Sighnaghi

Sighnaghi is a place of love, so they say. It has been recently renovated and they did a great job there, if you ask me. I've only been there once, and it wasn't enough, if you want to know the truth. Well, it is not a large city or anything, so you will ask: "why was not one visit there enough for you? " I don't know, maybe because we were there for a couple of hours or that it was already getting dark, in fact, it was a nightfall and we didn't really know what to see our where to go exactly. We were just wandering around, taking photos, which then, when I saw them, turned out to be marvellous. I didn't really expect then to be this good, if you want to know the truth.

So, about my trip to Sighnaghi

It was summer 2012 and we went there as a group of schoolmates mostly, . Well, the majority of us were schoolmates, something like on an excursion. It was pretty hot despite the fact, that it was already pretty dark, actually, I think, it was something like nine or ten p. m. I think, it was nine when we got there. My mobile phone was dying and so I didn't really use it much, not even to look at the clock and know what time it was.

When we got to Sighnaghi, the very first thing we wanted was to find any supermarket so that we could buy some snacks and water, because we were really hungry. The nature gets you very hungry sometimes. There was a market on the center of the town and we went in. The lady in the store was very nice and talked to us about different things and she wondered who we were and where we were from and so on and so forth.

Sighnaghi at night is very beautiful, I can say and, I think, everyone would agree with me. This is a town where you should go with your friends, family or your loved one and spend the whole evening with. It's cozy, comfortable, nice... There are some very interesting and lovely and cool statues, that people love taking pictures with. There's a very popular donkey statue and we have a picture with it, too.

Sighnaghi is a very beautiful town as well as museum in Kakheti. It’s located on a hill and looks down on Alazani valleys and you can see Caucasus mountains from up there. Its rights to a town was awarded in the 18-th century and now it is a town-museum, as you see. Until the 18-th century, there had been a solid merchants and craftsmen town, where the main merchant roads and stuff like that crossed each other. Merchants coming all the way from Asia went by this town to their destinations. I think the great silk road went on this town, too. Even in the 2-nd and 1-st centuries BC this place was considered as lands of the Kingdom of Iberia, and it was called “Kambechovani”. After the Christianity spread in Georgia in the 4-th century, this place got a significant meaning _ there in a village of Bodbe died Saint Nino _ the woman who brought and spread the Christianity into Georgian lands and she was buried there. You can visit her grave there in Bodbe, in the Sisters’ Monastery of Bodbe. There is a Saint George’s Church in Sighnaghi, which is a domed basilica, kind of, and it’s built in the 18-th century.

There were reconstruction works done in Sighnaghi in 2007, and after this rehabilitation-restoration works, the town became a really lovely place and really beautiful. The streets are paved, the houses’ roofs are covered with tiles and their colour is something like a slightly burned clay, and when all those houses’ roof are of the same colour, it gives you some pleasure when looking at them, and it’s like peaceful in there when you look at them from far away.

The town of Sighnaghi has a fence or a wall. Well, it had this ring-fence or this wall that surrounded the town centuries ago, so that it was kind of a fortress, too, and it was a defence against enemies and stuff like that. Nowadays there are some remains of that wall and some of them have been reconstructed, too, so that the visitors can see it. Well, "Sighnaghi” is a word that originates from Azerbaijan and it means shelter or trench or something like that, and so the town has its name because of that. You see, historically this place and its surroundings were on the territory of Kiziki, and, so, this place was a great shelter for the residents of Kiziki. The town had about 5 kilometres long solid, wide wall around it with 23 towers and 8 arched gates, and with the help of these, people living outside the town in nearby villages could easily get into the town and hide from the enemies. It’s known, that this wall has been built by the order of Erekle the 2-nd the King of Kartli and Kakheti in the 18-th century. One fact is very interesting, that people of Sighnaghi and, generally, people of Kiziki, were “people without a lord” and so there has not been a bondage or serfdom or whatsoever. The Kizikians directly obeyed the King.

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