, a 6th century monument, is the oldest surviving church in Tbilisi
Early history Archaeologists discovered evidence of continuous habitation of the Tbilisi suburb of Dighomi since the early Bronze Age, and stone artifacts dating to the Paleolithic age. During the late Bronze Age to early Iron Age, it was the largest settlement in the Caucasus. According to legend, the present-day territory of Tbilisi was covered by forests as late as 458. One widely accepted variant of the Tbilisi foundation myth states that King
Vakhtang I of Iberia () went hunting in the heavily wooded region with a
falcon (sometimes the falcon is replaced with either a
hawk or other small
birds of prey in the legend). The king's falcon allegedly caught or injured a
pheasant during the hunt, after which both birds fell into a nearby
hot spring and died from burns. King Vakhtang became so impressed with the hot springs that he decided to clear the forest and build a city on the location. King
Dachi of Iberia (), the successor of Vakhtang I, moved the capital of Iberia from
Mtskheta to Tbilisi and began construction of the fortress wall that lined the city's new boundaries. From the sixth century, Tbilisi grew at a steady pace due to the region's strategic location along with important trade and travel routes between Europe and Asia.
Foreign domination Tbilisi's favorable trade location, however, did not necessarily bode well for its survival. Located strategically in the heart of the
Caucasus between Europe and Asia, Tbilisi became an object of rivalry among the region's various powers such as the
Roman Empire,
Parthia,
Sassanid Persia,
Muslim Arabs, the
Byzantine Empire, and the
Seljuk Turks. The cultural development of the city was somewhat dependent on who ruled the city at various times, although Tbilisi was fairly cosmopolitan. From 570 to 580, the Persians ruled the city until 627, when
Tbilisi was sacked by the
Byzantine/
Khazar armies and later, in 736–738, Arab armies
entered the town under
Marwan II. After this point, the
Arabs established an
emirate centered in Tbilisi.
Arabic dirhams were brought to Georgia following the Arab conquest in the seventh century, and a mint was founded in Tbilisi that produced coins with inscriptions in both
Arabic and Georgian. In 764, Tbilisi – still under Arab control – was once again sacked by the Khazars. In 852, the armies of Arab leader
Bugha Al-Turki invaded Tbilisi in order to enforce its return to
Abbasid allegiance. The Arab domination of Tbilisi continued until about 1050. In 1065, the
Seljuk Sultan
Alp Arslan campaigned against the
Kingdom of Georgia, subjugated Tbilisi, and built a mosque in the city.
Capital of Georgia In 1121, after the
Battle of Didgori against the
Seljuks, the troops of King
David IV of Georgia besieged Tbilisi, taking it in 1122. David moved his residence from
Kutaisi to Tbilisi, making it the capital of a unified
Georgian State, thus inaugurating the
Georgian Golden Age. From the 12–13th centuries, Tbilisi became a regional power with a thriving economy and astonishing cultural output. By the end of the 12th century, the population of Tbilisi had reached 100,000. The city also became an important literary and cultural center, not only for Georgia, but also for the
Eastern Orthodox world of the time. During
Queen Tamar's reign,
Shota Rustaveli worked in Tbilisi while writing his legendary epic poem ''
The Knight in the Panther's Skin''. This period is often referred to as "Georgia's Golden Age" or the Georgian
Renaissance.
Mongol domination and other instability , depicting Georgian Black Sea coast and Tiflis, 1339 Tbilisi's "Golden Age" did not last for more than a century. In 1226, Tbilisi was captured by the
Khwarezmian Empire under Shah
Jalal al-Din, who massacred tens of thousands of Christians. The Khwarezmian occupation left Tbilisi's defenses severely devastated and prone to further attacks by Mongol armies. In 1236, after suffering crushing
Mongol defeats, Georgia submitted to
Mongol domination. The nation itself maintained a form of "semi-independence" and did not lose its statehood, but Tbilisi would be strongly influenced by the Mongols for the next century, both politically and culturally. In the 1320s, the Mongols retreated from Georgia, and Tbilisi became the capital of an independent Georgian state, once again. However, an outbreak of the
Black Death struck the city in 1366. Between the late 14th century and the late 18th century, Tbilisi would again be under the rule of various foreign powers. On several occasions, the city would even be completely burned and razed to the ground. On 22 November 1386, Tbilisi was sacked by the armies of
Timur. Timur invaded the
Kingdom of Georgia seven more times. In 1440, the city was
invaded and looted by
Jahan Shah of the
Qara Qoyunlu. From 1477 to 1478, the city was held by the
Aq Qoyunlu tribesmen of
Uzun Hassan.
