Kutaisi Colchic Botanical Garden

Kutaisi's botanical garden was founded in 1840 and is one of the oldest in Georgia. It lies on the bank of the Rioni about a kilometre from the central square: follow the embankment from the Chain Bridge and turn up towards the Sapichkhia side.

The garden began as a nursery, an attempt to acclimatise subtropical species in the mild, wet climate of Imereti. Today true natives of the Colchic forest — zelkova, Imeretian oak, box — stand next to introduced magnolia, bamboo, cypress and conifers. It is a small garden and an hour covers all of it; the paths are level, the shade is generous, and squirrels work the branches overhead.

One specific thing brings most visitors here: a four-hundred-year-old oak with a miniature chapel cut into its hollow trunk. It holds one person, two at a squeeze — an icon, a candle stand and bare wood. It is neither an ancient shrine nor an architectural monument, simply an odd and rather touching thing, and the people of Kutaisi are fond of it.

The garden fits neatly between the city's other two stops: the Bagrati hill rises above it, and the historical museum is ten minutes away across the river. If you have three or four hours in Kutaisi and have had enough of churches, this is where you get your breath back.

In spring the magnolias flower and the garden is at its best; in summer it is noticeably cooler than the streets; in autumn the colour is good. Winter strips much of it back, though the evergreen sections hold up.

The garden still works as a collection rather than as a park: labels carry Latin names, beds are grouped by origin, and benches are set along the main axis. On a weekday morning you will share it with a handful of pensioners, parents with pushchairs and perhaps a school group. It is one of the places where Kutaisi stops behaving like a city on a tourist route.