Timotesubani Monastery

Timotesubani has the best-preserved wall paintings in Samtskhe, and it is also, less obviously, a rarity in Georgian medieval architecture: the church is built not of stone but of rose-coloured brick.

The main church, dedicated to the Dormition of the Virgin, went up between 1195 and 1215, precisely in the reign of Queen Tamar. Its patron was Shalva Akhaltsikheli of the Toreli family, one of the commanders at the battle of Basiani. The plan is a domed cross-in-square with a tall, cleanly proportioned drum, and the brick surface takes on a warm, almost pink tone in sunlight.

The point of coming, though, is inside. The murals date from about 1205 to 1215 and form one of the most complete ensembles of Georgian golden-age monumental painting: deep blue grounds, large and unhurried figures, a full gospel cycle and portraits of the donors. A Georgian-Italian team conserved the paintings during the 2000s, and they can be read far better today than they could thirty years ago.

Brick was never a common building material in Georgia, and Timotesubani is the clearest surviving demonstration of what local masons could do with it. The walls are laid in even courses, and the decoration — blind arcading and simple geometric patterns — is achieved purely through the rhythm of the coursing, with no carved stone at all.

The yard also holds a small chapel, a later bell tower and the footings of monastic buildings. The monastery is active and monks live here, so quiet is simply expected rather than requested.

The setting helps. The church stands in the Gujareti valley at about a thousand metres, on the line where pine forest gives way to broadleaf woodland, and it is almost never crowded. Most of the traffic on the Bakuriani road drives straight past without knowing that two kilometres to the side stands one of the major surviving works of medieval Georgian painting.