Zugdidi

Zugdidi, population 51,700 and 110 meters above sea level, is the administrative center of Samegrelo. Located in the northern section of the Colchian depression only 30 km from the Black Sea, Zugdidi has a lush subtropical climate with palm trees growing in profusion. Coming from Kutaisi or points farther east, you'll feel you've entered another land and the heady, scented, warm air will caress your soul.

Zugdidi is a natural jumping-off place for driving to Mestia in Svaneti, up to Sokhumi in Abkhazia, or down to Batumi in Ajara. In the 17th century the city became the residence of the Dadiani family, which had ruled Samegrelo since the 12th century, when it was known as Odishi. The city's fortunes were wrapped up with those of the Dadianis and the region as a whole.

As the nearest Georgian city to Abkhazia, it has had to absorb a particularly high number of refugees since the 1990s (by some estimates they have doubled its population) and is a centre for Georgians who favour military action to regain Abkhazia.
Despite this troubled recent past, today Zugdidi is a bustling and (at least outwardly) pleasant town that sees few travellers except for those heading for Svaneti, for which Zugdidi is an essential stepping stone.

The central boulevard, Zviad Gamsakhurdias gamziri, runs southwest to northeast with a shady park strip along its centre. Rustaveli runs northwest from the middle of the boulevard to the train and bus station, 1km away. About halfway to the station, just past the busy market and across a river, Gia Guluas qucha heads north towards a replica Svan tower. The main departure point for marshrutkas to Svaneti is on the right of this street, just before the Svan tower.

The Historical and Ethnographic Museum is at the end of David the Builder Street. Past the large stadium is the Dadiani Palace, which was converted into a museum in 1921. This wonderfully eccentric amalgam of neo- Gothic castle and Venetian palazzo dates to the 17th century and was extended in the 19th. The collection contains many items of archaeological and ethnographic interest, including an excellent collection of antique coins from Rome, Byzantium, and Georgia. The greatest treasures are the gold and silver coins from ancient Colchis. A valuable collection of manuscripts, pagan statues, agricultural implements, weapons, native dress, and applied arts from Georgia and other parts of the world can also be seen. Studying reproductions of fresco fragments and photographs of surrounding churches with their accompanying texts (in Russian) will help to put some of your later journeying into context.

The most interesting aspect of the collection relates to the Dadiani family itself. Princess Salome Dadiani, daughter of David Dadiani (the last ruler of Mingrelia) and his wife Katherine Chavchavadze, married Achille Charles Louis Napoleon Mural, the grandson of Napoleon's sister Caroline and his Marshal Joachim Mural. When the couple decided to move to their estate near Zugdidi they took with them some personal effects of Napoleon including the Emperor's death mask, one of the three cast in bronze from the plaster-of-paris model made on the day of his death in 1821. The mask is on view as well as his bookcase, armchairs, and his portrait.

Princess Caroline Dadiani's brother, Andria, born in 1850, seems also to have had an interesting life. A great chess master, he travelled extensively to tournaments and published a book on his moves. Exhibits of some of his personal effects, as well as those of other family members, are on view. Chess has long been a game at which the Georgians particularly excel: Zugdidi's own Nona Gaprindashvili, the world chess champion among women, is also honored in the museum. The building itself is lovely: be sure to see the magnificent 100-year-old giant magnolia in the museum's garden as well as the intricately carved wooden ceiling above the second-floor veranda. The latter supposedly dates from the 17th century.

On the grounds of the palace are a small family church built in 1838 and the shell of a second palace that was destroyed in 1854. In the park adjoining the grounds of the Dadiani Palace are the 26-hectare Botanical Gardens. Established in 1840 by Katherine Chavchavadze Dadiani, the collection now numbers over 1,000 plant species. It is a branch of the Tbilisi Botanical Gardens of the Georgian Academy of Sciences and is a most fragrant and calm spot for a postprandial perambulation.

Orientation & Information

Getting There & Away

In Tbilisi, marshrutkas (six to seven hours, every 1½ hours, 8am to 5pm) and buses (seven hours, at 10am, noon, 1pm and 10pm) to Zugdidi leave from the rear of the main train station. The night train leaving Tbilisi at 9.30pm gets you into Zugdidi at 5.30am, in time to catch a marshrutka to Svaneti the same morning. The return train departs Zugdidi at 11.20pm. There’s also a day train to Tbilisi (eight hours) at 9.50am, and an elektrichka just to Kutaisi at 7.30am. From outside Zugdidi’s train station, marshrutkas and some buses leave several times daily for Kutaisi (two hours), Poti (1½ hours), Batumi (three hours) and Tbilisi (six hours).

Marshrutkas and jeeps to Mestia in Svaneti (five to seven hours) leave from near the Svan tower on Gia Gulua any time from 6am on, once they fill up (which can be with goods as well as people). It’s a good idea to be there by 8am – though if you’re unlucky you might still have to wait several hours before you get moving. They’ll take your name and passport number at the ticket hut with the ‘Mestia’ sign. Some vehicles may meet the overnight train from Tbilisi but may still not leave Zugdidi until the driver has garnered a full load.