KUTAISI, Georgia -- Lauded by UNESCO as a "masterpiece" and famed for its vivid and intricate murals, the Gelati Monastery is one of Georgia's national treasures.
So, in spring 2020, it came as quite a shock for many Georgians to see the country's 12th-century Orthodox monastery, a revered symbol of an independent Georgia, in a state of disrepair, a blue tarpaulin partially covering its roof. After a costly renovation a few months earlier, the repaired roof was leaking, badly damaging the priceless murals inside.
The public outcry to the photographs, widely shared on social media and discussed in the press and on TV, was swift and strong. There was, people felt, good reason to be worried.
In 2017, the nearby Bagrati Cathedral, an iconic example of 11th-century Georgian architecture, was removed from UNESCO's World Heritage List after its appearance was changed due to a much-criticized reconstruction. Many Georgians feared that Gelati would be next to be struck from UNESCO's prestigious list, with campaigners saying the government's response had been inadequate and opaque, endangering Georgia's unique cultural heritage.
An exterior view of the Gelati monastery.
Nestled in the foothills of the Northern Caucasus Mountains, the sandstone monastery -- which is made up of three churches, a bell tower, and an educational academy -- is still in a state of disrepair. Its renowned murals, depicting saints and figures from Georgian history, have been damaged in many places by rainwater leaking in through the new roof. And with the rainy winter weather coming, two of the churches are still covered with a temporary roof, which experts fear continues to put the fragile interiors at risk.
However, Ioseb Burjanadze, an Orthodox priest and head of the Gelati Monastery, told RFE/RL that everything was going according to plan.
"Restoration work is under way. We do not know when it will end. Everything has been done very well," Burjanadze said.
Orthodox priest Ioseb Burjanadze at the Gelati Monastery.
The main entrance at Gelati was still closed, however, and journalists were not allowed inside. State security police guard the door, not a usual occurrence at a Georgian monastery. Some parts of the buildings are cordoned off with yellow tape and surrounded by scaffolding.
St. George's, one of the monastery's three churches, remains open for religious services. The parishioners who come here weekly still don't know when the main church will open or when the reconstruction will be finished.
"I am very sorry for this place," Marina Lomtatidze, who has been coming to Gelati every week for 30 years, told RFE/RL. "Gelati is the heart of Georgia, a symbol of our culture, history, and faith. And I want to know what will happen here, but we cannot understand anything. No one knows anything."
Many of the locals are dependent on Gelati for their livelihoods and have opened hotels and guest houses in the area.
A view into the courtyard at the Gelati monastery.
Gelati has a unique place in Georgian history. The monastic complex was founded by David IV, popularly known as David the Builder, who heralded Georgia's Golden Age and reunited the country. The monastery hosts classic mosaics in the Byzantine style, including a 12th-century mosaic that depicts the Virgin Mary and child in between two archangels. King David wanted to make Gelati both a place of worship and education, and it still holds allure for Georgia's political leaders. In 2004, after the country's Rose Revolution, newly elected President Mikheil Saakashvili swore an oath inside Gelati at David the Builder's tomb.
In 2014, the government started the reconstruction of the main church inside Gelati. The primary goal was to renovate the old, damaged roof. The U.S. Embassy in Georgia allocated money for the first phase of the reconstruction; the second phase was funded by the World Bank.
Then-President Mikheil Saakashvili swears an oath at the tomb of David the Builder in January 2004.
The National Agency for the Preservation Of Georgian Cultural Heritage was originally tasked with managing the project. Originally, the agency contracted a company to repair the roof. Now, five people who work for the Tbilisi Theological Academy, a body under the Patriarchate of the Orthodox Church, are working to ascertain how much damage has been done to the mural paintings.
Agency inspectors visited Gelati in December 2019 and did not mention any problems with the roof. But after the publication of the photos and the subsequent public outrage, the government informed UNESCO in September 2020 that the newly tiled roof was broken and leaking, causing rainwater to damage a mural painting, a mosaic, and some of the building's stonework.
The government promised UNESCO that it would save Gelati and would invite foreign specialists to advise them on the correct course of action. Representatives of the Georgian Orthodox Church, which officially administers the Gelati site, didn't say a word.
The interior of the monastery. Some of the murals date back to the 12th century.
The specter of Bagrati Cathedral -- widely regarded as a masterpiece of medieval Georgian architecture and only 10 kilometers from Gelati -- loomed over everything. In the early 2010s, UNESCO said that work on Bagrati risked changing the building's original appearance. Despite the repeated warnings, Bagrati was taken off UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 2017 for reconstruction that was seen as compromising the building's authenticity and integrity.
Despite the damage, for the devoted campaigners there is still hope for Gelati. Tornike Baratashvili, who has been visiting the monastery every day since the beginning of 2020, is the founder of the Kutaisi-based NGO Europe Is Our House. Through his Facebook account, he has updated Georgians about the progress of the reconstruction work, including photos and videos documenting the damaged roof and broken tiles.
The Europe Is Our House NGO is documenting the damage at the Gelati Monastery.
"We are still far from the final result. However, our activity over the last year and a half has aroused the interest of many specialists and the public in the Gelati story," Baratashvili said. "Continuous monitoring has forced the government to acknowledge the failure of the roof restoration process."
Italian experts visited Gelati this summer, also confirming the roof was damaged and recommending that the government repair the roof and save the paintings. Georgia's Culture Ministry has now taken over the management of the project and announced in September that it was working on a plan based on these recommendations.
Tornike Baratashvili, the founder of Europe Is Our House.
Mzia Janjalia was one of the first to demand that foreign experts be involved in saving Gelati. She is an art historian and a senior researcher at the Giorgi Chubinashvili National Research Center for the History of Georgian Art and Protection of Monuments, an organization affiliated with the Culture Ministry. Janjalia told RFE/RL that the ministry is repeating the same mistake with the mural paintings as the agency did in repairing the roof. It has been a systemic failure from the very beginning, Janjalia said, and much of that is due to a lack of transparency and checks and balances.
"The state is still operating behind closed doors, and the process is still opaque. The difference is that instead of the agency, the ministry's political leadership leads the process now, and decisions essentially depend on the ministry's will and the minister's taste. The culture minister and her team have a legal education and background and have no experience in the field," Janjalia said.
Despite repeated attempts, the Culture Ministry did not respond to RFE/RL's questions on the reconstruction of Gelati.
Georgia's Bagrati Cathedral was taken off UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 2017.
Parliamentary deputy Ana Natsvlishvili, a member of the Lelo opposition party, is also trying to raise awareness about the problematic reconstruction and is seeking answers from the culture minister. She has sent formal queries through parliamentary channels, where ministers are obliged to respond; however, she has yet to receive an answer.
"What is happening around Gelati? The main problem here is the closure of the system and the opacity of information. The monastery has been completely closed, and even the minimal monitoring that was carried out by activists and organizations can no longer be done. I was in Gelati three times and even with the naked eye, I could see that the walls were wet and the [mural] paintings were damaged," Natsvlishvili told RFE/RL.
The campaigners' voices are now clearly being heard.
On December 3, Culture Minister Tea Tsulukiani said that Gelati's new tile roof probably needed to be demolished due to its bad quality.
People visiting the monastery in July 2017.
High up on the hillside and exposed to the elements, the Gelati Monastery has weathered storms before, both literal and metaphorical. According to an account from 1846 in Merab Kezevadze's book The Gelati Monastery During The Exarchate, a specialist had to be brought from abroad because in the Kutaisi valley a tin master could not be found to repair the roof.
The monastery survived in 1846. Gelati's campaigners are hoping it will once again.