Beautiful Valleys - David Gareja

This was just a day trip with a rental. I went on this small adventure with my friend Nutsi, she doesn’t like to admit it but she knows a lot about Georgian culture and history. Our destination was David Gareja, an old monastery complex carved in rocks right on the Georgian border with Azerbaijan, in fact, almost half the complex is in Azerbaijan, and since 2019 because of border clashes have not been open for visitors.

The journey was marked by eerie power plants along the side of the road, abandoned train stations, and herds of sheep creeping out of desolate neighborhoods in the middle of nowhere. The whole scenery was post-apocalyptic. And the feeling of isolation was reinforced when our phones ran out of battery, and we had to drive by instinct. We couldn’t even find a restaurant during a 2-hour ride to recharge.

We finally arrived at the cave monastery. The monks greeted us warmly and took us on a tour of the complex. Many buildings and frescos are unfortunately destroyed because of the Soviet anti-religious policies, but there is a big effort now to reconstruct them. We had a very nice time here, we even charged our phones, which made us realize we are in a completely wrong place! David Gareja was a monk from Assyria (one of the legendary 13 monks that arrived in Georgia) who founded the main complex we wanted to go to, but his student, Luciane founded a new monastery nearby, the Natlismtsemeli Monastery. And that is where we ended up at! But we can consider ourselves lucky we did because this complex is much more authentic with way fewer people around. In David Gareja a lot of areas are out of reach since it is under UNESCO protection. One more interesting thing about this smaller monastery is how it is built around a cave holy people in the past would meditate in. The hill was always considered a sacred place for the surrounding population.

The Sun has almost set when we arrived at our original destination. Big parking lot, ticket selling office, huge toilet... Our tour around David Gareji wasn’t as exciting, but just the sight of sprawling deserts that forms the surrounding area is amazing. We were here for another hour or two before heading back to Tbilisi.