Museums of Tbilisi: overview, features, interesting facts and reviews. Holidays in Georgia Useful information about the Tbilisi National Museum
There are many museums in Tbilisi on various topics. Let's take a look at the most interesting ones. It is advisable to take a local guide for an additional fee. They speak with interest and enthusiasm.
Some museums rely on the sheer enthusiasm of humble employees, such as the Underground Printing House Museum.
Other museums scare away the names of sections like "Museum of the Soviet Occupation" on the organization of which a lot of money has been spent.
Unfortunately, information about the museums of Tbilisi in Russian is scarce, so I will try to describe these museums in general terms.
If you don’t know where to hide from the sultry summer heat or vile winter rain, feel free to head to Rustaveli Avenue, it is here, in three museums, that the “property of the Republic” is stored.
By the way, now the leading museums of the country are united under a single name: “Georgian National Museum”. Because of this, there is always confusion about which museum to go to and what to see. Be careful.
For lovers of history and art, a visit is a must. For guests with children, we recommend visiting the Ethnographic Museum in Vake near Turtle Lake.
Attention
All museums in Tbilisi are closed on Mondays.
Open-air museum, on the slope of a mountain, not far from the center, near Turtle Lake in Vake Park.
The cost of a taxi from the center is 7-8 GEL. The exhibits are original houses, farm buildings, household items, etc., transported from all regions of Georgia.
The exposition of the Museum of Ethnography makes it possible, without leaving Tbilisi, to get acquainted with the numerous nationalities of Georgia and their customs.
Address: Road to Turtle Lake.
STATE MUSEUM OF ARTS OF GEORGIA
In a strict classical building, a stone's throw from Freedom Square, part of the golden fund of the Christian era is kept.
To keep the chronology, this museum in Tbilisi is worth a look after visiting the State Historical Museum, which houses the first part of the pre-Christian collection.
The significance of this section is invaluable, because in addition to medieval jewelry, cloisonné enamels and church utensils, the museum contains miraculous icons dating back to the 9th century.
Unfortunately, this is the only section available for dating. The museum requires restoration, the rest of the collection is hidden in funds and is not available. The Golden Fund is visited in the obligatory company of a regular guide.
The cost of the entrance ticket is 5 GEL, the cost of the mandatory excursion is 10 GEL. The duration of the tour is 45-60 minutes. There is no such collection in any museum in Europe.
Address: st. Gudiashvili, 1 (Square named after A. S. Pushkin near Freedom Square)
STATE MUSEUM OF GEORGIA
The State Historical Museum is located on the main street of the Georgian capital, Rustaveli Avenue, 3. It is considered the oldest in the country and unites dozens of smaller Tbilisi museums.
The exposition changes periodically in the museum. The departments of the "Soviet occupation" and the "gold fund" have a permanent character.
The funds of the museum contain the subject of Caucasian culture - utensils, weapons, jewelry, costumes, tools. individual itemsdate back to the 4th millennium BC. e.
A rich section is devoted to archaeological excavations from ancient times. The ticket price is 5 GEL.
Address: Rustaveli Avenue, 3
NATIONAL GALLERY
The historical name of the museum is the Blue Gallery. Today, the facade of the building is painted in a featureless gray, but the value of this Tbilisi museum has not been affected.
SILK MUSEUM
Just like the ethnographic museum, it undoubtedly deserves attention. The oldest museum in the country, it miraculously survived and preserved a unique exposition describing all the stages of silk production, because in Soviet times silk was produced in Georgia on an industrial scale.
Silkworm caterpillars will look at you from glass jars, and you will remember once and for all where silk comes from and how it is produced.
The cost of an entrance ticket, including a tour in Russian, is 1-3 GEL.
It is recommended to combine it with a walk along Agmashenebeli Avenue (David the Builder) from the Dry Bridge to the Dynamo Stadium, to the left of which the museum is located in a rich mansion. Monday is a day off.
We read in detail about the silk museum.
CAR MUSEUM
Unique exhibits of the Soviet automotive industry are brought into excellent shape and exhibited in a special pavilion in the not-so-attractive area of Tbilisi called "Africa".
AutoMuseum Street #7 next to Grigol Lortkipanidze str, and here is the phone number to call when you get lost looking +995 599 54 56 28.
Where to go in Tbilisi with a child
Amusement park for children in Tbilisi Mushtaid and amusement park Mtatsminda.
