Tbilisi Ethnographic Museum – The Giorgi Chitaia Open Air Museum of Ethnography is located 3 km south-west from Tbilisi at the Turtle Lake. It was founded in 1960. As of today, one of the most visited museums in Georgia includes a collection exceeding a hundred exhibits. However, the uniqueness of this museum is that the entire exhibition of the museum represents a kind of a Georgian village where every house and every estate are a reflection of the different eras of Georgian history.
The open air museum is impressive in its beauty and diversity. You can walk for hours, studying the Georgian everyday life of all the eras and regions. Besides the houses, their interior decoration is also of a particular interest. Inside them, you can see household items and furniture, traditional clothing, embroidery, various home decorations specific to each region.
Of huge interest are collections of weapons, the Georgians were famous for in the Middle Ages: knives, swords and daggers, plain and gem-incrusted, sine qua non for any Georgian man. In addition to the houses, the museum also displays other home facilities: forges, stables, wine cellars, “Merani”, barns, cow houses and many other household items. The museum also represents carpets and handmade tapestries, which were exhibited in Paris and received a wide recognition.