Latali and the Matskhvarishi Church

Latali holds more medieval churches than any other community in Svaneti. It is not a single monument but a scatter of some thirty hamlets twelve kilometres west of Mestia, where the Mulkhra meets the Enguri. Local counts run past forty small churches.

All of them are small: single-nave hall churches with a barrel vault, roofs of stone slabs, and windows so narrow that the interior is dim even at midday. The compensation is that the walls are painted from floor to vault.

The one to see is the Church of the Saviour at Matskhvarishi. Its murals were painted in 1140 by Tevdore, described in the sources as court painter to King Demetrius I. Among them is an unusual secular scene showing a Svan lord, a rarity in medieval Georgian wall painting that scholars are still arguing about.

Tevdore's hand appears elsewhere in Svaneti too, at St George in Nakipari (1130) and the Archangels at Iprari (1096). This is one of the rare cases where the work of a single medieval Georgian painter can be followed across several buildings.

Other Latali hamlets — Ienashi, Lakhushdi, Sidianari — have churches with painting of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Some have been cleaned, some are black with soot, and a few stand under failing roofs.

The practical issue here is the key. There is no ticket office and no cash desk. Each church is looked after by a particular family, and they open the door. Some are opened only by arrangement and some not at all. A donation is expected and entirely reasonable.

Latali therefore takes patience. Turning up and walking in does not work. The simplest approach is to have a guesthouse host or a guide telephone ahead, which is easy enough to arrange in Mestia.

Photography is its own question. Many families refuse it outright, and flash is forbidden everywhere. This is not politeness; it is what keeps the pigment on the wall.

Around the churches are hay meadows, towers and, on a clear day, the twin summits of Ushba to the north. That combination — a small dark church with a four-thousand-metre mountain behind it — is what makes Latali stay in the memory.

An hour is enough for one church; half a day if you want three or four.