Or from the embankment or from the Shardeni quarter. This is a large building with three floors, which is designed to tell about the history of the city, but in fact its exposition is very, very modest and the area is used mainly for exhibitions and souvenir shops.
Story
The museum building itself is a big piece of the city's history. As many people know, in 1795 Tbilisi was burned to the ground by the Iranians. After that, the city gradually begins to recover: houses and shops are being built, and over time, they begin to build what would now be called a "shopping center". They were caravanserais. Perhaps the first was the caravanserai of the Armenian Artsruni family, built in 1818. It was built on the foundations of an older caravanserai, and it seems that the first floor (which is not visible now) is almost the 15th century.
The building had 33 hotel rooms, 24 shops and warehouses. At that time, one of the facades of the building overlooked the river, but now it faces the embankment.
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The finest hour of this caravanserai came in 1850, when the heir Alexander (future Alexander II) visited Tbilisi. On the evening of September 28, the Tiflis Armenians gave him a grand reception in the building of the caravanserai. At that time, a garden with a fountain and fish was arranged in the courtyard, and in the evening this garden was decorated with Chinese lanterns. Alexander walked along the "dark rows" (where the Sherdeni quarter is now), returned to the caravanserai, and from its balcony watched the Tiflis people arrange raft dances on Kura. All this fun lasted until midnight, after which Alexander returned to the newly built Vorontsov Palace. And the people walked for another three hours.
In those years, the caravanserai looked something like this:
The main facade was rebuilt in the Art Nouveau style at the beginning of the 20th century, and the courtyard was decorated with metal bars a little earlier.
In Soviet times, a highway was laid in front of this facade, and the level of the river was raised. They say that part of the basement of the building was flooded at that time, and they are still filled with water.
If you're interested, you can walk around the building and look at its rear facade. It used to be a waterfront.
Modernity
The museum building has three floors. The entire lower one (-1) is occupied by small shops that sell souvenirs at inflated prices. The first floor is occupied by the actual exposition of the museum, and the third floor is reserved for temporary exhibitions. Usually contemporary artists are exhibited there.
We must immediately bear in mind that there is very little history as such in the museum. You will not learn anything about the founding of the city, about the Tbilisi Emirate, about the invasion of the Khorezmians or the Persian invasion of 1795. The main theme of the exposition is Tbilisi in the 19th century. Here you will see models of old houses, all sorts of old typewriters and plates, a copy of the Tbilisi restaurant of that time and a carriage. All this is very modest and does not cost 3 GEL. It happens that the museum is of interest only to specialists, but this is a more complicated case.
The third floor is always empty. Here is painting and graphics, and as a rule, contemporary artists are exhibited here. There is little interest in them in Georgia, and the artists themselves are far from being Malevichs.
One of the halls on the third floor
An example of painting on the third floor:
formal data
Cost: 3 GEL
Students: 1 GEL
Working hours: 10:00 - 18:00
Working days: Tuesday-Sunday
Address: Old Town, Sioni Street, Building 8
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Updated 04/07/2019
The museums of Tbilisi are vast and varied, and visiting them can take many days. The largest museums of the country work in the capital of Georgia and it is extremely difficult to single out one or two among them. And yet, if you do not have much time, and there are still many sights in Tbilisi, you should limit the list of museums to visit. Below is information about the most interesting and popular among tourists museums in the capital of Tbilisi.
Tbilisi National Museum
This complex is a whole network of museums, in which includes 13 institutions throughout Georgia. Therefore, another name - the Georgian National Museum - is more correct. They founded the network at the end of 2004, when reforms were being carried out throughout the country. On the wave of changes in the law and the structure of many state institutions, the most famous Georgian museums were united into a single complex. This was done in order to optimize the management of such institutions. Professor David Lordkipanidze headed and currently manages the complex.
The National Museum of Tbilisi, or rather its prototype called the Caucasian Museum, was founded in 1825. Exhibits from all over Georgia were located here, and the museum itself was quite versatile. Throughout its history, the complex has experienced many trials, the transfer of the entire collection in 1921 to Europe, the return in 1945, damage during the change of power in 1991, a strong fire a year later. The building, which now houses the center of the National Museum - the Museum of Art of Georgia, became the base for the collections in 1920. Then, in turbulent revolutionary times, all the values of the Georgian church were transferred here. Later, a collection of archaeological finds was also formed. 
