Gergeti Trinity Viewpoint

Gergeti Trinity stands above the village of Gergeti at about 2,200 metres above sea level. Below it lie Stepantsminda and the valley of the Tergi; above it the slope of Mount Kazbek begins.

The church is cross-domed and built of finely dressed blocks of andesite; the facades and the drum of the dome are carved. A wall encloses the whole complex.

The village of Gergeti was joined to the town of Kazbegi in 1966, but the church kept its name.

The exact date is not known: the church was probably built in the 1330s.

The bell tower has two storeys and is dated to the second half of the fourteenth century. The council house against the south wall, where the council of the elders of Khevi met, is dated to the fifteenth century, more precisely to the end of the fifteenth or the beginning of the sixteenth.

A charter of immunity of 1392 names the monastery here together with a fortress.

Vakhushti describes the church as a hiding place for the regalia of the Catholicosate of Mtskheta and for the cross of St Nino. Its treasures included the altar doors and two icons, the Saavdro and the Sadaro.

By presidential decree No. 665 of 7 November 2006 the church was given the category of a monument of national significance.

The church is reached from Stepantsminda on foot or by the road that runs through Gergeti, about 6 kilometres and some 10 minutes' drive from the centre of the town. In winter check the state of the road locally.

Cover your shoulders and knees to go in; women usually wear a headscarf.