The Golden Fleece city — Prometheus cave, Gelati monastery, amber wine from buried clay jars, and Georgian bread baked in tone pits
Kutaisi is Georgia's second-largest city and former capital of the ancient Kingdom of Colchis — the mythological destination that Jason and the Argonauts sought in Greek legend, sailing from Thessaly in search of the Golden Fleece. The city has been continuously inhabited for over 3,000 years and was the royal capital of the unified Georgian Kingdom during its medieval Golden Age under King David IV ('the Builder', 1089–1125) and Queen Tamar (1184–1213). Today Kutaisi is the gateway to Western Georgia's wine country — the Imereti region surrounding the city produces amber wine (white wine fer…
The Gelati Monastery and Academy, founded by King David IV in 1106 on a forested hillside 11 km outside Kutaisi, was the intellectual capital of the medieval Georgian Kingdom — the philosopher and theologian John Petritsi taught there, and it was the equivalent of Oxford or Bologna in the medieval Caucasus. King David is buried at the monastery gate under a marble slab over which all visitors must step — his request, so that his subjects would always walk over him. The monastery church (consecrated 1125) has the best-preserved Byzantine mosaic in the Caucasus, covering the apse of the main ch…