A short history of Georgia for travellers: from Colchis and Iberia to Tamar, the Russian annexation, 1991 and today

Georgia’s history for a traveller is not a dusty backdrop but the reason the country looks the way it does: why every ridge above Mtskheta carries a church, why Svaneti bristles with stone towers, and why Tbilisi‘s street names still argue about the twentieth century. The short version runs from the earliest humans outside Africa, found at Dmanisi, through the classical kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia, a medieval golden age under the Bagrationi dynasty that peaked with Queen Tamar, centuries of Mongol, Persian and Ottoman domination, absorption into the Russian Empire after 1801, a brief independent republic crushed by the Red Army in 1921, seven decades of Soviet rule, and the turbulent, still-unfinished return to statehood since 1991.

This guide lays the dates out in order, explains what each period left behind that you can actually visit today, and flags the handful of facts, such as EU candidate status and the status of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, that are worth double-checking against an official source before you travel, since politics here moves faster than guidebooks are reprinted.

Deep time and the classical kingdoms: Dmanisi, Colchis and Iberia

The oldest story is also the most startling: at Dmanisi in Kvemo Kartli, excavations since the 1990s have uncovered hominin skulls and tools roughly 1.8 million years old, the earliest evidence of humans outside Africa found anywhere in the world. The fossils and the medieval fortress built over the same hill are covered on our Bolnisi and Dmanisi day trip.

By the late second millennium BCE, Greek and Roman writers knew the western Black Sea coast as Colchis, the land of the Golden Fleece, centred on what is now Samegrelo and Guria. Inland and to the east, the kingdom of Kartli, called Iberia by the Greeks and Romans (unrelated to the Iberian peninsula), emerged around the 4th century BCE with its capital at Mtskheta. Iberia’s kings balanced Rome and Parthia for centuries, a pattern of negotiating between empires that recurs throughout Georgian history.

Christianisation and the medieval golden age, 326 to 1213

Tradition holds that St Nino, a woman from Cappadocia, converted the Iberian royal court between 326 and 337 CE, making Georgia one of the first Christian states. The cathedral she inspired, Svetitskhoveli in Mtskheta, and the hilltop monastery of Jvari above it, are the spiritual heart of the country and form the core of the UNESCO-listed Historical Monuments of Mtskheta; both appear on our Mtskheta Half-Day and Mtskheta on Foot tours.

Arab armies took Tbilisi in the 7th and 8th centuries, holding an emirate there for over three hundred years while Georgian princes retreated to the hills. Unity returned in 1008, when Bagrat III of the Bagrationi dynasty united the western and eastern crowns for the first time, founding a royal line that would rule, in one form or another, until 1801. The high point followed under David IV, called the Builder (reigned 1089-1125), who expelled the Seljuk Turks, reorganised the army and church, and founded Gelati Monastery near Kutaisi as a centre of learning, now inscribed by UNESCO as the Gelati Monastery site. His great-granddaughter Tamar reigned from 1184 to 1213 over a kingdom stretching from the Black Sea to the Caspian, a period Georgians still call the golden age; the cave city of Vardzia was carved and fortified under her patronage, and is reached on our Vardzia Cave City day trip.

Invasions and survival: Mongols, Persians and Ottomans

The golden age ended abruptly. Mongol armies first raided in the 1220s and returned repeatedly over the following century, and Tamerlane’s campaigns in the late 14th century devastated the kingdom further. By 1490 the unified crown had split into three rival kingdoms, Kartli, Kakheti and Imereti, plus several semi-independent principalities including Samtskhe, Guria, Mingrelia and Svaneti. From the 16th to 18th centuries, Safavid and later Qajar Persia and the Ottoman Empire contested and periodically ruled different parts of this fragmented territory, each leaving mosques, fortresses and, in places such as Akhaltsikhe‘s Rabati, a layered architecture of occupation. The caves at Uplistsikhe near Gori and the frescoed churches of Kintsvisi and Samtavisi survived this period and are covered on our Gori and Uplistsikhe and Kintsvisi, Samtavisi and Ateni Sioni day trips.

