Pilgrims on a journey: The Shuamta and Ikhalto monasteries in Georgia

Akhali Shuamta from the approach
note the amazing wild flower meadow

We are on a pilgrimage with Southwark Diocese in lovely Caucasian Georgia, and our time here is sadly drawing to an end. But there is still plenty to see and experience before we pack our suit case for the last time and wend our way home!
Our target for today is the churches and monasteries of the Kakheti region, famous for its vineyards. We have the usual minibus shuttle service to take us down from the hotel to our coach by the side of the lake (now starting to fill up again, albeit slowly!), and we make our way back through Telavi to our first stop, an hour's drive away, at the new Shuamto monastery, Akhali Shuamta, high in the Gombori mountain range.

Akhali Shuamta

This 16th century cruciform brick church has beautiful frescoes dating back to the same century, but we are not allowed to take photos inside the church and we are watched by a grumpy nun throughout. Time therefore to simply stand and absorb the spirituality of the place, feel the vibes of centuries of prayer absorbed into the fabric of the place, and ponder on the state of the world today. Time to enjoy silence!
The monastery is still active, and the guidebooks did warn us that the nuns here were unfriendly! The Russians have whitened some of the frescoes, and some have been cleaned.

The Church of the Holy Spirit Ikhalto

The Ikhalto monastery complex

The church was founded by King Levan of Kakheti, his Queen Tinatin and their son Alexander. We are told of a legend that travelers arrived here and left an icon in the bushes. The next day this could not be removed and so they promised God to build a church here. I could not find this version in my later research, but another legend, found on the internet, is that Queen Tinatin constructed the monastery, because as a little girl she had a dream that she was to build an orthodox temple. It was only when she married the prince Levan and traveled across Georgia with him that she recognized the site where she must fulfill the dream. Later she became a nun there and was buried in the church. Her tomb was found in 1899 and she is remembered on September 3rd.

Icon of King David the builder
Ikhalto

whose tomb is this in the Church of the
Holy Spirit Ikhalto?

Sadly we have no time to go just a few miles further up the hill to see the Old (Dzveli) Shuamto monastery set in splendid isolation in a hornbeam wood. There are three churches here, the oldest from the 6th century with its original alabaster iconostasis. Another church is modeled on the Jvari church we saw earlier in our travels, with an octagonal dome, dating from the 7th century. The third church is a smaller 17th century version of the 7th century church! There is said to be a tunnel linking Old Shuamto with the Ikhalto monastery, our next stop, but we travel there more conventionally and comfortably in our coach!

At Ikhalto monastery

Like  Shuamto, the Ikhalto monastery was an education center or academy, and was founded in the late 6th Century by St Zenon, one of the Syrian Fathers who established Christianity in Georgia.It began as a local place of learning but became one of the most significant cultural-scholastic centers of Georgia, (the other being at Gelati), when King David the builder further developed the academy in the 12th century. Many subjects were taught there including theology, astronomy, philosophy, as well as practical skills such as pottery and, perhaps not surprisingly, wine-making. Legend says that the famous Georgian poet Shota Rustaveli studied here. The academy was destroyed by the invading Persians in 1616 when it was set on fire.

view of the refectory and other academy ruins Ikhalto

the wine fermenting jars set deep in the ground
Ikhalto

On the drive over to Ikhalto Levan fills us in a little on the present day Georgian education system, quite different I'm sure from what went on in the 6th century academy here. Children go to kindergarten at 2 years old, and then start preparing for main school at the age of 5. Here they go from age 6, for the next 12 years until they leave, to work or to go university. The national exam is in 9 subjects, after which the students may take the university entrance exams, with a possibility of scholarships to get 30 - 100% of the 1000 Euros annual fee paid. There is also a system of teaching minorities alongside Georgians; they learn each others' languages and study together in pairs, offering great potential for understanding and integration. What a brilliant idea!

6th century church of the Trinity

At Ikhalto there is plenty to see and some great photo opportunities - again so easy to forget we are pilgrims not tourists. To our shame some of us go scrambling over the ruins in exploration, before we have heard about what we have come to see. We see the ruins of the old academy, the buried wine clay jars typical of the region, the three churches. The main church of the Holy Spirit or Khvtaeba was built in the 8th - 9th century on the site of an earlier one where St Zenon is said to have been buried.

