Kutaisi - part 1: Bagrati and the Caucasus

The next stop was Kutaisi. This is still the second biggest city of Georgia ("chased" by Batumi) and has a climate that differs a lot from that of Tbilisi. The Georgian parliament is located here. Kutaisi always played an important role in Georgian history. One can therefore find here some nice old building and in its surrounding many monasteries.

The famost building is fore sure the Bagrati church which has been rebuilt recently. At its entrance is an image how the church looked 100 years ago. This was not more than basically few low walls and a bunch of stones. Decade by decade they restored the church a bit more. They looked which stone once have been where and tried to place it there again. Just like they for example also did for the Frauenkirche in Dresden.
Bagrati became UNESCO world heritage in 1994. I often stated here that I don't like the concept of the UNESCO heritage and Bagrati is another example why. The UNESCO wanted to have the reconstruction stopped. So the reconstruction from 1900 to 1994 was OK but then it should be kept untouched. That makes no sense. One cannot stop history. Buildings will forever be repaired, rebuilt, destroyed, attached to new styles, increased etc.. The Georgins widthstand the pressure and finished the rebuilding. And they did it in an interesting way by using steel to be able not to rebuild all pillars. But have a look:

One can see the different techniques used for the rebuilding.

 

 

 

Very interesting style. In my opinions it fits.

The throne for the bishop and another metal pillar.
Note the goods on the desk.
I will come back to this in a special post.

The ceiling of a side entrance with residues of frescos.

 

The location of the church above the city makes it a perfect spot for views over the city:

Gret viw with the Lesser Caucasus behind.

 

This evening was also perfect for a "Caucasus glow" (I know that this is not the real glow.). The light was special because of the clouds. It was therefore not easy to take photos of the sundown. In reality it looked very, very nice.

More about Kutaisi follows the next days.