Currently, the National Museum of Tbilisi (its main building is the State Museum of Georgia) is interesting with exhibits related to the culture of the Caucasus. On the first floor there is a collection of antiquities of Georgia: weapons, coins, jewelry and pottery from the 2nd century BC. The fossilized remains of a representative of the species Homo ergaste, almost 2 million years old, are also interesting. The remains are evidence of the existence of species close to humans at that time somewhere outside of Africa. And another interesting collection is represented by stones with engraved Urartian inscriptions. The second and third floors are reserved for the museum of the Soviet occupation, which is also part of this network. I will tell about it a little lower.
Useful information about the Tbilisi National Museum
All museums of the network work the same way - from 10:00 to 18:00. The working week lasts from Tuesday to Sunday, Monday is a day off in the complex. Entrance ticket price is 5 lari(in other museums of the network, the cost may be less, up to 3 lari), and visitors under 18 can go for 0.5 lari.
Museum address: Shota Rustaveli Avenue, 3 (actually at the exit from the metro at the station "Freedom Square").
Useful information about the Pirosmani Museum
Pirosmani Museum in Tbilisi open from 11:00 to 19:00, the schedule is slightly different from the opening hours of many other museums in the Georgian capital. Weekends are regular days off - Saturday and Sunday. Entrance to the museum costs 3 lari, it does not have an official website.
You can get to the museum (Pirosmani Street, 29) on foot from the Vokzalnaya Ploshchad metro station (detailed article about).
Tbilisi Puppet Museum
The complex opened in Tbilisi in 1937. The initiator of the creation of the museum was Tinatin Tumanishvili, the author of children's books and a well-known Georgian teacher. At first, the institution occupied several rooms in a kindergarten, after which it moved to the building of the House of Pioneers. The first collection included not only dolls, but also children's dishes, books and other toys. In the 1990s, when Georgia was fighting for independence, the museum was robbed by vandals. From the collection 24 author's dolls of the masters of the Netherlands, France and Switzerland disappeared. After the robbery, the museum was closed for 15 years, and again visitors were able to view the collection only in 2008. All the years the restoration and replenishment of the collection was carried out, but those same 24 dolls were never found. The restored museum has become much larger and more popular. 
Now Tbilisi Puppet Museum has a fund of 3,000 objects, the main part of which are dolls and pupae. The time of their creation is limited to the 19th-21st centuries, and the geography is much more extensive. In addition to European toys, you can see dolls from Japan, China, and India. The works of Georgian masters also make up a significant part - many exhibits were created specifically for the collection, they are unique. In addition to ordinary specimens in the doll museum, you can see clockwork mechanical samples, folk creations, and musical figurines. The materials almost do not limit the imagination of the authors - there are works made of metal, wood, porcelain, plastic, ivory. Individual specimens are also interesting:
- Puppet doll - a girl with a pearl;
- Marina's mechanical doll that blows soap bubbles;
- dancing doll from Russia Svetlana;
- a whole ensemble that plays the chogur (analogous to domra).
Useful information about the puppet museum
Tbilisi Puppet Museum open from 11:00 to 18:00 during the light period from May to November and one hour less (until 17:00) the rest of the year. The museum is closed on Monday, like almost all museums in Tbilisi. Entrance ticket costs 3 GEL for all visitors. The address of the complex is 12 Shavteli Street, you can get here by many buses (bus stop "Baratashvili") or on foot from the metro station "Freedom Square".
In love with Georgia, Igor OZIN.
Let's hit it high: TOP-5 Tbilisi museums
4.5 (90%) VOTED 10Georgia is rich in sights and occupies one of the leading places in the region in terms of the number of museums. National Museum of Georgia is a network of more than a dozen of the largest museums. The initiator of the creation was Corresponding Member and Professor D. Lordkipanidze, and today he manages the association of thirteen museums, eight of which are located in Tbilisi.
Reasons and purpose of founding the association National Museum of Georgia
In the early 2000s, great changes took place in the country, a huge number of reforms changed the country. Cultural institutions did not stand aside, the launch of legal and institutional reforms led to the formation of a unified National Museum. On December 30, 2004, Mikhail Saakashvili, President of Georgia, signed a decree on the creation of the largest association, scientific, educational and cultural centers. The purpose of the creation is to bring the national heritage of the country to the world level.
