Ertatsminda Cathedral

Ertatsminda is one of the best-preserved 13th-century churches in Shida Kartli. It is dedicated to Saint Eustace — Evstatetsminda in Georgian — and the village took its name from the church rather than the other way round. The whole complex sits inside a low wall among trees, in a village folded into the hills south of Kaspi.

The building is a cross-in-square church with unusually elongated proportions. The east facade carries the richest work: an ornamental cross, an elaborate window surround, and a band of geometric interlace that belongs to the best tradition of medieval Georgian stone carving. The drum is tall and almost entirely covered in decoration. That verticality is precisely what separates the 13th century from the lower, heavier churches of three hundred years earlier.

The church has been damaged and repaired many times. A bell tower was added in the 19th century and the interior was replastered then, so almost no old painting is visible inside. What remains is a high, calm volume with light falling from the drum.

Ertatsminda also carries a piece of Georgian memory. Tradition holds that Giorgi Saakadze, the Great Mouravi, is buried here — the 17th-century commander who fought the Persians, then served them, then turned against them again, and was executed in Anatolia. His remains are said to have been brought home in 1629 and laid in this church. No document proves it, and historians treat the story carefully, but for Georgian visitors that is the reason the place matters.