Georgia has something for every visitor, from adventure tourism to architectural masterpieces and art. This small country captures not only the incredible nature but also the unique customs and culture. Everyone will like this incredible country from the Black Sea Coast to the Caucasus Mountains.
1. Georgia is natively known as “Sakartvelo”, this name comes from the name of the people who lived in modern Georgia – Kartvelian. The ancient Georgian kingdom was once called Kartli or Iberia, which was founded around 300 BC.
2. In 337, Christianity was declared the official state religion in the ancient Georgian Kingdom of Iberia, making Georgia the second oldest country after Armenia (301) to declare Christianity its official state religion.
3. There are only fourteen independent alphabets in the world and the Georgian alphabet is one of them. It is based on the Biblical Aramaic language.
4. The same applies to the Georgian language, which belongs to a separate and ancient language group (Kartvelian) and has very little in common with the languages of its neighbors.
5. Contrary to popular belief that in Georgia everyone understands Russian, it is mostly spoken only by the elderly, and in mountainous areas, people do not know it at all. Young people prefer their native language and English.
6. Georgian has no grammatical gender, even the pronouns are gender-neutral. The Georgian alphabet doesn’t know any uppercase letters, even the names of cities, countries, or persons are written in lowercase letters.
7. Joseph Stalin was born in Georgia. Georgians’ attitude to Stalin is consistently contradictory, but after Georgia gained independence in 1991, his memorials have been dismantled, in 2010 authorities removed a statue of the dictator from Gori’s central square.
8. Georgia is considered the birthplace of wine, as winemaking originated here in 6,000BC. These early Georgians discovered grape juice could be turned into wine by burying it underground for the winter. Even the word “wine” first appeared here, from the Georgian “ghvino”.
9. One of the funniest holidays in Georgia is “Rtveli” (grape festival). Wine producers invite their relatives to harvest and some of them let their grandkids to crush the grapes by foot to produce wine. The holiday always ends with a feast in a large circle of friends and relatives.
10. Contrary to the stereotype, mountaineers in Georgia almost do not drink wine, because it does not warm you up, so they prefer the traditional grape moonshine – Chacha.
11. The main person during the feast in Georgia is Tamada. A tamada is someone who makes a toast at a Georgian feast or supra. Each feast, no matter its size, has a toastmaker who introduces each toast. A tamada leads the dinner or the festivity. The chosen one should be intelligent and have a good sense of humor.
12. The four deepest caves in the world are located in Georgia. The deepest cave called Veryovkina Cave is 2212 m (7257 ft) deep below the Earth’s surface and the lowest point was only reached in 2018.
