Kutaisi - part 3: Gelati

The Gelati monastery is outside Kutaisi but close enough that one can go there with a city bus line. It is situated close to the top of the hill and only one hill behind the city. This distance is enough that the climate there is different to that from the city. Therefore in the city the sun was shining while in Gelati was there was fog and it was much colder.

The monastery is still in use and the main church is under renovation. All buildings were open but one need to be careful to respect the monastery life. For example I climbed up to one clock tower where a monk was meditating (I assume) and he was surprised to see anybody here.
Despite that Gelati is a UNESCO world heritage site, there was only one other tourist from Hungary in the whole complex.

Enough information, you can read its Wikipedia article for details about the monastery, so here are the images:

View from the entrance: Left in front is the entrance building,
behind it the smaller church, in the middle the main
church and to the right is the bell tower.

The main church is currently under renovation.

The smaller church.

The 2 towers. I went up to the bell tower.

I noticed that there are in most cases 3 bells
in towers and around churches. I guess it symbolizes the trinity.

The second tower.

Living house of the monks.
 

A Grapevine cross. Note its special form. There is a legend that
St. Nino used her hair to form it, hence the golden rope.

The second tower and the academy building.

The entrance of the main church.

In the church during a church service.
Surprisingly no monks but only women.

The grave of David the Builder in the floor
of the western entrance building.

In the season all these stands are full with souvenirs and icons,
but outside season there was nobody.

Outside the season there is only a bus every 3 hours. I therefore went down the street. The plan was to go on the way back to the city also to the Motsameta monastery. But it started raining so that I was happy to catch up a taxi back. Back there it was like in summer: pure sun and more than 20 °C.

A look back to the monastery from the valley.