Nokalakevi: read the fortress city in three parts
Use the lower city, hillside garrison and plateau citadel to understand Nokalakevi, then separate its ruins from the museum collection.
Nokalakevi's remains and its museum collection answer different questions. Georgia Travel calls the site Tsikhegoji and Archaeopolis and describes a three-part city. Use that plan to decide whether you want to understand the settlement's shape, its archaeological finds or its church history.
Read the settlement by elevation
Georgia Travel divides the former city into a main settlement, a slope used for the garrison and an inner fortress on the plateau. It places the city across about twenty hectares. That layout gives the visitor a useful order of attention: settlement, defense, citadel. Treat it as a way to read the place rather than a marked trail, since the source does not describe a current route between the zones.
Use the museum for finds, not another city overview
The regional administration page describes ceramic animal figures, imported pottery, Hellenistic burials and jewelry among Nokalakevi's finds. It also discusses palaces, baths, a reservoir and a tunnel among the built remains. These objects and structures give the museum and archaeological site different jobs: one helps compare material traces, while the other shows where parts of the former city stood. The page does not guarantee that a named object is currently on display.
Keep the church's two dates separate
Georgia Travel identifies the Church of the Forty Martyrs as a sixth-century domed church and describes later, sixteenth-to-eighteenth-century painted decoration. The construction date does not date the paintings. If the church is your priority, confirm current access to its interior before planning around the decoration.
Choose the emphasis that fits your visit
City layout
Use the lower settlement, garrison slope and plateau as a historical reading sequence. This is not a claim about current paths or accessible zones.
Finds and chronology
Use the regional account of excavated objects to frame a museum visit, then read the ruins as their wider setting. Confirm current displays with the operator.
Parmen Zakaraia Nokalakevi Architectural-Archaeological Museum-Reserve
The Nokalakevi Museum-Reserve is a National Agency for Cultural Heritage Preservation site on the Tekhuri River, with a three-part former city and an archaeological museum.
Sources & checks
- Nokalakevi Archaeological Museum-ReserveAdministration of the State Representative in Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti. Museum-reserve history, early finds and built remains. Georgian-language page.. Checked 24 October 2026.
- Nokalakevi Museum-ReserveGeorgian National Tourism Administration. Bounded history, baths, museum objects and Church of the Forty Martyrs; no current visitor details used.. Checked 24 October 2026.
Image credits
- Nokalakevi Church and adjacent masonry remains. Photograph by შალვა მინდაძე 11, 2025. Resized.. შალვა მინდაძე 11 (Commons username), CC BY-SA 4.0. Orientation baked; resized and converted to sRGB WebP and AVIF. Full source frame retained. EXIF/XMP removed from derivatives. No object, sky or architectural alteration..
