Akhaltsikhe

Akhaltsikhe means "new castle". A fortress stood on the hill above the Potskhovi from the ninth century under the older name Lomsia, and the new name came into use at the end of the twelfth. The town became the capital of Samtskhe under the Jaqeli family, who ruled the province as atabegs from the thirteenth century with increasing independence from the Georgian crown, on trade routes between the Georgian kingdoms, Armenia and Anatolia.

The Ottomans took the town in 1579, and from 1625 Akhaltsikhe was the centre of an eyalet with a resident pasha, governed for long periods by descendants of the Jaqeli who had converted to Islam. Under Ottoman rule the town acquired a mosque and madrasah, built in 1752 within the castle, and much of the surrounding population became Muslim; it was a leading hub of the Caucasian slave market and a garrison town on the frontier. Russian troops under Ivan Paskevich took it in 1828, and the Treaty of Adrianople of 1829 confirmed it as Russian, bringing an influx of Armenian settlers from Ottoman territory.

The twentieth century reshaped the town again. In 1944 Stalin's government deported the Muslim Meskhetians of the region to Central Asia, and most have never returned. Soviet planners built a new town of apartment blocks and offices across the river from the old quarter. After independence the area became poor and remote, dependent on farming and trade with Turkey. Between 2011 and 2012 the fortress was rebuilt as a visitor complex — a restoration that drew criticism for how much new construction it involved — and it has made the town the base for travellers heading to Vardzia.

Akhaltsikhe's character comes from its mixture. Georgians, Armenians and Catholic Georgians live in and around the town, Armenian is widely heard in the villages towards Akhalkalaki, and Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic and Catholic churches stand alongside a mosque inside the fortress. Meskheti's Georgian is a distinct regional dialect, and the province's traditions of monastic building at Sapara and Zarzma shaped its religious life for centuries.

The memory of the Meskhetian deportation of 1944 remains a live subject, raised periodically in Georgian politics as the question of whether descendants may return. Local people are used to living on a frontier: the Turkish border is a short drive away, cross-border trade and family ties are ordinary, and the Baku–Tbilisi–Kars railway passes through the region.

Everyday customs are those of rural Georgia, with feasts run by a tamada, strong attachment to church calendars, and hospitality that turns quickly into a full table. The fortress complex has become the town's stage for concerts, weddings and public events. Winter is long here and social life moves indoors, while summer brings visitors, markets and weekend trips to the monasteries and the lakes of the plateau.

About 17,300 people live in Akhaltsikhe, which makes it small even by Georgian standards, though it is the administrative centre of Samtskhe-Javakheti and serves a wide scatter of mountain villages. The town divides between the older quarter under the fortress and the Soviet-built new town across the river, where most of the offices, schools and apartment blocks stand.

Administration, schools, colleges and healthcare provide steady jobs, and tourism has grown since the fortress reopened, supporting hotels, guesthouses, drivers and cafés. Around the town, farming dominates: potatoes, dairy and livestock on the high ground, orchards and vegetables in the valleys. Trade with Turkey through the nearby crossing matters to the local economy, and many households depend on remittances from relatives working abroad or seasonally in Russia.

The rhythm is small-town and seasonal. Mornings begin at the market, shops close early, and the square fills in the evening when the weather allows. The population has fallen through emigration, particularly of younger people, and the region's persistent issues are limited work, hard winters, the state of the mountain roads and the maintenance of services across scattered villages. Visitors passing through on the way to Vardzia have become a familiar part of the summer scene.

Meskheti has a cooking tradition of its own within Georgia, shaped by a cold highland climate and long Ottoman contact. Its best-known product is tenili cheese, made by pulling the curd into fine threads and packing them tightly into clay pots, where it matures into a soft, stringy cheese eaten with bread. Potatoes and dairy from the plateau appear in most homes, and lamb and beef are more common here than the pork of the lowlands.

Preserved fruit is a speciality. Chiri, sun-dried plums, apricots and apples, and tklapi, thin sheets of fruit leather, are made through late summer and sold in the market all year, alongside churchkhela, walnuts threaded and dipped in thickened grape juice, and jars of honey from the mountain hives. Bread comes from the tone, the clay oven, and khachapuri is eaten in the round Imeretian form and other regional versions.

Standard Georgian dishes fill the restaurant menus: khinkali, the pleated dumplings eaten by hand; mtsvadi, meat grilled over embers with onion and sour plum sauce; lobio, beans stewed in a clay pot with herbs and served with mchadi; and walnut-thickened soups such as kharcho. The Armenian presence adds lavash and grilled dishes to some tables. Local wine is made in family cellars rather than commercially, chacha follows the meal, and the mineral waters of the Borjomi gorge are drunk throughout the region.