Davit-Gareja

Davit-Gareja is a group of cave monasteries built up a hillside on the border with Azerbaijan, near Kakheti’s eastern border with Kvemo Kartli. This area was once covered with trees, but iron smelting in the 1st millennium BC and the Turks’ determination to level the terrain in the 16th century led from deforestation to desertification.

The first monastery was founded here in the 6th century by Saint David, one of the Thirteen Assyrian Fathers. Others were added successively, carved into the sandstone hill with sophisticated systems for storing and sharing water and with terraced gardens. The cave-monasteries were decorated with beautiful frescoes, some of which remain today. In the 12th century, a school of fresco and manuscript painting was developed here: the complex became eastern Georgia’s most important centre of culture and education. The monasteries of Udabno and Lavra are among the best restored; only three of over 20 monasteries are now in use. Ongoing work by archæologists, monks and art restorers is bringing others back to life.