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Racha
Racha (also Račha, , ''Račʼa'') is a highland area in western Georgia, located in the upper Rioni river valley and hemmed in by the Greater Caucasus mountains. Under Georgia's current subdivision, Racha is included in the Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti region (mkhare) as the municipalities of Oni and Ambrolauri. Racha occupies 2,854 km2 in the north-eastern corner of western Georgia. Spurs of the Greater Caucasus crest separates Racha from the Georgian historical regions of Svaneti and Lechkhumi on the north-west and from Imereti on the south, while the main Caucasus ridge forms a boundary with Russia’s North Ossetia. On the east, Racha is bordered by breakaway South Ossetia, officially part of Georgia's Shida Kartli region. History Racha had been part of Colchis and Caucasian Iberia since ancient times and its main town Oni was said to have been founded by King Parnajom of Iberia in the 2nd century BC. Upon the creation of the unified Georgian kingdom in the 11 ...
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Racha-Lechkhumi And Kvemo Svaneti
Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti ( ka, რაჭა-ლეჩხუმი და ქვემო სვანეთი, ''Rach’a-Lechkhumi da Kvemo Svaneti'') is a region (Mkhare) in northwestern Georgia with a population of 28,500 (2021), making it the most sparsely populated region in the country. It has a nominal area of , of which is ''de facto'' controlled by Georgia. The remainder is effectively under South Ossetian control. The region has Ambrolauri as its administrative center and Parmen Margvelidze is governor of the region since June 2021. Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti includes the historical provinces of Racha, Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti (i.e., Lower Svaneti). Geography Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti is located in the north of Georgia and covers an area of . The eastern tip of the region is ''de facto'' in South Ossetia and is not under Georgian control. This concerns approximately . Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti borders the Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti r ...
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Oni, Georgia
Oni ( ka, ონი, tr) is a town in Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti region (''mkhare''), Georgia. Historically and ethnographically, it is part of Racha, a historic highland province in western Georgia. The town also serves as an administrative center of the Oni district (''raioni''). Oni is situated in a deep gorge on the left bank of Rioni River, some above sea level and northwest of Georgia's capital Tbilisi. History The territory of modern-day Oni has been inhabited since the Bronze Age. Archaeology revealed the artifacts of Colchian culture, particularly a collection of Colchian coins dating back to the 6th–3rd centuries BC. Oni is first chronicled in the 15th century, though a legend has it that the town was founded by the 2nd BC king Pharnajom of Iberia. Located on the crossroads from Northern Caucasus, Kartli (central Georgia), Imereti (western Georgia) and Lower Rach’a, Oni developed into a typical late medieval commercial town and was contested between th ...
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Ambrolauri
Ambrolauri ( ka, ამბროლაური) is a city in Georgia, located in the northwestern part of the country, on both banks of the Rioni river, at an elevation of 550 m above sea level. The city serves as the seat of the Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti regional administration and of the Ambrolauri Municipality and had a population of 2,015 in 2021. Its area is 2.8 km2. Ambrolauri was first recorded in the 17th century as a place, where one of the palaces of the kings of Imereti was located. It acquired the city status in 1966. History The territory of Ambrolauri has not been systematically studied archaeologically. The toponym Ambrolauri is known from the 17th century. The Russian diplomat Alexey Yevlev, who visited the Kingdom of Imereti in 1650, and then the Georgian scholar Prince Vakhushti, writing 1745, mention a royal castle at Ambrolauri, where the Krikhula River becomes a tributary of the Rioni. Only insignificant ruins of that palace have survived. The n ...
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Shida Kartli
Shida Kartli ( ka, შიდა ქართლი, , ; "Inner Kartli") is a landlocked administrative region (''Mkhare'') in eastern Georgia. It comprises a central part of the historical-geographic province of Shida Kartli. With an area of , Shida Kartli is the 8th largest Georgian region by land area. With 284,081 inhabitants, it is Georgia's seventh-most-populous region. Shida Kartli's capital and largest city, Gori, is the 5th largest city in Georgia. The region is bordered by the Russian Federation to the north, Georgian regions of Mtskheta-Mtianeti to the east, Kvemo Kartli to the south, Samtskhe-Javakheti to the southwest, Imereti to the west, and Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti to the northwest. It consists of the following municipalities: Gori, Kaspi, Kareli, Java, Khashuri. The northern part of the region, namely Java, and northern territories of Kareli and Gori municipalities (total area of 1,393 km²), have been controlled by the authorities of the s ...
