Great Journey 🏍 Day 348
When we don't know where to start in a new place, we look at the Unesco list. Around Kutaisi there is a Unesco-awarded monastery, a pretty wedding-location monastery and a Unesco-again-awarded cathedral. (Hello Dresdeners!)
Monastery number one is the Gelati Monastery. Instead of ice cream, there are beautiful frescoes (I lured Gerd on this tour with the Gelati) and, if it weren't for the clouds and fog, a wide view of the country. Gelati really comes from the Greek (genati) and can be traced back to the word birth. In the 12th and 13th centuries, an academy was founded here, where such clever things as geometry, arithmetic, grammar, music, rhetoric and dialectics were taught. We also admire the goldsmith's and silversmith's art here.
We continue to monastery number two: the pilgrimage monastery of Motsameta. There is a gruesome legend surrounding this monastery of brothers who, because they did not want to convert to Islam, were cut into pieces and thrown into the river. And thus became martyrs. Nevertheless: a beautiful place. On a rocky peak framed by a deep gorge.
Number three, on the other hand, is a large but desolate gymnasium: the Bagrati Cathedral. Actually, it is called the Church of the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God. Anyway, on entering the churchyard I am shouted at by a bouncer (later I realise she is asking for alms), there is an aggressiveness in the air, quite strange. When we look at the church from the inside, the souvenir seller is shouting and banging like crazy on her souvenir selling table. One of the visitors is too close to the barrier. But he doesn't react and all the other visitors are a bit - let's say - irritated. As I leave the church, the woman no longer remembers that she had just been nagging me and asks for a few coins.
I lack the words and also the size to stand over it. We are irritated and find our peace over a vanilla shake.
#kutaisi #Gelati #Motsameta #Bagrati
https://www.instagram.com/p/CSrwYCKKZiB/
