Chokhatauri

Chokhatauri is a small town of about 1,800 people on the right bank of the Supsa river, at the foot of the southern slope of the Guria range, about 20 km north-east of Ozurgeti. It is the centre of the hilly eastern half of Guria, a district of hazelnut orchards, small tea gardens and wooded valleys climbing towards the Meskheti range. For most travellers it is the place where the road to the mountains starts: Nabeglavi and its mineral spring lie a short drive to the south-east, and Bakhmaro is about 50 km away at the top of a long climb.

The town is quiet, with a market, a few cafes and a museum of local lore named after the historian Niko Berdzenishvili. The municipality is also home ground for the writer Nodar Dumbadze, whose stories of village childhood are set in Guria, and a house museum honours him. Nearby stand the ruins of Bukistsikhe, an early medieval fortress, and the Udabno monastic complex. In July and August, Chokhatauri is the last good place to buy food and fuel and find a cash machine before Bakhmaro, and summer marshrutkas to the resort pass through.

Chokhatauri lies in the heart of the old Principality of Guria. Bukistsikhe, the fortress above the valley, was one of the strongholds Ottoman troops seized in 1774, together with Likhauri and Askana, and Mamia IV Gurieli and King Solomon I of Imereti recovered them the same year. In the Soviet period the district grew tea and hazelnuts, and the town became the usual way up to Bakhmaro, which developed into one of Georgia's favourite summer resorts.