Places in Georgia

The symbol of Svaneti: family defensive towers 20–25 metres high and four or five storeys tall, mostly of the ninth to twelfth centuries, of which some 3,500 survive in Svaneti, some of them in Mestia; Upper Svaneti has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1996, and in 2011 the towers won the International Award for Architecture in Stone.

The centre of the Ushguli community at 2,160 metres, at the confluence of the Enguri and the Shavtskala: a village declared a museum-reserve, with 13 Svan towers, four fortified houses, 21 machubi and the winter castle of Queen Tamar, the core of the UNESCO World Heritage Site "Upper Svaneti" since 1996.