Tsinandali Estate, Alexander Chavchavadze House Museum
The poet Alexander Chavchavadze's Kakhetian estate, with period rooms, an English garden and cellars.
Tsinandali was the country seat of Prince Alexander Chavchavadze, poet, soldier and a central figure of Georgian Romanticism, who inherited the land in 1818 and laid out house, garden and vineyards in a European manner. His salon drew writers and musicians from across the Caucasus and Russia, among them Alexander Griboyedov, who married Chavchavadze's daughter Nino. In 1854 the estate was raided during the Caucasian War and members of the family were carried off, an episode that ended in a celebrated exchange of prisoners.
The present house dates largely from a rebuilding completed in the 1880s under the poet's grandson, after which the estate passed into imperial ownership. It became a museum in 1946 and was extensively restored in the 2000s. Visitors see the family rooms, library, portraits and instruments, walk in the landscaped park of exotic trees, and go down to the cellar where Chavchavadze established one of the first European-style bottling operations in Georgia; a collection of old bottles is kept there.
Highlights
- Period rooms and library of the Chavchavadze family
- Landscaped English-style park planted with exotic trees
- Historic cellar with a collection of nineteenth-century bottles
- Open-air amphitheatre in the grounds used for summer concerts
![[King Thibaw Min's Throne Room - Mandalay]title QS:P1476,en:"[King Thibaw Min's Throne Room - Mandalay]"label QS:Len,"[King Thibaw Min's Throne Room - Mandalay]"](https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/02/Felice_Beato_%28British%2C_born_Italy_-_%28King_Thibaw_Min%27s_Throne_Room_-_Mandalay%29_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/500px-Felice_Beato_%28British%2C_born_Italy_-_%28King_Thibaw_Min%27s_Throne_Room_-_Mandalay%29_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)
