Gudarekhi Monastery

Gudarekhi Monastery is located Tetritskaro municipality, belongs to Kvemo Kartli region, close to the village of Gudarekhi. It dates back to XII-XIII centuries. The monastery complex includes several buildings: the main church, bell tower, fireplace, building with a cross, the ornamented building, fence, gate, palace, stable, wine cellar, Cell I, Cell II, Cell III, building I, building III, pilasters building, rocky buildings , Shalva’s Church. Most of the buildings, except for the cult buildings, were built of stone. The monastery area covers about 4.5 hectares. The main church of Gudarekh was built during the reign of Rusudan, but the inscriptions on the wall of the church inform us that it stands on the place of an earlier temple. Two storey bell tower was built in 1278 by Demetre Tavdadebuli(Dedicated). Gudarekhi Monastery Complex is one of the important monuments of Georgian architecture.

architecture

The main temple of Gudarekhi has one nave structure. It was built by hewn stones. The church had two annexes. There are two inscriptions on the north wall of eastern enlargement. They are older than the church itself and date back to the X-XI centuries. The second enlargement of the temple was from the south. It covered the main inscription of the church and later it was destroyed by Ekvtime Takaishvili. The facades of the temple are decorated with rich and beautiful decorations. The fragments of wall painting in the interior are still preserved. Fragments of carved iconostasis of the Gudarekhi Church are preserved at Art Museum of Georgia. There is a two-storey bell tower, which dates back to 1278. It is the oldest bell tower in Georgia. The first floor of the bell tower is open, the second floor is an arbor and there are eight arches with pillars on all eight sides.

The chapel- It is located outside the fence of small church. The walls of the church were covered with yellow-colored sandstone and brown, wine colored flagstone. The remnants show that the interior of the temple must have been painted, richly decorated with exterior decoration.

The cross building – The name was called because of the relief image of a cross on the top of the east facade window. Cross building is not a cult building. It is difficult to say exactly what purpose it had. It is built of different size stones and has two floors. The building was divided into two parts.

The ornamented building - It is a small, rectangular stand up. Only the east and north walls of the building are preserved. The walls of the building were covered with carved stones. The east wall is lined with well-trimmed wine colored slabs. On the same wall there is a front door with a carved frame. There is a carved, decorated window to the south side of the door.

One of the most important buildings of the Gudarekhi is the fence. Its perimeter is about 400 meters. The walls of the fence are lined with limestone. The wall is missing the stones all the whole length, that’s why it is unclear whether there were any boundaries. There are pillars outside about 8 meters far from each other, which are gradually getting narrowed from the down to the top. There are four rectangular holes between the pillars, which were supposed to have a combat purpose. The holes also served as a window for buildings on the walls of the fence.

The palace is located to northeast of the main church. It is built on an artificially created tank. The building is quite damaged, only the north-east and south-east walls are remained. As remnants show us, the palace consisted of a two-storey hall that must have had enlargements from the south-east and north-west. There was a wine caller on the first floor of the building. The building is based on a rock whose masses are cut into the building. The palace dates back to the XII century. The walls of the palace are mostly lined with yellow and wine colored, large slabs. There was a basin built in the southern corner of the wine caller, it must be designed for the gathering and pressing of fruits. To the south-west of the palace is a two-room building.

The stable is one of the biggest buildings built on fence wall. The construction line is similar to the fence itself. The entrance is from the north. The roofing is arched. There were one big hole and several bakeries built in the ground in different parts of the room.