Tour to Didgori Valley from Tbilisi (Turtle Lake, Ethnographic Museum, Kojori)

Turtle Lake

Turtle Lake (686.7 m above sea level) is a small lake at the outskirts of Tbilisi so named due to the perceived abundance of turtles living in these places. The Turtle Lake area is designed as a recreational zone and is frequently visited on weekends. It is also a place where festivals and concerts are held.

Open Air Museum of Ethnography

The Giorgi Chitaia Open Air Museum of Ethnography displays the examples of folk architecture and craftwork from various regions of the country. The museum is named after Giorgi Chitaia, a Georgian ethnographer, who founded the museum on April 27, 1966. It is historic village populated by buildings moved there from all main territorial subdivisions of Georgia. The museum occupies 52 hectares of land and is arranged in eleven zones, displaying around 70 buildings and more than 8,000 items. The exhibition features the traditional darbazi-type and fiat-roofed stone houses from eastern Georgia, openwork wooden houses with gable roofs of straw or boards from western Georgia, watchtowers from the mountainous provinces of Khevsureti, Pshavi, and Svaneti, Megrelian and Imeretian wattle maize storages, Kakhetian wineries (marani), and Kartlian water mills as well as a collection of traditional household articles such as distaffs, knitting-frames, chums, clothes, carpets, pottery and furniture.

The earliest layers of Kojori fortress date to the late 11th century, but most of the structures are newer, dating to the 16th-18th centuries. During the Red Army invasion of Georgia in February 1921, the heights of Kojori saw heavy fighting between the Georgian and Russian SFSR forces. A monument to the Georgian Junkers (cadets) who died in this battle was erected on the site in the 1990s.