Ozurgeti

Ozurgeti (Georgian: ოზურგეთი [ɔzurgɛtʰi]) is the capital of the western Georgian province of Guria. It was formerly known as Macharadze or Makharadze (named in honor of Filipp Makaradze). It is a regional center of tea and hazelnut processing.

History

Ozurgeti was founded in the late Middle Ages and was at one time the capital of the Principality of Guria. In later centuries it became a trading center, as evidenced by the discovery of a hoard of 270 silver coins under the city (the “Ozurgeti Treasure”).

Ozurgeti was officially designated a city in 1840. In the 19th century, Frederic Dubois de Montperreux, Dimitri Bakradze, Sergey Meskhi (1878), and Tedo Sakhokia (1896) traveled to Ozurgeti and published descriptions of the city. Ozurgeti was a strategic location in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–78).

In the 19th century Governor Mikhail Vorontsov ordered the planting of Isabella grape seedlings in a garden off of the city’s central square.

After the 1917 Russian Revolution, the city and its district were renamed Makharadze in honor of the Bolshevik revolutionary Filipp Makharadze. The city reverted to its original name in the 1990s after Georgia regained independence. The borders of the city expanded in the 1990s, annexing the outlying settlement of Anaseuli.