Description: Of all the monasteries in Georgia,
Davit Gareja may be my favorite. It is located way in the south of the country, along the border with Azerbaijan. The monastery itself affords fantastic views, and its completely out-of-the-way location makes it a bit difficult to visit, meaning that if you make it, you very likely will be alone.
A visit to the site can be made as a long day trip from Tbilisi, but it is plenty worth it. To get there my friend and I hopped a
marshrutka (minibus) from Tbilisi’s main station to Gardabani, a small outpost of a town on the Azeri border. The trip was long, about two hours along mostly dirt roads past old broken down Soviet factories, but at just over $2, it was hard to complain. When we arrived in Gardabani, my friend and I were at a complete loss at how to get to the monastery from there. We were working without a guidebook, and just winging it, so we began to ask around. My friend knew a small bit of Russian, so he tried that, and it was working, but I soon realized that the locals were all speaking Azeri to each other. I could speak Turkish, and Azeri is extremely close, so I thought I would try my luck. It worked, and I thanked God that for the first time in my whole month in Georgia, I was not linguistically impotent. A local taxi driver said that the monastery was 25km away and that he would take us there for $40. I immediately didn’t trust him and asked if we could walk. They laughed. So we bartered, and he eventually got us there for $20. It was a good thing, because it really was 25km away, and along an even worse road than before. Along the way, the taxi driver showed us the construction of the fabled Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. The pipeline, he said, was destined to boost to fortunes of the already neglected Azeri minority in Georgia.
Eventually we reached the monastery, a small complex dating back to the 6th century, inexplicably carved into the side of a mountain. The original monastery had been founded by Syrian monks but was now run by Georgians. The gatekeeper showed us in and let us wander around the grounds. The monastery is surrounded by walls, and all the buildings face an internal courtyard.
After seeing the monastery, the monk told us to walk up the mountain, where we would find some old cave churches. We complied, and after about a half-hour hike, we reached the top and were greeted with fantastic views over the barren plains of Azerbaijan. The frescoes in the church were nice as well, but nothing compared to the views. Fantastic--a complete contrast to the lush valleys around Tbilisi. On the way back, the Azeri cabbie told us that at some point we should go to Azerbaijan. I told him I would.
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