Russia: Georgievsk, annexation and the long nineteenth century

Squeezed between Persia and the Ottomans, King Erekle II of Kartli-Kakheti signed the Treaty of Georgievsk with Russia in 1783, accepting Russian protection in exchange for military support. The protection proved unreliable: Persian forces sacked Tbilisi in 1795 with no Russian relief. Russia then annexed the kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti outright in 1801, abolished the Bagrationi throne, and absorbed the remaining western Georgian kingdoms and principalities over the following decades, completing the process by the 1860s. Under the Russian Empire, Tbilisi grew into a cosmopolitan regional capital, visible today in the 19th-century boulevards covered on our Old Tbilisi Walking Tour, while wine production in Kakheti and spa development at Borjomi expanded under imperial patronage.

Independence lost and regained: 1918 to 1991

When the Russian Empire collapsed, Georgia declared independence on 26 May 1918, forming the Democratic Republic of Georgia, a social-democratic state notable for early extension of suffrage to women. It survived barely three years before the Red Army invaded in February 1921 and Georgia was incorporated into the Soviet Union, eventually as a constituent republic within the USSR. Soviet rule brought rapid industrialisation, forced collectivisation, the purges of the 1930s under Tbilisi-born Joseph Stalin’s regime, and later the modernist architecture and mosaics still visible around the capital, which our Soviet Tbilisi walking tour explores. The spa town of Tskaltubo, now partly ruined, was built in this era as a flagship Soviet health resort and can be visited on the Gelati, Motsameta and Tskaltubo tour from Kutaisi.

Since 1991: independence, war, and the path toward Europe

Georgia restored independence on 9 April 1991, following a referendum, but the 1990s brought civil conflict, economic collapse and unresolved wars in Abkhazia and South Ossetia that left both regions outside central government control, a situation that remains unresolved and should be checked against current advice from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia before travel near those boundary lines. The Rose Revolution of 2003 brought a reform government that rebuilt state institutions and tourism infrastructure. In August 2008, a short but intense war with Russia over South Ossetia, covered in detail by Britannica’s account of the Russo-Georgian War, ended with Russian recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent, a position Georgia and most of the world does not share. Georgia applied for European Union membership in 2022 and was granted candidate status in December 2023; progress on accession moves periodically and is worth checking directly via the European Commission’s Georgia enlargement page rather than assuming any fixed date.

Where to see this history today

Most of the periods above can be strung together in a single trip. The table below matches eras to places and to ready-made GTour itineraries.

Practical summary

• Dmanisi (c. 1.8 million years ago) holds the oldest hominin remains found outside Africa.
• Christianisation is dated to 326-337; Svetitskhoveli and Jvari in Mtskheta are the result.
• Bagrat III unified Georgia in 1008; David the Builder (1089-1125) and Tamar (1184-1213) brought the medieval golden age.
• Mongol, Persian and Ottoman rule fragmented the kingdom from the 1220s to the 1700s.
• The Treaty of Georgievsk (1783) led to Russian annexation of Kartli-Kakheti in 1801 and of the rest of Georgia by the 1860s.
• The 1918-1921 Democratic Republic fell to the Red Army; Soviet rule lasted until 1991.
• Independence returned on 9 April 1991; the 2008 war left Abkhazia and South Ossetia outside government control.
• Georgia became an EU candidate country in December 2023; verify current accession status via the official EU enlargement page before relying on it for planning.
• Always check current entry rules and the status of administrative boundary lines via gov.ge and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs before travelling near Abkhazia or South Ossetia.

Sources

• Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia
• Georgian Polyphonic Singing (UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage)
• Georgia Country Overview (World Bank)
• Georgia Country Profile (BBC News)