State Museum of History - one of the oldest museums in the country
State Museum of History is one of the oldest museums in the country, founded in 1852 in the Russian Empire. After 15 years, it was renamed into the Caucasian Museum at the insistence of the Russian geographer, corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences Radde Gustav Ivanovich. And in 1919, after gaining independence from the Russian Empire, it was given the name Museum of Georgia. But after the October coup, the Bolsheviks seized the Georgian territory, the bulk of the exhibits were evacuated to Europe.
And only after the victory in the Great Patriotic War, the entire collection was returned to the museum named after Simon Dzhanashia, an outstanding historian and academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Georgian SSR, doctor of historical sciences and professor. The museum has retained this name to this day, but was unable to preserve all of its collections. During the military coup in the early 1990s, a fire partially destroyed some of the exhibits; the state of weightlessness persisted until 2004, when a united network of museums was created.
It is located in the center of the old city on Rustaveli Avenue, and occupies several buildings, which contain a huge number of exhibits. The exposition demonstrates folk ethnographic and archaeological finds from different ages, from the Bronze Age to the early twentieth century. Most importantly, all the finds are placed in chronological order and demonstrate the culture and history of the people over a huge period of time.
Valuable items:
- The largest collection of ancient coins, mostly minted in the Caucasus
- Antique icons made of metal by forging
- Lots of gold items and various jewelry
- The remains of hominids, the extinct ancestors of the most progressive apes, which were found during the excavations of Dminasi
The exposition has one of the first works of the outstanding Russian painter, one of the founders of abstractionism, Wassily Kandinsky
The only art museum that is part of the Georgian National Association
Fine Arts Exhibition located in Tbilisi near Freedom Square, 
has more than 150,000 works of masters from all over the world. The date of foundation falls on August 1923, but before that it had existed for three years in the form of an art gallery. Reminiscent of the history of the Simon Janashia Museum, the main part of the exhibits was taken to Europe in the 1920s, and returned to Georgia only in 1945, at the insistence of the Soviet government. The property of the museum includes historical manuscripts, various metal products of historical value, gold products from different centuries. The main collection - various paintings collected in different years, demonstrating the development of artistic culture in the country over many centuries. Also in the gallery there is a collection of oriental works made by artists of Persia.
Of particular interest to visitors is the world's largest collection of enamels from the 10th-12th centuries. The work of medieval master chasers, the golden cup of King Bagrat III and the cross of Queen Tamara with precious stones are amazing. And the most expensive exhibit is the holy icon of the Savior Not Made by Hands, made in the 15th century, its price is about two million dollars.
A special place is occupied by exhibits related to oriental culture, ancient and very expensive Persian carpets, as well as paintings by Repin, Surikov, Aivazovsky and others.
The fame of the most scandalous with political overtones received Museum of the Soviet Occupation- dedicated to the nation during the Soviet era. Do not confuse Soviet power with Russian, although many politicians, and not only Russians, condemned his education, linking his activities with political life. One day in 2006, during a business meeting in St. Petersburg, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke unsatisfactorily about its occurrence, arguing that the main Soviet characters, Stalin and Beria, were Georgians by nationality.
Today it contains historical documents confirming the facts of the repressions of the Soviet regime from 1921 to 1991.
Tbilisi Art Gallery
Art Gallery located in the center of the capital, it is very convenient for tourists. The building is a prototype of the exhibition palace in Rome, built according to the design of the German urban planner Albert Zeltsman. Founded in 1885 by the historical department of the Headquarters of the Caucasian Military District. In addition to paintings, there are exhibits dedicated to events during the Caucasian War, these are samples of clothing, documents and weapons.
But to this day, not a single collection has survived, except for paintings. In the 1920s, the exhibits left Georgia, were evacuated to the Krasnodar Territory, and did not return home. Only the paintings remained, which are still preserved today.
Historical Museum - the most popular among tourists
Most popular among tourists historical Museum, located near the Zion Cathedral in a huge building. Basically, various exhibitions are held, most of the space is leased to entrepreneurs for souvenir shops. Tourists simply adore them, the assortment of souvenirs is replenished regularly, and every second tourist who has visited Tbilisi will definitely look here.
Address: Tbilisi, Sioni street, 8.
Opening hours: every day, except Monday, from 9:00 to 18:00.
Ticket price: - 3 GEL, for students - 1 GEL.
