Ancient places in Georgia. The best Georgian fortresses. Ananuri Fortress.

Complex Ananuri it is located on the 70th kilometer of the Georgian Military Road, in the village of Ananuri (Dusheti municipality), at the mouth of rivers Aragvi and Vedzathevi.

Fortress Ananuri It is one of the significant architectural monuments of the late feudalism period. For centuries, the fortress has been one of the main citadels of the country. From here it was possible to control the main trade caravan routes of the region. The exact date of the construction of the fortress has not been established, although it has been mentioned in historical sources since the XVI century. It was the property of the Eristavs of Aragvi, but since 1743 it has passed into the possession of the tsarist government.

The fortress complex consisted of a lower and upper fortress and included religious, secular and defensive structures. Today, only the upper part of it has been preserved. It is surrounded by a ten-meter fence with dentils, in which 4 towers are built. There are loopholes, embrasures and ballistae (stone throwers) in the walls and towers. The main entrance is located on the lower floor of the middle tower.

There is a domed church of the Most Holy Theotokos in the fortress. From the inscription on the southern wall, one can learn that the church was built in 1689 by Kaikhosro Bagsarashvili on the instructions of the Aragva Eristav Mdivanbeg Bardzim. The facades of the church are decorated with numerous carved patterns. Fragments of the painting have been preserved in the temple, which miraculously survived after the raids of the North Caucasian tribes in the XVIII century.

The small domed church "Gvtaeba" ("Divine"), as well as the bell tower on the roof of the single-nave church "Mkurnali" ("Healing"), date from the end of the XVI century and the first half of the XVII century. In the XVII century, a bell tower was also erected on the eastern part of the large church. The oldest of all the structures of the Ananur fortress is a five-story pyramid-shaped tower.

In 2007, the Ananur Fortress was included in the preliminary list of UNESCO World Cultural Heritage monuments.

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