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Ozurgeti is a small city which is quite easy to navigate on foot or riding a bike.
Ozurgeti emerged in the 16th century as a trading town and as the administrative center of Guria. The oldest structures in Ozurgeti are the ruins of Gurieli Baths. The structures are surrounded by concrete blocks for some reason. It is hard to discover any other traces of the medieval parts of the town.
There is a garden of the town adjacent to the Baths which was built by Mamia V Gurieli with help of the Scottish agronomist, Jacob Marr. The garden is divided into three parts and there is a huge theatre building located within it. There is no other large theatre of its kind in Georgia. A small portion of XIX century Ozurgeti is located at the end of the garden. Here you will find one of the palaces of Gurieli, a two-story house, which now belongs to the Patriarchate and the wooden oda houses which characterize Gurian traditions. The commercial center of the town is old Saparaskevo and from here its an easy walk to the historic district of the town. Here the Archeological Museum is located and you will be able to find the oldest school of Ozurgeti. That so many nationally famous politicians, scientists and public figures came out of this provincial town is a miracle. Some examples are: Noe Jordania, Noe Ramishvili, Egnate Ninoshvili, Isidore Ramishvili, Silibistro Jibladze, Gerasime Makharadze, Apolon Tsuladze, Solomon Tseishvili, Avqsenti Megrelidze, and Filipe Gogichaishvili. Ozurgeti’s History Museum is located directly by the baths and the Folklore Center is located in the building. Ozurgeti is famous folklore tradition and hosts international folklore festival every autumn. Philimon Koridze lived and worked here. He was the first Georgian musician to record Georgian chants in music notes and so that they could be retained for the future generations.
Ozurgeti also has an art gallery and there is a cinema nearby, however it is no longer operational.
Generally, Ozurgeti was very actively engaged in developing Georgian cinema. Germane Gogitidze built one of the first Georgian cinemas in Ozurgeti in 1910. This was the place, where Germine Gogitidze and Aleqsander Tsutsunava started to shoot the first Georgian movie – Qristine.
The appearance of present-day Ozurgeti was developed in Soviet times and the railway station is an interesting building displaying Soviet-era architecture.