architects Bolsheviks brought the whole edifice crashing Christian country surrounded by Muslim evolved a distinctive South Caucasian down, it was Stalin who built it up again at huge neighbours, it is an heir to the civilisations of religious architecture in the sixth and seventh human cost. Nationalism and a longing for both continents, and at the same time preserves centuries, even as their churches fell out over ‘freedom’ brought the end of the Soviet Union. its own language and a rich cultural heritage Christological differences. It brought civil war too, economic collapse and that is peculiar to the South Caucasus. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the stagnation, finally ended in 2003 by the first An ancient land, its past, like that of Bagratid kings unified Georgia and built of the ‘colour revolutions’ and a new oil boom. neighbouring Armenia, is deeply intertwined a multi-ethnic empire that extended from Georgia’s new confidence is conspicuous, its with the history of the empires and civilisations the Caspian to the Black Sea, and from the promise great, its challenges evident. that surround it. Georgia appears in the stories Armenian highlands to the North Caucasus. It of the earliest peoples of the Fertile Crescent was demolished by the Mongols and Timurids Itinerary and Anatolia. It is linked closely with the and the country was again divided into a Iranian empires to the southeast. They fought series of fractious principalities, preyed on by If combining this tour with Sacred Armenia in the Greeks, Macedonians, Romans, Byzantines Ottoman Turks, Safavid Persians and Lezgi September 2021, fly from Yerevan to Tbilisi at c. and Ottomans to the west for hegemony in this raiders from the north Caucasus. 3.50pm (Georgia Airways) and transfer by taxi borderland. The Georgian kings called in aid Georgians greeted the Russians as their to the hotel. from the nomads to the north, or laboured to Christian saviours on their first arrival at the Day 1: London to Tbilisi. Fly at c. 12.00 midday bar the mountain passes to them: Scythians, end of the eighteenth century, but soon fell Sarmatians, Alans, Huns, Khazars, Turks, from London Gatwick to Tbilisi via Istanbul out with their colonial masters. The Tsars’ (Turkish Airlines). Arriving at c. 10.30pm. Mongols and Timurids – and finally their viceroys brought European fashions to Tbilisi, geographical heirs, the Russians. Even today, Transfer to hotel in the heart of the city. First of remodelling the city with a European quarter four nights in Tbilisi. Russia, America, Turkey, Iran and the EU to stand alongside the Asiatic Old Town. At the play a complex game in the South Caucasus, beginning of the oil age, English, international Day 2: Tbilisi. The Asiatic Old Town set competing for political and economic influence and local investors, including Rothschilds, beneath the Narikala fortress remains a in a region of vital oil wealth. Nobels, Gulbenkians and Mantashevs built twisting maze of streets, caravanserais and Georgia has frequently found itself in the fortunes investing heavily in the Transcaucasus ancient churches, adding contrast to the vanguard of global history. The metal ages to bring Baku’s oil to world markets. The subsequent architecture erected by the tsars’ came early in the South Caucasus, and the Art Nouveau palaces of this first age of viceroys, by merchant princes, Bolsheviks exquisite archaeological finds displayed in the globalisation still adorn Tbilisi and Batumi. and post-Soviet presidents’ favourite modern gold rooms of the Tbilisi Museum confirm In the same period, Stalin first impressed architects (the vast post-Soviet Sameba – Holy the reputation of its ancient smiths. It adopted Lenin with his organising of the workers of Trinity – Cathedral, rivals the ambition of the Christianity early in the fourth century ad; and book online at www.martinrandall.com Telephone 020 8742 3355 MARTIN RANDALL TRAVEL

Georgia Uncovered continued

great cathedrals of the Middle Ages). Past the Day 7: Gori, Kutaisi. The cult of Joseph Stalin, Lecturer ancient bath district built on Tbilisi’s thermal Georgia’s most famous son, was officially springs, the church at Metekhi is set on cliffs abolished by Khrushchev in 1956, but at Dr Ian Colvin. Historian and Byzantinist above the Mtkvari River. his birthplace in Gori the Stalin Museum specialising in Late Antiquity and the South continues to operate. Although Stalin is a Day 3: Kakheti. Drive over the scenic Gomburi Caucasus, with interests in the wider history source of embarrassment to many modern mountains to Tsinandali in fertile Kakheti, the of the region. Trained at Oxford, he is now Georgians, this museum has been preserved country estate of the princely Chavchavadze a researcher at the University of Cambridge. as it was at the fall of the Soviet Union, a family. Built by Alexandre (1786-1846) He has directed an ongoing archaeological fascinating museum of the museum built by his diplomat, poet and general, raised at the court expedition to ancient Archaeopolis in the South henchman Beria. First of two nights in Kutaisi. of Catherine the Great – and one of the first Caucasus since 2001, and leads a number of to introduce enlightenment ideas and modern Day 8: Kutaisi. A morning walk through tours in the region. agricultural methods to Georgia – in 1854 the Kutaisi, ending at