Poti and Anaklia

Poti is currently Georgia’s largest port and an industrial centre, though it has some pretty buildings in the centre. It was founded by the ancient Greeks on the River Phasis (today’s Rioni) and took its name. Jason and the Argonauts navigated this river in their quest for the Golden Fleece in Colchis. At that time, the sea reached much farther inland. Poti was an important port along the Silk Road in pre-Christian times. More recently it was used by the Ottomans, including for their trade in Circassian girl slaves (one fifth of Constantinople’s population in 1609 consisted of slaves). Alexandre Dumas, in his Adventures in the Caucasus, tells a diverting tale of the week he spent in Poti in 1858 on his way out of the Caucasus (after an icy night lost on his horse and hounded by wolves), during which he shot a pig and other exploits. Finally, as he leaves Poti by sea, Dumas looks back at “...a wonderful view of the two great mountain ranges of the Caucasus reaching out like arms to embrace the Black Sea”.