GeorgiaOfficial tourism
Omalo

Where stone towers guard the edge of the world

Omalo

Why go

Omalo sits at 1,880 meters in Georgia's remote Tusheti region, the only year-round inhabited village of this ancient highland province. For centuries it served as the administrative and defensive heart of Tusheti, its distinctive koshki — cylindrical stone towers built by clans between the 16th and 19th centuries — rising from a plateau that drops sharply to the Pirikiti Alazani valley below. These towers, unique to Tusheti and neighboring Khevsureti, combined dwelling and fortress in times of blood feuds and raids. The village preserves one of Georgia's most intact traditional societies, where pagan rituals still thread through Orthodox practice and the Tush dialect echoes. Worth the journey for the visceral sense of standing at a genuine cultural frontier, accessible only when mountain passes allow.

On the ground See

  • The paired koshki of Omalo's upper village (zemo), including the 16th-century Keselo towers with their characteristic tapering stone forms
  • The Tush Ethnographic Museum housed in a restored tower, displaying weaponry, ritual objects, and photographs documenting the region's seasonal transhumance
  • The stone-slab village cemeteries with their distinctive pagan-Christian hybrid steles, particularly the 19th-century markers in the lower village

Practical Know before you go

Reachable only by 4WD via the Abano Pass (2,850m), typically open late June through early October; snow can block the road without warning, and the 70km drive from Alvani takes 3-4 hours of steep switchbacks.

Last reviewed 25 August 2026 · reviewed quarterly