the Green Bazaar, one of the house was the scene of a notorious raid by the largest indoor produce markets in Georgia. Practicalities Imam Shamil’s Daghestani fighters. Today it is An optional visit to the Kutaisi Historical Price, per person. Two sharing: £4,180 or a small museum affording a glimpse of 19th- Ethnographic Museum, which houses artefacts £3,780 without flights.Single occupancy: century Georgian noble life. dating back to the 9th century bc from across £4,790 or £4,390 without flights. Georgia. We visit the world heritage sites of Day 4: Tbilisi. Tbilisi’s open air Ethnographic the 12th-century academy and monastery Price, Sacred Armenia and Georgia House Museum displays examples of the of Gelati, with its frescoed interiors, and the Uncovered combined. Two sharing: £7,550 or architecture and ethnographic traditions of controversially restored 11th-century Bagrati £7,150 without flights. Single occupancy: £8,590 Georgia’s 14 different regions in a hillside Cathedral. or £8,190 without flights. This includes flight park above the city. The National History and airport transfers between the two. Museum preserves its archaeological treasures, Day 9: Nokalakevi, Batumi. The imposing while its subterranean treasury is a highlight, ruins at Nokalakevi are the remains of the Included: flights (standard class) with Turkish demonstrating the remarkable skill of its ancient capital of the kingdoms of Colchis and Airlines; travel by private air-conditioned smiths from the Bronze Age through to Egrisi-Lazika, whose massive fortifications coach; hotel accommodation as described Antiquity. There is free time to explore Tbilisi’s date to a period when the region was a focus below; breakfasts, 9 lunches and 9 dinners with pleasures: the enamels and icons of the Fine of Byzantine-Sasanian rivalry, but the site wine, beer, water and coffee; all admissions Art Gallery, the modern paintings of the Art overlooking the Colchian plain, the ‘Land of to museums and sites visited with the group; Gallery, or perhaps Prospero’s Books, Tbilisi’s the Golden Fleece’, has a much longer history. all gratuities for restaurant staff and drivers; English language bookstore. Excavations have been on-going since the 1970s all state and airport taxes; the services of the and have uncovered buried remains through lecturer, tour manager and local guides. Day 5: Mtskheta, Kazbegi. Just north of the Hellenistic period to the Late Bronze Age. Tbilisi is the old capital, Mtskheta, scene of the Accommodation: Marriott Tbilisi (marriott. Since 2001 our lecturer, Ian Colvin, has led an country’s fourth-century conversion and still co.uk/hotels): a 5-star hotel behind a 19th- international team in a joint project with the the religious heart of this strongly Christian century facade that is within walking distance Georgian National Museum. First of two nights country. Its spiritual landmarks include: the of Tbilisi’s central attractions. Rooms Hotel, at Batumi. sixth-century Jvari Church, perched high above Kazbegi (roomshotels.com): a former Soviet the town; Samtavro monastery; and the 11th- Day 10: Batumi. The Bathus Limen, or deep resort, now a modern hotel . It has spectacular century Cathedral of Svetitskhoveli, symbol of water port, of Greek settlers of the 6th to 5th views of the mountains. Best Western, Georgia’s Conversion. We follow the Georgian centuries bc was a sleepy provincial backwater Kudaisi (bestwestern.co.uk): a new, 3-star, Military Highway, the route the Russians under the Ottomans, until the Russians contemporary hotel in a good central location. constructed at the turn of the 19th century annexed it in 1878. Subsequently international Radisson Blu, Batumi (radissonblu.com/ to secure their hold on their Transcaucasian investment brought a railway and pipelines to Batumi): a large hotel with good amenities and possessions. First of two nights in Kazbegi in bring Baku oil to an eager European market. views of the Black Sea. Single rooms are doubles the high Caucasus Mountains. While Nobels, Rothschilds and Mantashev’s for sole use throughout. invested in Batumi’s oil infrastructure, Stalin Day 6: Kazbegi. The 14th-century Gergeti How strenuous? You will be on your feet for cut his teeth organizing their oil workers’ Sameba Church on the slopes of volcanic long periods. Many of the sites are reached strikes. The elegant 19th-century seafront Mount Kazbek is in perhaps the most dramatic by steep, uneven steps sometimes without boulevard is undergoing an investment boom, setting in Georgia. Then to the Darial Gates, a handrails. The tour would not be suitable for but the architecture of the first great period of natural gorge, where the Terek cuts a narrow anyone who has difficulties with everyday globalization pre-First World War remains, passage beneath cliffs that tower nearly 1,000 walking and stairclimbing. There are some long alongside the post-Soviet towers. metres above. Legend has it that Alexander the coach journeys (average distance by coach per Great set iron gates here to protect the settled Day 11: Batumi to London. Fly at c. 10.30am day: 53 miles). lands of the Near East from the rapacious from Batumi Airport to London, via Istanbul, Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. nomads beyond. arriving at Gatwick at c. 4.00pm (Turkish Airlines). book online at www.martinrandall.com [email protected]