St George and his dragon Diocletian

First visit today was another church, Jvari, on a hilltop, dating from 6 century. St Nina was the person who brought Christianity to Georgia where apostles Andrew and Matthew failed. Icons of Nina were beside St George as both are patron saints of Georgia. The Georgian myth of George and dragon - dragon is actually Emperor Diocletian who wanted him to give up Christianity but he was killed a Christian hence he defeated the ‘dragon’!

Next we drove down to Mtskheta which we could see far below from the church. It’s known as the Spiritual heart of Georgia. There we visited Svetitskhoveli cathedral. 1037. Story of its architect and king Constantine loving same woman. Shakespearean tragedy type story. Architect got his hand cut off so couldn’t work, and died, she went to a nunnery and jumped off a wall to death and the king died aged 37 from a poisoned arrow. Those were the days.

Next we headed further west to stop at Merjevi to visit a traditional winery., and sample some of the bio wines made there. Georgia had Thousands of grape varieties till Khrushchev decreed only 3 were required. Fortunately they didn’t get rid of so many but it was difficult for the growers at the time. We did our best with the samples but as the wine tasted of the smell of wet nappies we didn’t do too well.

We continued on through the old manganese mining town of Chiatura where there are many disused Soviet mines and associated buildings now derelict. Some of the old cable cars are still being used as the Austrians have taken on production and are now investing and modernising the mines. I’m not sure if their expertise is in mining or cable cars.

We should have stopped to see Katskhi pillar, where a church is perched precariously on top of a 40 metre limestone monolith but we were told we couldn’t go as the road was closed due to military manoeuvres.

We were in the Valley of the Golden Fleece. (Jason stole it from here and took it back to Greece, according to Herodotus). At 6.30pm we arrived at our guest house in Kutaisa, the ancient capital of Colchis, and once the capital of Georgia. It is now the 3rd biggest city, its main industries being textiles (for Zara and another big chain) and a new Nissan car manufacturing plant where electric buses are being built for the EU. Dream on Sunderland.

WiFi is pretty hopeless - my third time of trying. And no chance of reading anyone’s blips.