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One more historic village is Tsikhe, named for a nearby castle. Here you can see ruins of a castle and the Virgin Mary’s Church, both of which were owned by Nakashidze family. Mamia V Gurieli destroyed the castle with help of Russian army in 1810, and there are only a centuries old oak tree and the ruins of the fence preserved on the castle’s territory now. However, the church of the castle has been preserved in good condition. Bejan Nakashidze founded calligraphy school in this church in XVII century. Inside the church, XVII century paintings are preserved which belonged to Mamuka Nakashidze and his family.
Nearby you can see other interesting places, including ruins of a church built by Starovers (Russian Orthodox missionaries) in Laituri in 1928 and the circle-shaped church of Sponieti to the right. Most interesting is the V-VIII century settlement of Vashnari, located about 2 km away from the village Gurianta. This was a real castle town surrounded by external and interior walls, towers, water pipes, religious and public buildings. The invasion of Murvan “The Deaf’ ended the existence of Vashnari. Also, nearby the Gurianta and Ozurgeti border, there is the lonely grave marker that one might mistake for a singular granve, however it is a marker of a mass grave of many Georgians who died fighting for independence against Ottoman Emire in April, 1918.