Tbilisi Open-Air Museum of Ethnography

The Tbilisi Open-Air Museum of Ethnography spreads across a slope of the Trialeti Range near Turtle Lake like an entire historic village assembled in one park. Founded in 1966 by historian Giorgi Chitaia, it is now part of the Georgian National Museum and preserves more than 8,000 objects. Visitors can see traditional eastern Georgian darbazi houses, delicate wooden western houses with pitched roofs, defensive towers from Khevsureti, Pshavi, and Svaneti, Kakhetian wineries, watermills, early Christian basilicas, and family tombs from the 6th–7th centuries. Workshops and collections of spinning wheels, carpets, ceramics, and furniture recreate the daily life and culture of Georgia's regions.

An 18th-century hunting lodge in the museum later became a filming location for many movies. Across the grounds, single-story houses stand on stone pillars, an architectural response to climate and damp soil that makes each building seem closely attuned to the surrounding landscape.