Akhaltsikhe

Akhaltsikhe, the “new fortress,” stands on the Potskhovi River in the mountain basin of historical Samtskhe in southern Georgia. Once known as Lomsia, it acquired its Georgian name after a fortress was rebuilt and enlarged in the twelfth century. From the thirteenth century the castle town was the residence of the Jaqeli family, atabegs of Samtskhe, and a center of the principality. Roads from Kartli, Imereti, Javakheti and the Çoruh country met here, linking the Georgian lands with Anatolia and the east.

During Mongol rule the Jaqeli retained a measure of autonomy, but their principality later became a contested frontier between the Ottomans and Safavids. The Ottomans took Akhaltsikhe in 1579 and made it the seat of a pasha and the center of an eyalet in 1625. Known to them as Ahıska, the town was also a major center of the Caucasian slave trade. By the late seventeenth century its households included Georgians, Turks, Armenians, Greeks and Jews.

The old fortified quarter, Rabati, contained both Christian and Muslim buildings, including the Jaqeli residence, a church, a mosque and a madrasa. In 1828 General Paskevich's Russian army captured Akhaltsikhe; the Treaty of Adrianople ceded it to Russia the following year. The change ended roughly two and a half centuries of Ottoman rule over the castle town.