When I went to the US embassy a couple weeks ago to renew my passport, I noticed something odd on top of a nearby hill. It looked like a handful of giant blocks stacked on top of each other. I did some research when I got home and it turned out to be a massive art project called The Chronicle of Georgia (or The History of Georgia).
Today I wanted to get a closer look at the place and took a taxi there from a nearby metro station. The monument consists of a bunch of very tall pillars with horizontal pillars on top of those. The pillars are decorated with scenes from Jesus’s life and from the history of Georgia. It was designed by an apparently well known artist. There’s also a little church nearby and a few other statues and things.
I knew that the monument had to be big but I wasn’t quite prepared for just how big it was. I was thinking that the pillars would be about 30 feet tall, but they were closer to 100. It was really impressive.
I don’t think the Chronicle of Georgia is a very popular spot. There’s no information about it in any guidebook I’ve seen, and information online is scarce. There were only a couple other people there, and they were leaving right when I arrived. I had it to myself. I think it was worth going to just because I’ve never seen anything like it and the views are amazing.
The hill that the Chronicle of Georgia is on is right next to the Tbilisi Sea (which is really just a reservoir). From the monument, there are great views of the northern end of Tbilisi and of the Tbilisi Sea.
The Kura River
The stairs leading up to the monument. Pretty epic.
A row of apostles or saints or kings or something
Ok, here’s where you can get an idea of the scale. See how small the people are?
The little church at the monument, with the Tbilisi Sea in the background.
People having a good time at the Tbilisi Sea’s beach.
One of the religious panels on the monument
These things are big.
You can see that the monument still isn’t finished (those three lower panels have yet to be added).
Looking over the northern end of Tbilisi. It looks very… Soviet. Click for the larger version.
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Getting to the Chronicle of Georgia
I took the metro to the Sarajishvili stop and then got a taxi to the monument. The driver took me there, waited 15 minutes, and brought me back to the metro for 8 lari ($5 US). The place’s name in English is the Chronicle of Georgia or the History of Georgia. I told the driver in Russian that I wanted to go to the Chronicle of Georgia (Хроника Грузии) but he didn’t know what that was. Then I said it was the big monument on top of the mountain over there (I pointed) and he knew what I was talking about.
If you don’t want to pay for a taxi, you could probably walk there from the metro station in about an hour.
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