page_title: Gudarekhi monastery
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Gudarekhi monastery / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: English: Gudarekhi monastery. Damaged frescos. Русский: Гударехи. Фрески. Удивительно, что они сохранились, несмотря на сырой климат и полное отсутствие охраны. Они несколько поцарапаны надписями, но в целом изображение узнаваемо. В жизни они немного бледнее, я повысил четкость для наглядности.
context_page_description: The Gudarekhi monastery is a 13th-century Georgian Orthodox monastery in the south of Georgia. It is located west of the village of Gudarekhi, Tetritsqaro Municipality, in the Kvemo Kartli region. The monastery complex consists of the main hall church, a free-standing bell-tower, and ruins of various structures such as a palace, cells, chapels, wine-cellar, and stables. The church is adorned with medieval stone-carvings and inscriptions. The complex is inscribed on the list of Immovable Cultural Monuments of National Significance.
context_section_description: The Gudarekhi monastery is perched on a wooded hill, west of the eponymous village. The complex is enclosed by a ruined wall, within which most of the structures are located. The main church, of the Theotokos, is a hall church design, measuring 16.2 × 9.5 m without annexes, and built of smoothly hewn yellowish stone blocks. It ends in a semicircular apse to the east and has the only entrance to the south. The eastern facade is adorned with decorative stone-carvings, inspired by an example of the earlier domed churches in Georgia. The southern wall, at the entrance, carries a seven-line inscription in the medieval Georgian asomtavruli script, which mentions the architect Chichaporisdze, Queen Rusudan, her children, and the bishop Anton of Manglisi.  
  The interior is painted with the faded, partially fallen frescoes of the Archangels—accompanied by the 17th-century Greek inscriptions identifying Michael and Gabriel—and the saints George, Demetrius, and Theodore. Inscriptions in Georgian on the altar murals are now barely legible. The surviving fragments of a 12th-century stone iconostasis have been removed for preservation at the Georgian National Museum in Tbilisi. The north end of the church is flanked by an apsed eukterion, a later annex in the north wall of which there are two stones with the 10th–12th-century Georgian inscriptions—apparently, remains of an earlier structure. Another annex, to the south, was a columnated narthex which is now in ruins.
  Southeast of the church is a free-standing stone bell-tower built in a rectangular plan. Completed in 1278, it is the oldest extant dated bell-tower in Georgia. It is a two-storey building, with the lower level open, the upper one being a hypostyle hall with eight arched pillars, and a small cell rested in between them. An asomtavruli inscription on the eastern wall commemorates King Demetrius II of Georgia and the priest Abraham.
caption: Remains of the frescoes in the main church.
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