Levan tells us that 90% of Georgians are Christians and many go to church often, including the young people - although girls tend to be more pious than the boys. The liturgy can be 5 - 6 hours long for special days, and traditionally females stand to the left, males to the right, although nowadays there is a greater tendency to mix. I had not noticed this before really, but on the iconostasis the Virgin Mary is always the icon immediately to the left of the entrance to the inner sanctuary, the icon to the right is of Jesus.



This site was restored quite recently and there are posters with some comprehensive information about the restoration process at the entrance to the site.

Pilgrims on a journey; Our stay near Telavi - in Caucasian Georgia

First view of our hotel across a meadow
alongside the dried up lake

So we climb back into the coach again for our drive to our hotel which will be home for the next two nights. We are to stay near Telavi, at the Kvareli Royal Batoni Hotel. Our first glimpse of this place is amazing - perched high up on the wooded hillside, a mock castle complete with crenellations, not to mention a very welcome looking terrace with sun umbrellas and horizon swimming pool. These pilgrims are enjoying their creature comforts!

view of the dried up lake from my room!

But hang on a minute; there is a problem! Our driver has to pull up at a barrier at the beginning of the road up to the hotel. There is much discussion and remonstration and eventually it is made quite clear that we must all disembark and await smaller mini bus transport for the final half mile or so to the hotel itself. It soon becomes obvious why. There is no way that the coach could have continued up to the hotel. It looks as if part of the road has collapsed. In fact we later find out that excessive rain fall has over time brought quantities of sand down into the lake, and they have decided to dredge the lake and build a new road at the same time. They assure us the lake will be full again in 3 days. We leave in 2!

The transfers from the coach to the hotel are very efficient though. They have this well sorted! And any frustration at the delay in getting these tired and hungry pilgrims to their rooms is soon forgotten when we pick up our keys and climb the spiral staircase or queue for the tiny lift. Our rooms here are wonderful. Mine is huge, with a super view across the swimming pool to the (dried up!) lake. Others look over the woodland at the back. There is an outside terrace on the first floor and here we celebrate our Ascension Day Eucharist, with far reaching views through the crenellations to the town and countryside beyond - as far as the eye can see.

beautiful wild flowers - vetch

There is a film crew in residence, here to produce a series popular on Georgian TV not unlike the UK TV "I'm a celebrity get me out of here" which seems to involve snakes in the swimming pool among other horrors ….. but our hymns manage to drown out their exuberance below…

Sadly our guide Maka has been feeling quite poorly for a few days and has been gradually losing her voice. Struggling to do her job and explain all the sites to us, which she has done admirably, she has to give up the struggle and we give her a warm and sincere send off that night. We are so sad to see her go but it is even more important that she does not compromise her health by struggling on.

There was a very bad electrical storm apparently in the night. I really do not like storms, but although I noticed the loss of electricity a few times and a dodgy TV signal, I managed to sleep through the worst of it without hearing or seeing the thunder and lightning!
There is a full program ahead of us for the next day. We have a new guide, Levan, introduced to us by Maka. He has a youthful enthusiasm for his country, of which he is justifiably enormously proud, and on the coach in the morning on our way to the churches and monasteries of the Kakheti region he regales us with many facts about the Georgian wine industry, including the fact that every family in this region makes and drinks 20 tons of wine each year, and the wine is exported throughout all the world's continents. There are 18 varieties of grape endemic to this region he tells us. I read later that these are just a small proportion of the more than 500 varieties grown in Georgia, of which 38 are in common use. It seems that every spare piece of land is used for vineyards here, or for growing many other crops. There is no space for the large recreational gardens so many of us enjoy - and we learn that the valley is so fertile that two harvests are possible here - a fertility and productivity clearly reflected in the larger and better standard houses in this region. The only other place I have visited with such fertility is the Portuguese island of Madeira, where again two crops can be grown each year on the same land.

vineyards in the fertile valley

Levan also explains a little about the toast/meal ceremony or supra which is a Georgian tradition of which they are very proud; it seems to be a marathon of eating and drinking, for men only, in which four liters or so of wine will be drunk by each man, accompanied by twenty or more toasts over a very long evening, of perhaps five hours or so. There is a definite order to be followed for these toasts, controlled by the toastmaster or tamada. Levan tells us that the first and last toasts are dedicated to God, then they toast to peace and love, friendship and family, with a special toast for women and mothers for whom they have a special respect. I'll drink to that!