Kumurdo Cathedral

Kumurdo is one of the few Georgian monuments whose exact year of construction is known. An inscription in asomtavruli script surviving on the north apse states that the church was built in 964, in the reign of King Leon, under the care of Bishop Ioane, and that the architect was Sakotsari. The names of medieval Georgian architects are recorded in only a handful of cases; this is one of them.

The plan is strange and close to unique in Georgia: the central space is a hexagon surrounded by six apses, a centralised composition rather than the usual cross. The dome collapsed long ago and is gone, so standing inside you have open sky above you.

The carving deserves a slow look. The capitals, window surrounds and apse details are among the best 10th-century work in the country, geometric and vegetal at once. The material is the local volcanic stone, a dark grey that repeats the colour of the plateau itself.

It is fair to ask why a building of this scale stands in an empty field. The answer is that Kumurdo was an episcopal seat, the principal church of the Javakheti diocese, and the settlement around it was once far larger. During the 20th and 21st centuries parts of the walls were consolidated and rebuilt; the new masonry is easy to tell from the old by both colour and finish.

The setting is severe. Kumurdo stands about ten kilometres from Akhalkalaki on treeless upland at 1,750 metres, surrounded by fields and dry-stone walls, with hardly a tree in sight and wind blowing almost constantly. On a summer evening, when the light drops low, the dark stone warms and the place is at its best.

Winter is a different proposition. From November to April the plateau is under snow, night temperatures fall to around minus twenty, and wind redistributes the snow across the roads. Main roads are cleared; village turnings are not always.