Svaneti Museum of History and Ethnography

The Svaneti Museum of History and Ethnography is the finest museum in the Georgian mountains and a highlight of any stay in Mestia. Its modern building holds treasures that Svan families and churches guarded in their towers for centuries, far from the invaders who rarely reached this valley. The core is the Christian collection: painted and chased metal icons, many made by Svan craftsmen in the Middle Ages, gilded crosses and illuminated manuscripts. Among them are Gospels copied in Georgian monasteries in Jerusalem and Tao-Klarjeti, and the celebrated Adishi Gospels, one of the oldest dated Georgian Gospel books.

Other halls cover archaeology, from Bronze Age Colchian axes to coins spanning more than 2,000 years, and Svan daily life, with carved wooden furniture, tools and household objects. Look out for the Mestia Gospels of 1033, an 11th-century icon of Saint Barbara from Ipari, and a 13th-century Iranian pitcher said to be a gift of Queen Tamar. Seeing the collection before visiting the churches of Ushguli and Adishi helps make sense of them, and it is the best thing to do in Mestia on a rainy day.

The museum was founded in 1936 by Egnate Gabliani, who gathered church treasures from across Svaneti; he was arrested in 1937 and executed during the Stalinist purges. The collection was first shown in a church in Mestia. A purpose-built museum was designed in the 1970s and took decades to complete, and the building was later rebuilt, reopening in its present modern form in the 2010s.