MUSEUMS

The Museum of Georgia is located in Tbilisi city center – on the Shota Rustaveli Avenue. Museum is easily accessible by public transportation or taxi. The museum houses an outstanding collection of archaeological treasury – local and imported ancient objects, which date back from the 3rd millennium BC. Visitors can also enjoy two permanent exhibitions: the one, describing natural history of Caucasus, and Georgia’s Soviet Occupation exhibition. 

The Open Air Museum of Ethnography lies in Vake district, on the road towards the Turtle Lake in English. There are 70 examples of different traditional Georgian buildings spread over 65 hectares of land. It’s a unique museum in that you can “visit” almost any region of Georgia in a couple of hours and learn about the traditions and architecture of that particular area.

Georgian Museum of Fine Arts is a private art museum located on the Rustaveli Avenue in Tbilisi. The construction broke ground in 2013 and is the only building in Georgia built purposely to house art exhibitions.  The museum houses over 3500 artworks, created by over 80 artists during the last 70 years.

The National Gallery is also located in a so called museum area, on Shota Rustaveli Avenue. The entrance of the gallery is hidden under the shadows of the trees in  Park of 9 April. Visitors of the National Gallery can enjoy fascinating collections of Georgian paintings and sculpture; among them is the largest collection of Niko Pirosmani’ works, which is equally interesting and amusing for adults as well as for children. Guided tours are offered in Georgian, Russian and English languages. The place is a wonderful destination for lovers of terrace cafes – you can enjoy your drink on a terrace, overlooking the green massive of 9 April Park and then have a walk/rest in the pleasant green area of the city center.

Throughout centuries Svaneti was the safe-house of Georgia’s treasury during invasions. Nowadays these treasures are gathered in the collections of Svaneti Museum in Mestia and make up one of the most important collections, stored in Georgian museums. Apart from displaying unique masterpieces of local and imported arts and crafts, Svaneti museum is an important regional social space with its new mediatheque, adapted lobby and a roof-terrace (in summer). A cup of tasty coffee in a cafe with panoramic view on Svaneti towers and Tetnuldi peak will improve your mood and supply with new energy before you continue your journey further, upper to Ushguli – which is considered Europe’s highest permanently settled village. 

Sighnaghi- known as the city of love  has the best museum in Kakheti region. This well-displayed, modern museum has good exhibits on Kakheti archaeology and history downstairs, and a room of 13 paintings by Kakheti-born artist Niko Pirosmani (1862–1918) upstairs. This is the biggest collection of the self-taught painter's work outside the National Gallery in Tbilisi, and includes several famous canvases including Vintage and Feast in a Grape Gazebo. An eye-catching view of Alazani valley and Caucasus mountains opens from the museum terrace.

The Samtskhe–Javakheti History Museum is a museum in Akhaltsikhe, Samtskhe–Javakheti, Georgia, founded in 1923. In its current renovated form, the museum was opened in 2012 as part of the Georgian National Museum network. It is located on the territory of the reconstructed fortress of Akhaltsikhe, known as "Rabati". The  museum has well-displayed exhibits ranging from archaeological finds from the 4th-millennium-BC Kura-Araxes culture to Christian stone carvings, Ottoman and Georgian weaponry, and regional costumes from the 18th and 19th centuries.

The Nobel Brothers Batumi Technological Museum is housed in the old “Batumi Office” of the Nobel brothers’ Branobel oil company, which was converted into a museum in 2007. The museum highlights the technological achievements introduced to Batumi at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.
In the early 1900s, the Nobel brothers of Sweden were among those who made fortunes exporting oil that had been piped from Baku in Azerbaijan through Georgia to the Black Sea port of Batumi for onward distribution to European markets. Investments in infrastructure by the oil barons helped Batumi to develop rapidly and by the late 19th century it was the chief Russian oil port in the Black Sea and a major refinery of crude oil.
The museum’s exhibits provide a fascinating insight into the development of technology, including printing, and photography.