Tmogvi Fortress

Tmogvi stands on the most dramatic stretch of the Mtkvari gorge, between Khertvisi and Vardzia — and unlike either of them, it has to be reached on foot.

The fortress is first mentioned in the 10th century. It was the key stronghold of the gorge, and a town stood below it at the foot of the rock. The great earthquake of 1088 wrecked Tmogvi, a disaster recorded in the Georgian chronicles; the town never recovered, and the village on the opposite bank is still called Nakalakevi, the place where a town used to be.

The name survives in Georgian literature too: Sargis Tmogveli, a 12th-century figure, is traditionally credited with the Georgian version of the romance Visramiani.

The ruins run across three separate rocky spurs joined by curtain walls. Towers and cisterns are clearly readable, and so is the most interesting feature: a covered passage cut down through the rock to the river, which is how the garrison drew water under siege. This solution appears in several Georgian cliff fortresses, but rarely as legibly as here.

The fortress is much larger than it looks from below: the walled area runs for several hundred metres, and simply walking between the three spurs takes half an hour. It also stayed in use long after the earthquake, held first by the Jaqeli princes and then by Ottoman garrisons well into the 16th century and beyond.

The site is entirely unmanaged: no made path, no railings, no signs, no ticket. The climb starts from a footbridge over the Mtkvari and takes thirty to forty-five minutes up a steep, stony slope. The wind blows almost constantly at the top.

What you get in return is the view down the valley towards Vardzia and along the loop of the Mtkvari, and a very good chance of not meeting another person all day.