- Shawn Basey
- 20 hours ago
- 8 min read
Updated: 19 minutes ago
Some millennium-and-a-half ago, the mountain peak where the Jvari Monastery of Mtskheta now stands was bald. Until a woman, St. Nino, stuck a cross at its highest point, drawing in questioning pagans en masse for conversions via her ministry. Today, the monastery stands resilient, still serving the same function, but swap pagans for tourists—bus loads of mostly Russians and Chinese these days, curious at the ancient Orthodox monument.
Light shines through the window openings inside, illuminating the drifting dust particles; one monk-priest chants while another sits quietly, observing people dropping coins into a small box and taking candles for their own prayers. It’s the standard gentle chaos of a Georgian church, and in a place where the age itself makes for the mysticism, as the murals have long faded and the outer walls long crumbled.
Down below, you can see the holy city of Mtskheta parked between the tight confluence of the Aragvi and Mtvari rivers. The Aragvi coming from the highlands, something pure and unblemished, crystalline waters that are perfect for the breweries further up north. The Mtkvari, muddy, polluted with the rubbish of dozens of towns and villages across Georgia and Türkiye, and with the runoff from the manganese mines of Chiatura and its black Kvirila River.
The hills here are carved in steep trenches, with narrow ridges making the upper reliefs. I looked across the valley and saw a small wedding on one such ridge, daring the wind not to make off with a hat or veil. The wedding arch made an Insta-perfect view of Svetitskhoveli Cathedral far down below.
Jvari is part of the holy trinity of tourist destinations that every Tbiliseli Georgian will take a foreign guest on if given the chance. The other two places are Svetitskhoveli in the center of Mtskheta and Salobie, just outside of town. All three holy places in their own right.
As such, let’s take a quick tour of Mtskheta and the cathedral too. Though last weekend I only managed to squeeze in Jvari and Salobie, but c’est la vie, mes amis.
Mtskheta
It was one of the first capitals of Kartli and one of the oldest, continuously occupied cities in the world, with a founding date of sometime in the 2nd millennium BC. So old that the pagans (you know, the ones that were gathering around in interest at that strange lady on the hill propping up a cross) attributed its founding to the legendary founder of their people, Kartlos.
That’s, of course, the Netflix version, while historians generally just attribute the city to the Meskhian Georgians, since their name sounds like the city. And if that were the case, the city would be much younger, having been founded with their migration at around 500 BC. Either way, it’s pretty friggin’ old.
There’s not much to do in town other than the trinity of tourism that I mentioned (there is also the Samtavro Convent and part of an old bridge they say was built by a time traveling Pompeius Magnus, since the bridge is likely only 200 years or so old). Much of the center has been redone in “Georgian old town style”, with some newly cobbled streets lined with arts, crafts, and cheap plastic Chinese toys, making a kind of pilgrims’ walk to the cathedral.
Given the nice Georgian Old Town Style reconstruction, it also rivals Sighnaghi, City of Love, for wedding destinations, where a wedding signing building was constructed just for that purpose on the square outside Svetitskhoveli.
Svetitskhoveli Cathedral
Svetitskhoveli (Svet-its-throatclearing-o-vell-ee) is the big thing in Mtskheta. Literally. It towers over the entire town and is visible from all around, even the highway where the cars whizz by up the hill across the river.
The story goes that back in the time of Jesus, there was a Georgian in the crowd of His admirers. This man, named Elias, ended up with Jesus’s robe after the crucifixion (not His shroud, mind you, that’s an entirely different thing). He brought it back home to his sister Sidonia, who was so overwhelmed by its holiness that she naturally drops dead while clutching it. As nobody could pry it from her dead hands, she was buried with it.
And like with so many good religious stories, a tree grew at that place.
A few centuries later, St. Nino, who I mentioned above, came around, and decided that this tree marked the spot to build a church to Our Lord. They chopped it down and, from the wood, built six pillars, while the seventh they had meant to place hung in the air. It soon came down, with blood oozing out, and became known as the “Life-Giving Pillar” (which is what the name of the church translates to).
The current construction
The wood church was short-lived though and was soon replaced in the 5th century with a stone structure and then was greatly expanded in the 11th century in a story you can read about by Konstantin Gamsakhurdia, called The Right Hand of the Master.
Konstantin was out pondering why there was a big right hand carved into a stone block near the top of the church. And whether he gathered local legend or came up with it himself, it follows the tragic story of most famous architects of the past.
The legend goes like this: After Arsukidze, the Grandmaster mason, finished his masterpiece, King Giorgi I was so impressed he had Arsukidze’s hand chopped off so he couldn’t build anything so magnificent.
Konstantin’s version, which is a little more believable, is that King Giorgi was so impressed about Arsukidze’s boldness in sleeping with the local hottie, that the king had his main man’s hand chopped off.
