Tskhinvali District ( ka, ცხინვალის რაიონი; os, Цхинвалы район) is a
district of
South Ossetia.
The district consists of the lower part of
Greater Liakhvi valley, where Tskhinvali itself is located, and of the less-populated valleys of Smaller Liakhvi and Mejuda rivers.
History
The area around the present-day Tskhinvali was first populated back in the
Bronze Age. The unearthed settlements and archaeological artifacts from that time are unique in that they reflect influences from both Iberian (east Georgia) and
Colchian
In Greco-Roman geography, Colchis (; ) was an exonym for the Georgian polity of Egrisi ( ka, ეგრისი) located on the coast of the Black Sea, centered in present-day western Georgia.
Its population, the Colchians are generally thou ...
(west Georgia) cultures with possible
Sarmatian elements.
Tskhinvali was first chronicled by Georgian sources in 1398 as a village in
Kartli (central Georgia) though a later account credits the 3rd century AD Georgian king Asphagur of Iberia with its foundation as a fortress. By the early 18th century, Tskhinvali was a small "royal town" populated chiefly by monastic serfs. Tskhinvali was annexed to the
Russian Empire along with the rest of eastern Georgia in 1801. Located on a trade route which linked North Caucasus to
Tbilisi and
Gori, Tskhinvali gradually developed into a commercial town with a mixed
Jewish,
Georgian
Georgian may refer to:
Common meanings
* Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country)
** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group
** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians
**Georgian scripts, three scrip ...
,
Armenian and
Ossetian population. In the 1917 it had 600 houses with 38.4% Jews, 34.4% Georgians, 17.7% Armenians and 8.8% Ossetians.
Notes
References
Districts of South Ossetia
{{SouthOssetia-geo-stub