Telavi

Telavi (tyĭlä`vē), city, E Georgia. It is the center of the Kakhetian wine district and has food-processing and silk-spinning industries. Founded in 893, Telavi was the capital of Kakhetia until the 17th cent. There are ruins of its medieval fortifications.

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Telavi 

a city and administrative center of Telavi Raion, Georgian SSR. Located on the northern slope of Tsivi-Gomborskii Ridge, 3 km from the Telavi railroad station. Population, 23,100 (1975).

Telavi has been known since the first century A.D. It was once a trade center on the caravan route from the Near East to Western Europe. In the 11th century and in the 17th and 18th centuries it was the capital of the kingdom of Kakhetia. In 1849, after the unification of Kakhetia, a part of Georgia, with Russia, Telavi became a district capital in Tiflis Province. Soviet power was established in February 1921.

Telavi has silk-spinning, clothing, and hosiery factories, a silkworm egg hatchery, a cannery, a plant for the production of reinforced concrete, and a shale and marble combine. The city also has a meat-packing combine and a milk plant and is the site of the Samtrest production association. There is a pedagogical institute, a technicum for the mechanization and electrification of agriculture, a medical school, and a music school in the city. Telavi has a dramatic theater, a historicoethnographic museum, and a tourist center.

REFERENCE

Tbilisi—Telavi. Tbilisi, 1966.