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Kakhaberisdze
The Kakhaberidze, archaically Kakhaberisdze (pl. -''ebi'') ( ka, კახაბერი ����ე ��ბი}, literally "the sons of Kakhaber") was a noble family in medieval Georgia which held sway over the highland northwestern Georgian province of Racha from the 11th or 12th century to the 13th. The Kakhaberidze were a branch of the Liparitid-Baguashi, their dynastic name being derived from its early member Kakhaber known from a few inscriptions from Racha.Toumanoff, Cyril. "The Fifteenth-Century Bagratids and the Institution of Collegial Sovereignty in Georgia." ''Traditio'' 7 (1949–51): 176. By 1184, when Queen Tamar of Georgia ascended the throne, the Kakhaberidze had been in possession of both Racha and the neighboring district of Takveri, bearing the title of "Duke of Dukes" (eristavt-eristavi). Kakhaber (II) Kakhaberidze was the one who, together with Archbishop Anton of Kutaisi, placed the crown upon Tamar's brow at a ceremony held at the Gelati Monastery. His descendant ...
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Lechkhumi
Lechkhumi (Georgian language, Georgian: ლეჩხუმი, ''Lečxumi'') is a historic province in northwestern Georgia (country), Georgia which comprises the area along the middle basin of the Rioni river, Rioni and Tskhenistskali and also the Lajanuri river valley. Now part of the Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti region, it corresponds roughly to the present day Tsageri district as well as parts of districts of Tsq'altubo and Ambrolauri. It is bordered by Mingrelia to the west, Svaneti to the north, Racha to the east, and Imereti to the south. The area has been inhabited since the Neolithic Age and was later dominated by the so-called Colchian culture. The first recorded history of the area dates back to the early medieval period. The contemporary historic sources call the land Takveri, a name gradually being replaced by a term ''Lechkhumi''. The province is usually identified with Scymnia mentioned by Procopius (sixth century AD) as a dependency of the Lazican kings&nb ...
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South Ossetia
South Ossetia, ka, სამხრეთი ოსეთი, ( , ), officially the Republic of South Ossetia – the State of Alania, is a partially recognised landlocked state in the South Caucasus. It has an officially stated population of just over 56,500 people (2022), who live in an area of , on the south side of the Greater Caucasus mountain range, with 33,000 living in the capital city, Tskhinvali. Only Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Nauru, and Syria recognise South Ossetia as a sovereign state. Although Georgia does not control South Ossetia, the Georgian government and the United Nations consider the territory part of Georgia. Georgia does not recognise the existence of South Ossetia as a political entity, and the territory comprising South Ossetia does not correspond to any Georgian administrative area (although Georgian authorities have set up the Provisional Administration of South Ossetia as a transitional measure leading to the settlement of South Ossetia' ...
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Chkhetidze
Chkhetidze ( ka, ჩხეტიძე) was a Georgian noble family known in west Georgia from the tenth century. The oldest known representative is Germain Chkhetidze, Archbishop-Metropolitan of Bedia in 999. It formed the following lines: *The Princes Chkheidze (ჩხეიძე) in Imereti, confirmed in the princely title under the Russian Empire in 1850 and 1861. *The Eristavi of Racha (ერისთავი რაჭისა), later entitled as Princes Eristov of Racha under the Russian rule in 1850. They ruled the Duchy of Racha from c. 1488 to 1768. *Chkhotua (Chkotua; ჩხოტუა, ჩქოტუა) in Mingrelia and Abkhazia, elevated to the princely rank of the Russian Empire in 1901.Toumanoff, Cyril Cyril Leo Toumanoff (russian: Кирилл Львович Туманов; 13 October 1913 – 4 February 1997) was a Russian-born Georgian historian and genealogist who mostly specialized in the history and genealogies of medieval Georgia, Armenia, ... (1967). ...
