On the border with Azerbaijan, Davit Gareja comprises about 15 old monasteries spread over a large, remote area, its uniqueness is heightened by a lunar, semidesert landscape. We visited two of the key monasteries, Lavra (the only inhabited one today), and, on the hill above it, Udabno, which has beautiful frescoes.
Lavra, the first monastery here, was founded by Davit Gareja, one of the 13 ascetic ‘Syrian fathers’ who returned from the Middle East to spread Christianity in Georgia in the 6th century. The religious complex grew until there were monasteries spread over a wide area. Here manuscripts were translated and copied, and a celebrated Georgian school of fresco painting developed. The monasteries were destroyed by the Mongols in 1265, revived in the early 14th century by Giorgi V the Brilliant, sacked by Timur and then suffered their worst moment of all on Easter night 1615 when Persian Shah Abbas’ soldiers killed 6000 monks and destroyed most of their artistic treasures. In 1675 King Archil initiated some restoration and gave stipends to the monks. The monasteries never regained their former importance but remained working until the end of the 19th century.
During the Soviet era the area was used for military exercises, and some of the first demonstrations of the perestroika period in Tbilisi were protests against this vandalism. Ironically, the Georgian army then used the area for training in the mid-1990s. These manoeuvres were stopped when protesters camped in the firing range.
To get to Udabno, we had to climb to the mountain ridge. The plains and low hills on the other side of the mountain ridge were in Azerbaijan, and the caves alongside and above the path along the ridge were the Udabno monastery. Some of the caves were churches or chapels or rooms, and their inner walls still bear frescoes painted by the renowned fresco school that flourished here between the 10th and 13th centuries.
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