Ushguli
Interesting facts
- According to legend, the small castle above Chazhashi served Queen Tamar as a summer residence, although it seems far too modest for a royal court.
- Mikhail Kalatozov filmed his silent documentary Salt for Svanetia here, preserving the look and life of the village in the 1920s.
- Ushguli vies with Kurusha in Dagestan for the title of Europe's highest permanently inhabited settlement, a contest that depends on where Europe's border is drawn.
- The 2014 census counted 228 residents in about seventy families, all of them Svans, who still speak their own Svan language.
- Lamaria is the Svan name for the Mother of God, but in Svan mythology the same name belonged to a goddess, a trace of older beliefs.
- The hamlet of Chazhashi, with its dense cluster of tower houses, is protected as a museum-reserve.
- The defensive towers usually rise three to five storeys, standing over the family houses to which they belong.
Why it is worth it
Ushguli is a community of small villages at the head of the Enguri valley in Upper Svaneti, set at about 2,100 metres and counted among the highest continuously inhabited settlements in Europe. Its setting is the Greater Caucasus at its most massive: above the valley rises the white wall of Shkhara, at around 5,200 metres one of the highest summits of the range. Against it stand the villages themselves, a cluster of stone houses bristling with tall, square defensive towers, so that from a distance Ushguli looks less like a farming hamlet than a medieval fortress town lost in the mountains.
The towers are the heart of it. Svan families built them mainly between the 9th and 12th centuries as refuges and lookouts, attached to the dwelling below. Ushguli is made up of several hamlets strung along the valley, among them Zhibiani, Chvibiani, Chazhashi and Murqmeli, and the whole community is said to have some two hundred of these towers, with Chazhashi holding the densest cluster. Upper Svaneti was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1996 for this living medieval landscape.
On a hilltop above Zhibiani stands the church of Lamaria, a small stone church dating from the 11th or 12th century with frescoes from the period of Georgia's Golden Age. Seen from its knoll, with the towers below and Shkhara's glaciers filling the end of the valley, it is the classic view of Svaneti. Around two hundred people still live in Ushguli, in a place where snow lies for about half the year.
Getting there
Ushguli is reached from Mestia, the main town of Upper Svaneti, about 45 km away by a mountain road whose last stretch is unpaved; most visitors travel in four-wheel-drive vehicles or hike the multi-day trail from Mestia. The nearest practical airport is David the Builder Kutaisi International Airport (KUT), about 93 km away in a straight line; Kutaisi itself is about 77 km away.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Ushguli is a community of five medieval villages located at the head of the Enguri gorge in Svaneti, Georgia. Ushguli is one of the highest continuously inhabited settlements in Europe. Compared to somewhat more developed towns like Mestia, Ushguli is not in an accessible location, which has preserved many of the villages' medieval characteristics, including unique defensive tower houses called Svan towers. Because of their preservation and traditional architecture, Ushguli, Mestia, and the surrounding area was recognized as the Upper Svaneti UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996.
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