⛪ Little-Known Shrines of Kakheti: a Guide to Hidden Churches Beyond the Main Routes

Kakheti, with its vineyards and monasteries, is usually seen along a well-worn route: Bodbe, Sighnaghi, Gremi, Nekresi, Alaverdi. These shrines rightly draw crowds of pilgrims and tourists. But turn off the main roads, and the region reveals another side of itself: dozens of churches, in villages, on hilltops and in cemeteries, that almost nothing is written about.

Among them are early Christian basilicas from the 5th century, contemporaries of Georgia's conversion to Christianity, late medieval domed halls with surviving fresco fragments, and even a one-of-a-kind Russian church from the early 20th century. This guide brings together seventeen such churches by district across Kakheti. If you're after the region's great shrines instead, there's a separate feature on the Christian churches of Kakheti.