Prince Teimuraz was born in Tbilisi to Heir Apparent George, subsequently the last king of Georgia (Kingdom of Kartli and Kakheti) from 1798 to 1800, and his wife, Ketevan Andronikashvili. He studied at the Telavi Seminary, and, at the age of 13, took part in the 1795 Battle of Krtsanisi at which his grandfather, King Heraclius II of Georgia, was defeated by a Persian invading army under Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar. Teimuraz did not accept the Russian annexation of Georgia of 1801, which followed shortly after his father's death and fled to Persia, whence his uncle, Alexander fought to expel the Russians from Georgia. During the Russo-Persian War (1804-1813), Teimuraz was a Persian artillery commander. On October 16, 1810, however, he surrendered to the Russian authorities. On January 12, 1811, he settled in St Petersburg where he was granted a state salary and pension. In 1813, he acquired a mansion on Vasilievsky Island and concentrated on scholarly work. He collected and researched old Georgian chronicles and analyzed Greco-Roman and Armenian sources on Georgia. He was a collaborator and friend of Marie Brosset, a French scholar, whom he frequently consulted on the history of Georgia. At the same time, Prince Teiumraz befriended and tutored the young Georgian students in St Petersburg – Platon Ioseliani, and David Chubinashvili – both of whom eventually became prolific Georgian historians.