Iranian and Ottoman control , 1671 .
Metekhi Church seen to the left. As early as the 1510s, Tbilisi (and the kingdoms of
Kartli and
Kakheti) were made vassal territories of
Safavid Iran. In 1522, Tbilisi was garrisoned for the first time by a large Safavid force. Following the death of king (
shah)
Ismail I (r. 1501–1524), king
David X of Kartli expelled the Iranians. During this period, many parts of Tbilisi were reconstructed and rebuilt. The four campaigns of the king
Tahmasp I (r. 1524–1576) resulted in the reoccupation of Kartli and Kakheti, and a Safavid force was permanently stationed in Tbilisi from 1551 onwards, reinforced with the 1555
Treaty of Amasya. Tbilisi was captured by the Ottomans in 21-24 August 1578, under
Osman Pasha and
Mustafa Pasha, following the departure of
David XI ("Daud Khan") from the city, during the
Ottoman–Safavid War (1578–1590). It would remain under Ottoman control for the next 40 years. From 1614 to 1747, with brief intermissions, Tbilisi was an important city under Iranian rule, and it functioned as a seat of the Iranian vassal kings of Kartli whom the shah conferred with the title of
vali. In 1718, the Venetian senate implored the
Safavid emperor Soltan Hoseyn to protect the Catholic Armenians and Capuchin missionaries in Tbilisi from the Gregorian Armenians. Under the later rules of
Teimuraz II and
Heraclius II, Tbilisi became a vibrant political and cultural center free of foreign rule—but, fearful of the constant threat of invasion, Georgia's rulers sought Russian protection in the 1783
Treaty of Georgievsk. Despite this agreement, the city was
captured and devastated in 1795 by the Iranian
Qajar ruler
Agha Mohammad Khan.
Russian control In 1801, the
Russian Empire annexed the Georgian
Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti, of which Tbilisi was one of the most significant urban centers. Within Tsarist Russia, Tbilisi (known then as Tiflis) was included within the
Tiflis Uyezd county in 1801, part of what was initially the
Georgia Governorate. Following the establishment of the
Tiflis Governorate (
Gubernia) in 1846, Tbilisi became its capital. Russian Imperial administrators implemented a new Western-style city plan and commissioned new buildings and infrastructure, including roads and railroads connecting Tbilisi to other important cities in the
Russian Empire, such as
Batumi and
Poti. By the 1850s, Tbilisi once again emerged as a major trade and cultural center, with many foreign, including Western European, entrepreneurs operating. The likes of
Ilia Chavchavadze,
Akaki Tsereteli,
Mirza Fatali Akhundzade,
Iakob Gogebashvili,
Alexander Griboyedov and many other statesmen, poets and artists all found their home in Tbilisi. The city was visited on numerous occasions by and was the object of affection of
Alexander Pushkin,
Leo Tolstoy,
Mikhail Lermontov, the
Romanov family and others. The main new artery built under Russian administration was Golovin Avenue (present-day
Rustaveli Avenue), on which the
Viceroys of the Caucasus established their residence. For much of the early 19th century, Tbilisi's largest ethnic group was Armenian, at some point forming 74.3% of the population. File:Old Tbilisi - XIX century.jpg|"Dry Bridge", constructed by Italian architect Antonio Scudieri File:Rustavelis Gamziri old.jpg|View on
Golovin Avenue as seen from the site of present-day
Freedom Square File:Tbilisi XIXc 01.jpg|Building of the
Tbilisi City Hall File:Tbilisi XIXc 04.jpg|Grand Hotel "Kavkaz" in central Tbilisi, c 1900 File:Image-Tbilisi XIXc 05.jpg|Building of the
Art Museum of Georgia, built at the end of the 1830s, photo ca. 1900 File:Tbilisi, Metekhi Castle and Church from Tatar Square in 1890s.png|Tatar bazaar and with the
Metekhi Orthodox church seen on the cliff File:Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Tbilisi (ტფილისის სამხედრო ტაძარი).jpg|
Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, demolished by the Soviets to make way for the present
