Rabati Castle

The fortress and museum of Samtskhe

The fortress above the Potskhovi river, at around a thousand metres, was for centuries the chief town of old Samtskhe and the seat of its atabegs. The lower layers of the walls are dated to the 9th century, the upper ones to Ottoman times, when Akhaltsikhe became the centre of a pashalik.

In 2011–2012 the castle was rebuilt from top to bottom: walls raised, courtyards paved, buildings restored. The reconstruction is disputed — little original masonry remains — but the fortress stopped crumbling and opened to visitors.

Inside is the Samtskhe-Javakheti museum with the archaeology and ethnography of the province, and on one site stand a church, an 18th-century mosque with its madrasa, and a synagogue: for Akhaltsikhe, where Georgians, Armenians, Turks and Jews lived side by side for centuries, that is history rather than decoration.