Bagrat Fortress

Bagrat's Castle is a ruined medieval castle near Sukhumi, Georgia’s breakaway republic of Abkhazia, close to the Black Sea coast. It is named after the Georgian king Bagrat, either Bagrat III or Bagrat IV, and traditionally dated to the late 10th or 11th century.

The castle stands in ruins on a hill on the left bank of the Basla river, in the south-eastern portion of Sukhumi, measuring 55 x 27 m in total area. The surviving structures are walls, rising to 10-12 m in height, of an oval-shape edifice with a rectangular tower guarding the entrance gateway, which shows traces of tunnels. Archaeological digs, supervised by Mikhail Trapsh in the 1950s, revealed remains of fortified structures, wine jars, jugs, glazed pottery, and other items dating from the 12th to the 14th century.