Batumi Mosque (also called “Orta Jameh”) is the only Muslim religious building operating to this day. Orta Jami was erected by the will of Aslan-bek Himshiashvili, an indigenous Georgian who converted to the Muslim faith, in the second half of the 19th century for other Muslims who had nowhere to pray.
It got this name for a reason: earlier there were two others on two sides of the mosque, and the word “Orta” means “medium" (Turkish). In the period from the 30s (during the Soviet rule), the mosque was seized and equipped for a military warehouse. It was only after the Second World War that it was conquered and services resumed.
