Svan

The Svans are the mountain people of Svaneti, living in the upper gorges of the Inguri and Tskhenistsqali in the Greater Caucasus. Classical authors knew them as Soanes or Misimiani; they were subjects of Colchis and then Lazica, whose rule they briefly rejected during the sixth-century Lazic War. Christianized between the fourth and sixth centuries, they joined Abkhazia and then the unified Kingdom of Georgia in the eleventh century.

The Mongols never reached Svaneti, which became a refuge of Georgian church culture, especially under Queen Tamar around 1200. Stone tower houses were raised from the ninth to twelfth centuries.

After Georgia broke apart in the 1460s, Upper Svaneti formed a principality under the Dadeshkeliani, while Lower Svaneti fell to the Dadiani of Mingrelia. Clan feuds and blood revenge governed local life, and in 1833 the Dadeshkeliani accepted a Russian protectorate.