The Chronicle of Georgia

Sixteen pillars, each about sixteen metres tall, standing on an empty hill. Zurab Tsereteli began this monument in 1985 and it has never been finished, which is part of why the site feels so strange and so cinematic. It rarely appears in printed guidebooks and constantly appears on Instagram.

The lower half of each column carries relief figures of Georgian kings, queens, heroes and poets, from Vakhtang Gorgasali to Shota Rustaveli. The upper half is given to biblical scenes: the Nativity, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection. National history and sacred history meet at the two ends of the same vertical, an idea Tsereteli returned to throughout his career.

From the edge of the hill the view opens over the Tbilisi Sea, the large reservoir that supplies the city, with wind turbines on the ridges and dry steppe hills beyond. The landscape looks nothing like the rest of Tbilisi and rather more like Central Asia.

One practical truth: the place is essentially unmanaged. There is no ticket, no real infrastructure, no lighting after dark, and the concrete platform is cracked in places. That is neither a flaw nor a virtue, simply what it is — and the reason it is often almost empty when you arrive.