Tsromi Church

Tsromi is one of the buildings that changed the direction of Georgian architecture. It was raised between 626 and 634 by the prince Stepanoz, and it is the first Georgian church in which the dome rests on four free-standing piers rather than on the walls. That structural move set the plan for Georgian churches for the next five hundred years, Samtavisi and Alaverdi among them.

It is important to know before you go that the building is now half a ruin. The earthquake of 1940 brought the dome down. Much of the walling, the apse and the piers still stand, but there is no roof. The interior is open to the sky, grass grows on the floor, and cut blocks lie stacked to one side. Consolidation work comes and goes.

The church once had a mosaic in the apse — Christ between the apostles, a rare survival of early Byzantine practice in the Caucasus. The surviving fragments are in the Georgian National Museum in Tbilisi; on site you see only the empty curve of the apse where they sat.

What is worth the drive is the stone itself. The blocks are cut and set so precisely that the joints almost disappear, seventh-century masonry of a quality that later centuries often failed to match. From the low rise the view opens west towards the Likhi range. This is a place for people interested in architecture and history; anyone hoping for a complete, painted church should go elsewhere.