These places are associated in the people's memory with the name of the great Georgian poet Shota Rustaveli, for against their background the events in his epic poem "The Knight in the Panther's Skin" are played out. The village of Rustavi, which is considered the birthplace of the poet, is 18 km from the ancient city of Akhaltsikhe. "Unknown Meskh from Rustavi, I wrote this tale …" - this is all that the poet said about himself in his brilliant work.
On the road from the village, passing along the bank of the Kura River, on a high cliff at the bend of the river, lie the ruins of the gloomy and inhospitable fortress Tmog-vi, mentioned in Rustaveli's poem. Here Tsar Heraclius, who fought in the Russian-Turkish war of 1768-1774, together with Russia, utterly defeated the many thousands of Turkish troops. They say that after the battle the waters of the Kura were stained with blood and overflowed their banks. The Turks then nicknamed Tmogvi "The Devil's Fortress".
Further, there is a cave city, a VI century monastery Vanis-Kvabi, which has up to 9 tiers or floors of underground premises. The ascent to this monastery is possible only with the help of ropes and special equipment. Man-made cave towns-monasteries and towns-fortresses are located in the mountains of Kakheti and Kartli. Among them are Samsar and Uplis-Tsehe (near Gori). In the first one, a 12th century cave domed temple with graceful columns and arches is remarkable, carved into volcanic rocks. In the second, there is an antique cave theater created in sandstones at the beginning of a new era.
In the valley of the Kavtura River, which flows into the Kura above Tbilisi, there is Naberali - a group of three caves connected by passages. The middle cave is equipped with an "elevator" - beams, with the help of which the ropes attached to them were lifted upward - into the cave - a person or a load. Nearby, at an altitude of 1300 m above sea level, on the left bank of the Kura River, in a huge rock of volcanic origin, the most outstanding cave city, the Vardzia Monastery, is located.
The Chronicle of Georgia says that the construction of Vardzia was started in the XII century by the Georgian king George III, and his daughter, Queen Tamara, finished it. The frescoes preserved in the main church depicted Tamara holding the plan of Vardzia, her father in ceremonial vestments and a man behind them - according to legend, Shota Rustaveli, who served as Queen Tamara's treasurer.
Vardzia is an almost vertical cut of a high cone-shaped mountain, and in this cut, like a honeycomb, the black holes of the caves gape. In the past, one could get into the caves from above by a rope lowered from a cliff. Nowadays, a path leads to the cave city from below to a small iron door, behind which there is an underground monastery.
Vardzia was created by unknown builders as a natural fortress and was able to withstand a long siege of the enemy. The inhabitants had at their disposal two, three and even four-room apartments, consisting of a vestibule, a main room and a storage room. All have “built-in” “furniture” carved into the rock - benches and hearths, niches for sleeping, folding the bed, dishes, books, lamps.
The center of the monastery was an underground two-tiered church of the Assumption of the Mother of God. The frescoes that adorn the walls of the church were created in 1186, and historians consider this date the year of birth of Vardzia. The painting of the main temple has been restored. During the work, an inscription was found, which, as it turned out, was left by the ruler of Kartli, Eristavi Rati Su-rameli. It is he who stands behind the queen's back, not the poet Shota Rustaveli, as was previously thought.
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From the Church of the Assumption, carved into the depths of the rock, cells and auxiliary rooms for various purposes and specially equipped ones diverge along different tiers: a throne room and a courtroom with stone benches on the walls and a depression in the wall for a throne, rooms of Queen Tamara, a large number of internal small churches with hiding places, wine cellars, bakeries, refectory, stables, cellars, smithy, pharmacy, library.
Not far from the main temple, a tunnel begins, leading into the depths of the cliff, to a spring with a deep pool filled with excellent drinking water and capable of providing all residents of the city, whose number reached 20 thousand people. According to legend, the waters of the spring are sacred. The length of the water pipelines reaches four kilometers. Clay double pipes run in different directions. One pipe of a smaller diameter is nested in another - a larger one, so that there is space between them. In addition to the water supply system, there were pipes that supplied milk from the upper tier, where there were cattle pastures.
In Vardzia, a ramified system of underground passages in the height of a person has been preserved. All caves are interconnected. The found traces of countless walled up secret passages, many kilometers of tunnels testify to the complex defensive technique of the cave city. In total, according to various estimates, the monastery had from 1,500 to 600 rooms.
For three and a half centuries, the enemy could not defeat Vardzia, but in 1551 the Persian shah Tammakh, using the help of the traitors, conquered it and took everything that was valuable in the monastery. The inhabitants did not have time to restore their life, as at the end of the 16th century the mountainous region was seized by the Turks, persecution of Christians began, and the monks were forced to leave Vardzia forever. Together with them they took away the secret of the burial place of Queen Tamara. It is only known that she loved to visit the monastery she created. Popular legends claim that according to the will of the queen, her ashes were buried in one of the secret dungeons.