Day 176: Davit Gareja (დავითგარეჯის სამონასტრო კომპლექსი)

Sept 26 - Take an organized tour today. I never know how these will work out, many times the only time-efficient way to do it is through an intermediary by internet. There are touts aplenty on the street, offering what amounts to glorified taxi services, but for what we want to do today I don’t want to pay out to some guy pushing services on the side of the road. Likewise, the myriad of people offering rental cars makes me wary. There is no real way to verify the condition of the car or what I will do if something goes wrong.

So, we are off to the offices of Gamarjoba Georgia Tours (gamarjoba means ‘hello’). We are the only ones in the minibus today, as the place I want to go (Davit Gareja Monastery complex), is not one of the common tourist destinations. It is located in the semi-desert part of Georgia, a high plains and mountainous area at the Azerbaijan border.

We head east on the main road that basically runs the central valley of the country all the way across to the border. Turn south from this and go into very dry landscape.

Pass by the town of Udabno. After an earthquake in 1988, the government built housing here to accommodate the families whose houses were destroyed elsewhere in the region. However, people did not like living in this rather stark environment and the population has never been stable.

So, a bit about this monastery. Looking at it, one might think it is not an ideal site for people to live. The area is bone dry, hot in summer, bitterly cold and windy in winter, and there isn’t much vegetation. But it is probably for this very reason that people came here, seeking a meditative, monastic lifestyle. The silence of the hills and starkness of the terrain makes for a perfect retreat from normal life.

The monastery was founded by St. David Garejeli in the 6th Century. He was one of the thirteen Syrian monks who came to Georgia to spread Christianity. The rocks of this area (the same sandstones we saw at Uplistsikhe) were relatively easy to excavate by hand and make into simple habitable caves. A system of canals dug into the steep rock faces around acted as collection points for water.

The monks that lived/live here are known as ‘black monks’, meaning they have completely rejected normal human interaction and relationships in favor of prayer and meditation. By contrast, what are called here ‘white monks’ are priests who hold church services and perform rites for worshippers. Often, both wear black clothing.

The complex remained an important focus of religious life for centuries, reaching an apex of influence in the 11th to 13th Centuries. After this, incursions by the Mongols brought a downfall, not just here, but of the entire Kingdom of Georgia. There was a revival under King Giorgi V the Brilliant after the Mongols rode through, but then Tamerlane came and destroyed everything again. Later, the Muslims came (14th Century), and under Shah Abbas, major repression of Christianity occurred, including an infamous incident where 6000 monks were killed at a single Easter gathering. There was a resurgence of religious activity in later centuries but all this came to another screeching halt in 1921, when the Soviets arrived. The Soviet army used the valley to train tanks, and the monastery buildings became target practice. Citizen protests in Tbilisi brought this to an end eventually, but not before a lot of damage was done.

The batterings received by this ‘living’ archaeological site over the centuries are a good analogy to the difficulty Georgians have faced to preserve their cultural identity. Like Armenia, they have been at the crossroads for many battles between the ‘East’ and ‘West’. They were the third kingdom to accept Christianity (in about 337), and have gone through a few periods in which occupiers have attempted to exterminate this faith. These days, the problem is more related to the cultural focus of the younger generation, and the geographic stability of the country. The first, because young people see what is going on in western Europe and want to be part of that bright, shiny object, and second because Russia never stops chewing off pieces of the country at its northern border.

From here it is a two hour drive back to Tbilisi.

Where we are dropped off is not so far from the Holy Trinity Cathedral of Tbilisi, so we walk up the hill.

Downtown for some dinner and walk back to the hotel.