Gori

Gori stands at the confluence of the Mtkvari and Liakhvi, beneath a citadel on a rocky hill. Its position in the heart of Kartli placed it on routes across eastern Georgia and made its fortress a prize for Georgian kings and invading armies. Medieval chronicles attribute the founding of the town to David IV, who settled refugees from Armenia here.

In the late sixteenth century the Ottomans held Gori as an outpost in Kartli. King Simon I besieged the fortress in 1598 and recovered it by a surprise attack the following year. Persians and Ottomans later occupied it in turn, before Teimuraz II and Erekle II restored Georgian rule. Erekle rebuilt the fortress in the 1770s; after the Russian annexation of eastern Georgia in 1801, a Russian garrison occupied the citadel.