Georgia’s capital is home to major museums housed in beautiful buildings which showcase its history and art from the earliest inhabitants to the present day. But there are also other smaller institutions that explore the avant-garde, folklore, the Soviet occupation and the pulse of a city that’s open to all kinds of avant-garde movements.
- The cultural landscape of Tbilisi, a city beyond its Soviet heritage
- National Museum of Georgia, the place that showcases history
- Georgian Art Museum: creation, piece by piece
- Tbilisi Puppet Museum, ideal for families
- Tbilisi Art Gallery, a haven for great artists
- Georgian Museum of Ethnography, one of the most popular museums
- Centre for Contemporary Art, the laboratory of ideas
- Museums for children and families
The cultural landscape of Tbilisi, a city beyond its Soviet heritage
Georgia’s capital is a unique place to find everything from classic museums with art collections that demonstrate how the city has evolved, to emerging contemporary art galleries that have turned Tbilisi into a hub for many of the region’s current artists.
What’s more, the organisation of festivals is establishing Tbilisi as a cultural hub of the Caucasus, and it hosts several music festivals of all kinds. It also hosts the International Theatre Festival and the Tbilisi International Film Festival.
If you enjoy folklore and the performing arts, the best time to visit Tbilisi is in May, when the Tbilisi-Mtskheta Art Inspirations Festival takes place, offering traditional dance and music alongside a wide range of cultural events.
National Museum of Georgia, the place that showcases history
Located in the city centre, on Shota Rustaveli Avenue, it’s a three-storey building in the traditional Georgian style, just a short walk from Freedom Square. This museum forms part of a complex that also includes the Museum of Soviet Occupation, the Tbilisi History Museum, the Georgian Art Museum and the Open Air Museum of Ethnography, among others
Inside, visitors can explore archaeological collections dating back to the Bronze Age, such as the Trialeti finds and objects spanning millennia of Caucasian history; as well as the so-called Treasures of Georgia, which include iconic pieces such as Colchian gold masks, small ancient sculptures and manuscripts such as The Knight in the Panther’s Skin.
On the upper floors of this same building is the Museum of Soviet Occupation, a key place to help visitors understand present-day Georgia, as it directly recounts the history of the 20th century, from the Soviet occupation to independence.
Georgian Art Museum: creation, piece by piece
This place is also known as the Shalva Amiranashvili Museum of Fine Arts. Located right in the centre of Tbilisi, very close to Rustaveli, it forms a cultural corridor alongside other institutions such as the National Gallery, which has greatly influenced its organisation, the National Museum and the Rustaveli Theatre.
Inside, there are 140,000 pieces of Georgian, Oriental, Russian and European art dating from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, including icons, goldsmithing, textiles and modern painting.
It offers a more comprehensive overview, making it easy to understand how Tbilisi has become a crossroads of cultures today, with a visual imagination that ranges from the medieval icon to the most modern structures that have shaped its artistic development.
Tbilisi Puppet Museum, ideal for families
This museum specialises in traditional Georgian puppet theatre and is aimed at family audiences and lovers of the folk performing arts. Inside, it houses collections of over 3,000 traditional and contemporary puppets from more than 40 countries, as well as miniature stage sets, sketches and objects related to the history of puppet theatre in Georgia.
The space was created in 1937 by the children’s writer Tinatin Tumanishvili, who sought to highlight play as an important educational tool.
It also offers visitors the chance to see a performance in a small theatre organised to keep a key tradition in Tbilisi’s cultural development alive.
Located on David Aghmashenebeli Avenue, it’s well worth making the trip to this neighbourhood, which is less touristy but also has important 19th-century buildings and very stylish local cafés.
Tbilisi Art Gallery, a haven for great artists
The Tbilisi Art Gallery is what is officially known as the National Gallery of Georgia, one of the most important spaces in Tbilisi for understanding modern and contemporary Georgian painting.
Situated on Shota Rustaveli Avenue, it forms part of the major cultural corridor that it shares with the National Museum, the Georgian Art Museum and the Rustaveli Theatre.
It’s a historic building constructed during the Tsarist era, in a 19th-century style, with a highly ornate façade, which has led to it being known as the “Blue Gallery”.
In 2007, it was incorporated into the National Museum of Georgia complex and, in fact, has a modern wing there with important exhibitions by contemporary artists.
The Gallery is home to some 30,000 works, focused on Georgian painting, sculpture, graphic art and applied art from the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as temporary exhibitions. Among the great names to be found in its halls are Niko Pirosmani, Lado Gudiashvili, David Kakabadze and Elene Akvlediani.
Georgian Museum of Ethnography, one of the most popular museums
The Open Air Museum of Ethnography, located in a wooded area near Vake Park, is one of the most popular museums in Tbilisi and in the whole of Georgia, as it explains life in the country’s different regions through over 70 buildings from every corner of Georgia, showing the differences between the wooden houses of the mountains and the stone structures of the east.
It also has a farm and an important display of original tools, furniture, carpets and kitchen utensils which narrate the historical evolution of this territory in an immersive way.
Centre for Contemporary Art, the laboratory of ideas
Georgia, and Tbilisi in particular, has become a major attraction for many young artists from the region who have found the perfect space of freedom in which to develop their projects. And one of the greatest sources of support is, without a doubt, this Centre for Contemporary Art, which was created in 2010 and has already organised over 300 exhibitions that prioritise critical thinking.
Within its network, Project ArtBeat, TBC Gallery, Artarea Gallery, Moma Tbilisi and Art Gallery Line are all working to attract new national and international talent with a wide variety of artistic languages.
Museums for children and families
As well as the Puppet Museum, one of the most special for younger visitors, there are other spaces that are perfect for a family outing, such as the Museum of Illusions, located right in the city centre, which is a fun option for children thanks to its halls of mirrors, upside-down rooms and optical illusions.
You could also organise a visit to the Experimentorium – Science Museum, which has over 80 interactive activities on various scientific disciplines designed to engage both children and adults through hands-on learning.
