The Alexander Chavchavadze House Museum

The poet's estate at Tsinandali, its park and the cellar of 1835

Alexander Chavchavadze (1786-1846), romantic poet and a general in Russian service, rebuilt the family estate at Tsinandali in the 1830s: an Italianate house surrounded by a European-style park, the first of its kind in Georgia. In 1835 a wine cellar was added, where bottle ageing in the European manner met the Kakhetian qvevri tradition.

On 2 July 1854 the estate was sacked by the troops of Imam Shamil, and the Chavchavadze family was carried off captive into the mountains of Dagestan. Eight months later the prisoners were exchanged for the imam's son Jamaluddin, who had spent years as a hostage in Russia. The house was rebuilt, and in 1887 the park was renewed by the gardener Arnold Regel.

The estate became a museum in 1947. On show are the memorial rooms with Chavchavadze's furniture and books, the family portraits, and the wine cellar, where bottles from the 1840s still lie.