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Svaneti
Svaneti or Svanetia (Suania in ancient sources; ka, სვანეთი ) is a historic province in the northwestern part of Georgia. It is inhabited by the Svans, an ethnic subgroup of Georgians. Geography Situated on the southern slopes of the central Caucasus Mountains and surrounded by 3,000–5,000 meter peaks, Svaneti is the highest inhabited area in the Caucasus. Four of the 10 highest peaks of the Caucasus are located in the region. The highest mountain in Georgia, Mount Shkhara at 5,201 meters (17,059 feet), is located in the province. Prominent peaks include Tetnuldi (4,974 m / 16,319 ft), Shota Rustaveli (4,960 m / 16,273 ft), Mount Ushba (4,710 m / 15,453 ft), Ailama (4,525 m / 14,842 ft), as well as Lalveri, Latsga and others. Svaneti has two parts corresponding to two inhabited valleys: * Upper Svaneti (''Zemo Svaneti'') on the upper Inguri River; administratively part of Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti; main town Mestia * Lower Svaneti (''Kvem ...
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Rioni River
The Rioni ( ka, რიონი, ; , ) is the main river of western Georgia. It originates in the Caucasus Mountains, in the region of Racha and flows west to the Black Sea, entering it north of the city of Poti (near ancient Phasis). The city of Kutaisi, once the ancient city of Colchis, lies on its banks. It drains the western Transcaucasus into the Black Sea while the river Kura, drains the eastern Transcaucasus into the Caspian Sea. History Ancient authors Known to the ancient Greeks as the river ''Phasis'', the Rioni was first mentioned by Hesiod in his Theogony (l.340); Plato has Socrates remark: "I believe that the earth is very large and that we who dwell between the pillars of Hercules and the river Phasis live in a small part of it about the sea, like ants or frogs about a pond" (''Phaedo'', 109a). Later writers like Apollonius Rhodius (Argonautica 2.12.61), Virgil (Georgics 4.367) and Aelius Aristides (''Ad Romam'' 82) considered it the easternmost limit of the na ...
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Baghvashi
The Liparitids ( ka, ლიპარიტები), also known as Baghuashi (ბაღჳაში), were a noble house ('' didebuli'') in medieval Georgia, with notable members from the 9th to 12th centuries and famed for their powerful resistance to the consolidation of the Bagratid royal authority in the Kingdom of Georgia. A principal branch of the Liparitid house, known later under the name of Orbeli or Orbeliani, were expelled, in 1177 after a failed coup to Armenia where they came to be known as the Orbelian Dynasty, and controlled Syunik and Vayots Dzor until the Invasions of Tamerlane. That said: the family gave origin to several cadet branches which have survived in Georgia for several centuries. Origins The Liparitids are believed by Cyril Toumanoff and some other modern scholars to have been descended from one of the fugitive princes of the Armenian Mamikonid dynasty. (Mamikonids themselves initially coming from Georgia according to Cyril Toumanoff). This hypothesi ...
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Georgia (country)
Georgia (, ; ) is a transcontinental country at the intersection of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is part of the Caucasus region, bounded by the Black Sea to the west, by Russia to the north and northeast, by Turkey to the southwest, by Armenia to the south, and by Azerbaijan to the southeast. The country covers an area of , and has a population of 3.7 million people. Tbilisi is its capital as well as its largest city, home to roughly a third of the Georgian population. During the classical era, several independent kingdoms became established in what is now Georgia, such as Colchis and Iberia. In the early 4th century, ethnic Georgians officially adopted Christianity, which contributed to the spiritual and political unification of the early Georgian states. In the Middle Ages, the unified Kingdom of Georgia emerged and reached its Golden Age during the reign of King David IV and Queen Tamar in the 12th and early 13th centuries. Thereafter, the kingdom d ...
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