Parliament building , 1837
Brief independence After the
Russian Revolution of 1917, the city served as a location of the
Transcaucasus interim government which established, in the spring of 1918, the short-lived independent
Transcaucasian Federation with the capital in Tbilisi. At this time, Tbilisi had roughly the same number of Armenians as Georgians, with Russians being the third largest ethnic group. It was in the former Viceroy of the Caucasus's palace where the independence of three Transcaucasus nations – Georgia,
Armenia and
Azerbaijan – was declared by their respective national councils on 26 to 28 May 1918. After this, Tbilisi functioned as the capital of the
Democratic Republic of Georgia until 25 February 1921. From 1918 to 1919, the city also consecutively served as the headquarters of the country's
German garrison and later the
British 27th Division; Tbilisi was also the main office of the British Chief Commissioner in Transcaucasia,
Oliver Wardrop and the High Commissioner to Armenia, Colonel
William N. Haskell. Under the national government, Tbilisi turned into the first Caucasian University City after the
Tbilisi State University was founded in 1918. On 25 February 1921, the
Bolshevist Russian 11th
Red Army invaded Tbilisi and after bitter fighting at the outskirts of the city, declared Soviet rule.
Soviet rule Tbilisi on 25 February 1921 In 1921, the
Democratic Republic of Georgia was
occupied by the Soviet
Bolshevik forces from Russia, and until 1936, Tbilisi functioned first as the capital city of the
Transcaucasian SFSR (which included Armenia,
Azerbaijan, and Georgia), and afterward until 1991 as the capital of the
Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. During Soviet rule, Tbilisi's population grew significantly, the city became more industrialized, and it also came to be an important political, social, and cultural centre of the Soviet Union. In 1980, the city hosted the first state-sanctioned
rock festival in the USSR. As a major tourist destination for both Soviet citizens and foreign visitors, Tbilisi's "Old Town" (the neighborhoods within the original city walls) was reconstructed in the 1970s and 1980s. Tbilisi witnessed mass anti-Russian demonstrations during 1956 in the
9 March Massacre, in protest against the anti-Stalin policies of
Nikita Khrushchev.
Peaceful protests occurred in 1978, and in 1989 the
April 9 tragedy was a peaceful protest that turned violent.
Post-independence Since the
break-up of the Soviet Union, Tbilisi has experienced periods of significant instability and turmoil. After a brief civil war, which the city endured for two weeks from December 1991 to January 1992 (when pro-
Gamsakhurdia and Opposition forces clashed), Tbilisi became the scene of frequent armed confrontations among various
mafia clans and illegal business operators. During the
Shevardnadze Era (1992–2003), crime and corruption were rampant. Many segments of society became impoverished because of unemployment caused by the crumbling economy. Average citizens of Tbilisi started to become increasingly disillusioned with the existing quality of life in the city (and in the nation in general). Mass protests took place in November 2003 after falsified parliamentary elections forced more than 100,000 people into the streets and concluded with the
Rose Revolution. Since 2003, Tbilisi has experienced considerably more stability with decreasing crime rates, an improved economy, and a real estate boom. During the
2008 South Ossetia war, the Tbilisi area was hit by multiple Russian air attacks. After the war, several large-scale projects were started, including a streetcar system, a railway bypass and a relocation of the
central station, and new urban highways. In June 2015,
a flood killed at least twenty people and caused animals from the
city's zoo to be released into the streets. ==Politics and administration==