Frozen in Time Chiatura and Sky pillar Katskhi

Feel an extraordinary atmosphere of Soviet mining town Chiatura. We start from your hotel and head to upper Imereti. In an hour and a half, Katskhi’s silhouette appears. At the top of the cliff stands a church built between the 6th and 8th centuries. In ancient times the Katskh pillar was revered by locals as a symbol of the god of fertility. After accepting Christianity, people believed that this is a place where a person can come closer to God.

At about 12:00 we arrive in Chiatura and the extraordinary view catches our eyes: randomly built high-rise blocks, abandoned construction sites and vehicles from the Soviet period, tattered towers of cableways sticking out on the horizon. As if an imaginary worker pressed the "stop" button and everything still stood for tens of years!

In the afternoon, we will visit the Mgvimevi Monastery, built like a nestle in a karst cave on a rock (built by Prince Rati in the 13th century). The complex is richly decorated with ornaments, in some places are preserved frescoes of the early period. . From the balcony of this amazing structure, you can see the exploded mountains and rattling mines leading to the bowels of the earth.