By Prof. Giorgi Pkhakadze, MD, MPH, PhD · 15/09/2026
The legend says King Vakhtang Gorgasali was hunting in the 5th century when his falcon and a pheasant fell into a hot spring and came out cooked. He founded a city on the spot and called it Tbilisi — from tbili, warm. Whether or not the pheasant is true, the springs are: some thirty of them, at 37 to 47 degrees, sulphurous, rising under the old town in the district called Abanotubani, the bath quarter. Pushkin came here in 1829 and wrote that he had never encountered anything more luxurious. Dumas came in 1858 and agreed.
What the baths are
Low brick domes with round skylights, half-sunk in the ground along a short street below the Narikala fortress, with one blue-tiled Persian-style façade — the Orbeliani bath — that everyone photographs. Inside, vaulted rooms of stone with a pool of hot sulphur water, a cold tap, a marble slab and, if you pay for it, a masseur with a coarse mitt. The water smells of eggs for the first minute and of nothing after. It is said to help skin, joints and hangovers; the third claim is the best documented.
Public or private
Each bathhouse has a public hall — men’s and women’s, separate, cheap, communal, where old Tbilisi goes on Saturday mornings — and private rooms by the hour, with a pool, a shower and a resting area, for two to six people. For a first visit take a private room: an hour is right, ninety minutes is generous. Book a day ahead in high season; GTour does this for you.
The ritual
Undress completely in the changing area (swimwear is optional in private rooms, expected in public halls). Rinse under the shower. Enter the hot pool slowly — it is hotter than it looks — and stay until you feel the heat in your bones, five to ten minutes. Get out, cool under the cold tap or on the marble. Repeat two or three times. If you have booked the kisa scrub, the attendant will lay you on the slab, scrub you with a rough mitt until grey rolls of dead skin come off (this is the point, and strangely satisfying), then wash you with a great cloud of soap foam and pour water over you. Tip him. Afterwards, tea in the resting area, and do not plan anything demanding for the next hour.
Etiquette
Do not shave in the pool. Do not bring soap into the pool. Keep your voice down in the public halls. Drink water before and after — the heat dehydrates. Go in the evening, when the baths are quiet and the old town outside is at its best, and walk to dinner afterwards through the lanes.
See it with GTour
The baths are the natural end of the Tbilisi & Mtskheta first day, and the last evening of Georgia in Winter after the mountains. We book the room.
This story in Georgian — ქართულად: shenidasveneba.ge
ქართულად: თბილისის გოგირდის აბანოები — როგორ მიიღოთ სირცხვილის გარეშე
