# Chazhashi, the towers of Ushguli - URL: https://explore-georgia.ge/en/places/chazhashi - Type: place to visit - Region: Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti - Coordinates: 42.915, 43.008611 Chazhashi is the centre of the Ushguli community in Mestia Municipality, on the southern slope of the main Caucasus range at the head of the Enguri, where the Enguri meets the Shavtskala-Kvishara, at 2,160 metres above sea level and 45 kilometres from Mestia. In Svan, Chazhashi means "the horses' stand": by tradition Queen Tamar, coming up to Ushguli, stabled her horses in this village. The community consists of five villages, Chazhashi, Zhibiani, Chvibiani, Murkmeli and Lamjurishi, lying between 2,060 and 2,200 metres at the foot of Shkhara, and is one of the highest permanently inhabited places in Europe; the census of 2014 counted 228 people in the community and 28 in Chazhashi itself. Isolation has preserved the medieval character of the villages, and in 1996 Upper Svaneti, with the ensemble of Chazhashi, was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Chazhashi has been declared a museum-reserve: the World Heritage complex unites 13 towers, four fortified houses, 21 machubi, 11 vernacular dwellings and more than ten auxiliary buildings, and of all the villages of Ushguli the most Svan towers survive here; the community has 37 towers in all. A Svan tower is a defensive structure of three to five storeys attached to the family house, the machubi, built mainly between the ninth and twelfth centuries. South of the village, on the mountain, stands a castle of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries with a wall and three towers, two half-ruined and one almost in its original form; it overlooks every village of Ushguli and by tradition was the winter residence of Queen Tamar, and within it is a small rectangular stone church of St George (Jgrag) of the tenth century with a stone iconostasis. Near the village is a second, "summer" tower of Tamar, the residence's other tower having fallen to ruin; the village also has a church of the Saviour of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and the Ushguli archaeological museum. ## History Ushguli's natural position cut it off even from the rest of Svaneti, since crossing to the nearest community, Kala, seven kilometres away, was hard, and it remained historically a community without a lord: by tradition the people of Ushguli killed seven nobles who tried to rule them, among them, in the second half of the seventeenth century, Puta Dadeshkeliani, killed at Lamaria by the whole village together. In the Middle Ages Ushguli was a residence of the eristavis of Svaneti, the Parjaniani-Vardanisdze-Marushiani, and the name of Queen Tamar is attached to the remains of one of the largest castles of Svaneti, of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, to the winter and summer towers and to the insignia of the eristavis' power, the sceptre and the chair. After the break-up of united Svaneti, Ushguli belonged to "Free Svaneti" and until 1810 formed part of the Kingdom of Imereti together with Racha. In 1910 Ekvtime Taqaishvili's expedition recorded the monuments of Ushguli; in 1930 Mikhail Kalatozov filmed "Salt for Svanetia" here. Tamar's summer towers were dismantled in the 1950s and their stone used to build a farm. The great avalanche of January 1987 damaged several monuments of Chazhashi and displaced part of the population as eco-migrants, mostly to Kvemo Kartli. In 1996 Upper Svaneti, with the ensemble of Chazhashi, Mestia and the surrounding communities, was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List; since 2000 the Georgian government and the Georgian National Committee of ICOMOS have conducted multidisciplinary research into the village's heritage and projects of restoration and conservation. The fortified towers of Chazhashi are on the list of immovable cultural monuments of national significance. ## Visit info Chazhashi is 45 kilometres from Mestia by a mountain road; snow covers the area for about six months of the year, and the road is then often impassable. The road towards Lentekhi crosses a pass that is open only three months a year. The Ushguli archaeological museum is in the village; check its hours, transport and accommodation locally. ## Tips The castle on the mountain south of the village overlooks the villages of Ushguli, which lie at the foot of Shkhara. Snow covers the area for about six months of the year, so plan for the warmer months, and stay the night to see the village unhurried. ## Safety Two of the three towers of Tamar's castle are half-ruined, so keep off its walls, and enter a tower house only with the owner's permission. At 2,160 metres the weather can change fast, and Ushguli lies in an avalanche zone. ## Sources - [Chazhashi — Georgian Wikipedia](https://ka.wikipedia.org/wiki/ჩაჟაში) - [Chazhashi — English Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chazhashi) - [Ushguli community — Georgian Wikipedia](https://ka.wikipedia.org/wiki/უშგულის_თემი) - [Ushguli — English Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ushguli) - [Upper Svaneti — UNESCO World Heritage](https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/709/) - [Chazhashi — Wikidata](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q12870729) ## This page in other languages - [ქართული](https://explore-georgia.ge/ka/adgilebi/chazhashi-ushgulis-koshkebi) - [Русский](https://explore-georgia.ge/ru/mesta/chazhashi-bashni-ushguli)