Tusheti

Tusheti is an historic mountainous region of Georgia which today forms part of Georgia's eastern region of Kakheti. The largest village in Tusheti is Omalo.

In the past, Tushetian Gouda cheese and its high quality wool have been famous and were exported to Europe and Russia. Even today sheep and cattle breeding is the leading sector of the economy.

History

The first inhabitants of Tusheti were the pagan Georgians from Pkhovi who took refuge in the mountains during their rebellion against Christianisation in the 330s. Eventually however, they were forcibly converted to Christianity by the Georgian kings.

After the collapse of the unified Georgian monarchy, Tusheti came under the rule of Kakhetian kings. When the North Caucasian Bats people (relatives of the Chechens and Ingushes) began settling in Tusheti in the sixteenth century, they were granted lands in the Alvani Valley in exchange for their military service.

Known to the local Georgians as the Tsova-Tushs, they have a high degree of assimilation and are typically bilingual using both Georgian and their own Bats languages.