GeorgiaOfficial tourism
Likani Church of St. George

Where royal grounds guard painted saints

Likani Church of St. George

Why go

Tucked within the forested estate of Likani Palace lies a diminutive stone church that has witnessed nine centuries of Georgian history. Built in the 10th century, this single-nave structure served the spiritual needs of medieval nobility long before the palace rose around it. Its interior shelters rare early medieval frescoes—faded but still legible layers of pigment showing the equestrian St. George and fragments of a donor portrait, painted in a transitional style bridging Byzantine formality with emerging Georgian artistic identity. The church endures as a quiet witness to the region's layered past: a sacred space absorbed first into a tsarist summer residence, then a Soviet sanatorium complex, now a presidential retreat—yet always preserving its intimate sanctity beneath the canopy of pine and oak.

On the ground See

  • The 10th-century fresco of St. George on horseback in the apse, with traces of original ochre and lapis pigments
  • The exterior stonework showing typical Samtskhe-Javakheti masonry techniques of the period, with carefully fitted river stones
  • The juxtaposition of medieval church and 19th-century Likani Palace architecture within the same walled grounds

Practical Know before you go

Access requires permission as the church sits within the restricted presidential residence grounds; arrange visits through Borjomi Tourist Information or guided tours, best attempted April–October when administrative staff are present.

Last reviewed 25 August 2026 · reviewed quarterly