Lanchkhuti

Lanchkhuti is where you enter Guria. The town sits on the main road south of Samtredia, and it is here that the routes divide towards Ureki, Grigoleti and Ozurgeti. Most people who pass through stop for fuel and drive on, and in fairness Lanchkhuti is not a town that needs a day of its own. Two things are visible here that are not obvious elsewhere. The first is agriculture. Lanchkhuti municipality is Georgia's main tea and hazelnut district. In Soviet times thousands of hectares of plantation covered these hills; most were abandoned in the 1990s, and the feral tea bushes are still legible on the slopes — still in rows, now grown tall. Some of it has been brought back in recent years and small producers have reappeared. The second is the southern part of Kolkheti National Park. West of Lanchkhuti lies the Imnati peat bog, one of the rarest ecosystems in Europe: a raised dome of sphagnum peat that has been accumulating for thousands of years. Getting into it is not straightforward and needs a guide, but the park administration can arrange information. In the town itself: a market where hazelnuts and honey are sold in autumn, a Soviet house of culture and a small park. An hour or two, and then on to the sea or to Ozurgeti.

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