Saint Andrew the First-Called Georgian University of the Patriarchate of Georgia
Tbilisi/GeorgiaDoctor of History, Associate Professor
g.kistauri@sangu.edu.ge
Abstract
The Ghudi Gorge constitutes one of the significant territorial units historically associated with the Khada community. It is located to the north-west of Mleta. Before the construction of the Mleta–Gudauri road in the nineteenth century, the Ghudi Gorge formed an important section of the principal route connecting eastern Georgia with the North Caucasus. Beginning in Zemo Mleta, the road followed the Ghudi Gorge along the right bank of the White Aragvi River. Its main points included Ganisi, Miketi, Khatis Sopeli, Ereto, and Nephiskalo, followed by the villages of the Truso Gorge—Abano, Okroqana, Noqau, and Kobi—from where the route continued towards Stepantsminda.
The indigenous population of the Ghudi Gorge was represented primarily by the Butkhuzi and Gagadze lineages. Traditionally, the deans responsible for the gorge’s principal sanctuary, the Church of All Saints, belonged to the Butkhuzi family.
From approximately the seventeenth century onwards, members of the Nazghaidze and Burduli families extended their influence over the Ghudi Gorge. According to historical documents, during the first half of the eighteenth century the gorge formed part of the administrative domain governed by Januqa Nazghaidze, a prominent historical figure.
As a result of migration processes during the eighteenth century, the gorge gradually became depopulated of its Georgian inhabitants, whose place was subsequently taken by Ossetian settlers. In his description of Mtiuleti, Prince Vakhushti refers to the Church of All Saints in Ghudi as “now inactive.” This designation suggests that, by that period, the Georgian population had largely disappeared from the area and that the monastery no longer possessed a permanent clergy or a local congregation.
In the 1770 census of the population of Kartli-Kakheti, the Ghudi Gorge already appears as one of the settlement areas of the so-called Aragvi Ossetians. Johann Anton Güldenstädt likewise described the gorge and its villages as an Ossetian-inhabited territory, as he did in the case of Truso.
Consequently, Ossetians continue to regard both the Truso and Ghudi gorges as territories of their ancestral settlement and advance historical claims to these areas.
Drawing on different categories of historical and ethnographic sources, the paper will examine in detail the historical and ethnological dimensions associated with the Ghudi Gorge. The study seeks to present the changing historical context of this geographical unit, as well as the cultural narratives through which it is interpreted in both historical and contemporary discourse.
Keywords: Ghudi Gorge, Khada community, historical geography.