Shatili

Shatili is not a collection of houses but a single grown organism. On the northern edge of Khevsureti, in the Arghuni gorge, some fifty stone towers and dwellings are built into and onto each other on a steep slope. They rise in terraces, one roof serving as another's yard, and together they form an indivisible defensive system: in the Middle Ages the entire village was one fortress.

Most of the structures date from the 9th to the 13th century. For centuries the Khevsurs held this frontier against raids from the north, and Shatili was its last outpost. In the 1950s the population was forcibly resettled to the lowlands; today the village is partly inhabited again and several towers have been converted into guesthouses.

Around Shatili:

• The Anatori crypts, 3 km away, stone tombs where plague victims are said to have walked in to die rather than infect the village
• Mutso, another fortress-village 12 km further on, wilder and almost entirely abandoned
• The Arghuni gorge itself, narrow, deep and within the border zone

This is one of the remotest places in Georgia that you can still drive to, and staying overnight is close to obligatory: doing it as a day trip from Tbilisi is punishing.