Tmogvi

Tmogvi crowns a rocky height above the Kura gorge, downstream from the cave city of Vardzia. The fortress and its medieval town guarded an old route between the river valley and the Javakheti plateau. Its importance grew after nearby Tsunda was ruined around 900, and Georgian chronicles record how an invading army turned away from its formidable walls in 914.

The castle passed through the hands of several Georgian noble families. Earthquakes repeatedly damaged it: after the destruction of 1319 it was rebuilt under Murvan Katkhaidze by the architect Theodor. In the sixteenth century Tmogvi lay in the contested lands of the atabegs of Samtskhe, between Ottoman and Safavid power. The Ottomans took the fortress in 1578; the surrounding country passed to Russia under the Treaty of Adrianople in 1829.