💧 Lake Bazaleti: A Resort with a Legend of a Sunken Town and Chavchavadze's Verse

Bazaleti is a mountain lake in Mtskheta-Mtianeti, roughly 40 kilometres from Tbilisi and 5 kilometres from Dusheti. On paper it's a resort, complete with a hotel complex and a waterfront promenade, but the lake itself carries a far more interesting story than the average swimming spot: two competing origin legends, a real 17th-century battle, and a poem from one of the towering figures of Georgian literature.

The lake sits on a flat volcanic plateau at roughly 900 metres, ringed by mountains. Its area is about 1.22 km², and its maximum depth, according to most sources, is around 7 metres.

🌊 A Lake With No Source or Outflow

Here's what makes Bazaleti a genuine puzzle for hydrologists: the lake has no confirmed source and no visible outflow. It's fed only by rainfall and mineral-rich underground springs, and where the excess water actually goes has never been properly established. That uncertainty has fuelled local legend for centuries, if no one can say where the water comes from or where it disappears to, something mysterious must be going on.

📜 The Legend of the Golden Cradle

The best-known legend explains how the lake came to be at all. According to tradition, a golden-haired infant once lay in a cradle where the lake now sits. The child was left alone, and his mother's tears, shed in grief, formed the lake. In one version of the tale, that same golden-haired child still lies at the bottom in his golden cradle to this day.

There's a second, less poetic version of the origin story: a bull once fell into a well or pit on the same spot, and as it thrashed about, the water it stirred up spilled out and formed the lake. Both legends live side by side in local folklore, and neither is treated as the "correct" one.

✍️ A Lake Immortalised by Ilia Chavchavadze

Few Georgian lakes can claim a poem of their own from one of the towering figures of 19th-century Georgian literature and public life. Ilia Chavchavadze, writer, publicist and national hero of Georgia, dedicated a poem to Bazaleti, titled simply "Lake Bazaleti." For anyone drawn to Georgian culture as much as scenery, that's reason enough to stop here.

⚔️ The Battle of Bazaleti and a Sunken Town

The lake isn't just tied to literature, it has a real historical event attached to it too: the Battle of Bazaleti in 1626. According to local tradition, a whole town once stood around the lake in the Middle Ages and eventually vanished, and legend still wraps around that chapter of the lake's history.

During the Soviet era, the lake was used for fish farming, stocked with carp and other species. Today it functions primarily as a resort area, with a modern hotel complex, a park, tree-lined walkways and a colonnade on the shore.

🚗 Getting There

Bazaleti lies right along the route to the Georgian Military Highway, making it easy to combine with a trip toward Ananuri, Gudauri or Kazbegi. It's about 40 km from Tbilisi, a bit over an hour by car.

🏊 What There Is to Do

The resort area on the shore offers swimming in the warm season, walks along the water, and stays at the hotel complex. The lake's mineral-rich water, drawn from underground springs, is credited in local resort tradition with health benefits, though there's no confirmed clinical data behind claims of treating specific conditions, best to treat this as general wellness tradition rather than medicine.

Nearby stands a white colonnade symbolising centuries of friendship between the Georgian and Jewish peoples, worth a short stop if you're passing through.

Have you been to Lake Bazaleti? Leave a review on Madloba: tell us whether you stayed at the hotel complex, what other versions of the legend locals told you, and whether it's worth the stop on the way into the mountains.

Information is current as of July 2026. Resort facilities and pricing can change, check details before you go.