And to add an additional layer of meaning, both the Life-Giving Pillar and the church it was named for, represents a single, united Georgia, and as such is one of the holiest places in the country. Giorgi I didn’t have much left to unite, since his father King Bagrat III did most of the heavy lifting on that by 1008. But at least he was able to build the primary symbol of the nation’s unity. And just as he built upon a pre-existing foundation with the church, so did he with the nation in solidifying the dynastic rule.
The architecture
The cathedral is a classic Georgian cross-dome and has through history been plagued by fires, invaders, earthquakes, and more. Little of Arsukidze’s creation still exists, as much has been repaired over the years, hence the spotty carvings and mismatched bricks (the same violent and tragic story told on many churches across Georgia).
The interior
The ground is paved with the graves of fallen kings and heroes of Georgian history, and this was the place most were crowned during their lives long before. On the rare occasion that the place is empty of tourists (good luck with that), you can almost feel the mysticism dripping form the ghost of the bleeding pillar.
And that place is marked too: there’s another mini-chapel, house right, that stands over the place where they cut down the tree in St. Nino’s time, and thus also marks the spot of Christ’s garment.
The walls are somewhat of a patchwork.
Throughout the ages, the interiors of Georgian churches were covered in beautiful and colorful frescoes from floor to ceiling. But this was not in the Russian fashion, and all people whom the Russians love must of course follow their fashion. So, when Tsar Nicolas I decided to visit the holiest place of Georgia in the 1830s, they decided to spruce the place up to not offend his holiness and painted everything white.
Unfortunately, the Holy Tsar never showed up and they painted it all for nothing. But in later restorations, they managed to uncover some fragments.
You can see various Biblical scenes up to 400 years old, towards the dome you can see Christ Pantokrator (i.e., the Almighty), and to the back right, a 13th century “Beast of the Apocalypse” which features zodiac signs.
Jvari Monastery of Mtskheta
Another legend has it that from the royal palace, they had dug a tunnel under the river and up the hill, so that the royal family could escape in case of invaders. That tunnel exited at Jvari Monastery, a place nearly as holy as Svetitskhoveli. There is no evidence of the tunnel though, and no cool climb downs (I did climb through a tunnel nearly as crazy as that sounds at a Crusader castle in Israel).
Jvari is where we started the trip last weekend, with that grand view down.
The story goes that St. Nino (the one who had the original Svetitskhoveli built), had become good friends with King Mirian III, whom she was teaching about Christianity. And after his conversion, she set up a big wooden cross at the top of this hill declaring the victory of Christ over paganism.
A small church was built around the cross in the 6th century, and then the larger church of today in the 7th century. Jvari is a “four-apsed church with four-niches” and resembles something more like a Byzantine Church than other churches you might see in Georgia today. But for some time, Georgian churches did copy Jvari, and you see the style pop up in a few other places (e.g., Dzveli Shuamta and Manglisi Sioni).
The strangest thing about the architecture of Jvari is the interior, where you can find a large, earthen mound filling the center. This marks the exact spot where St. Nino placed her cross and is still adorned with a wooden cross (a fancy new one, not the original).
That’s where the name comes from too, “Jvari”, which means “cross” in Georgian.
Salobie
Depending on who you’re with, it’s hard to tell which of the trinity is most beloved on the trip. Where Jvari and Svetitskhoveli are 80 percent packed with foreign tourists and 20 percent packed with Georgian ones, the former are largely disseminated by the various overpriced fares placed around town while the Georgians all split to hit Salobie.
“Salobie” (sa-lobe-ee-eh) in Georgian means, “place of beans”, or perhaps, “Bean House”. As such, beans must be ordered. And its fitting, because beans are a holy meal, becoming the main staple during the long haul that is the Great Fast before Easter. But at Salobie, they don’t only serve beans, as they also serve all the classic Georgian peasant food, at prices that can hardly be beat anywhere in the country.
Back to the translation. It’s specifically the “place of lobio”, and lobio can be described, as one American I was with put it, “like something almost like Mexican refried beans”. It’s long stewed beans, served here in the traditional clay pot. Properly you should order it with the mchadi on top of it like a cap. As hungry as I was, I failed to take a picture of it, so here I’ll post an after pic where you can see empty clay pots. And also to be honest, usually I'm out with friends and not so concerned about the blog. And then when I finally think about, shemogvichame (or something that I think means "we accidentally ate it all").
The place has been around for ages, perhaps even predating the Soviet era. Who knows. The place is huge, has tons of outdoor seating, and the indoor seating is very “ethnic chic”.
So, if you’re in Mtskheta making the pilgrimage to St. Nino’s cross, or paying your respects to Georgian heritage—whatever be your wiles—and you get hungry, then ditch the tourist fare and go where the locals go: the Bean House.
