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28-464: Guria is bordered by Samegrelo to the north-west, Imereti to the north, Samtskhe-Javakheti to the east, Ajaria to the south, and the Black Sea to the west. The province has an area of 2,033 km (785 sq mi). Guria is traversed by the northeasterly line of equal latitude and longitude. Guria is divided into 4 entities (3 municipalities and 1 city), including: The territory that

56-459: A Byzantine outpost—among the cities and places under "the sway of the servant of Christ, the king of the Ionians , who is residing in the great city of Constantinople "—in the 8th-century Georgian Vita of Abo of Tiflis by Ioane Sabanisdze. Nikopsis is called a kastron , "fortress", located on the homonymous river between Abasgia (Abkhazia) and Zichia , by Constantine Porphyrogenitus in

84-541: A fief of the house of Vardanidze - Dadiani ; and after 1463 it became a sovereign principality independent of the Kingdom of Georgia under a branch of that house, known thereafter by the name of Gurieli . The principality, comprising modern Guria and much of Adjara with the city of Batumi , was subsequently reduced in size and devastated in a series of conflicts with the Ottoman Empire . A Russian protectorate

112-478: A relatively high degree of economic self-satisfaction. The peasant protest movement, which originated in 1902 and culminated in an open insurrection against the government during the Russian Revolution of 1905 , was the most effective and organized peasant movement in the empire. The peasants’ self-government, the so-called Gurian Republic , survived into 1906, when it was crushed and Guria devastated by

140-703: Is now Guria was part of the kingdom of Colchis , best known in the West for the tale of the Golden Fleece . Following the collapse of the Colchian Kingdom it became part of the Kingdom of Lazica in the first century BC. In antiquity the area was a significant source of iron, as early as the fifth century BC, and also copper and gold. The toponym "Guria" is first attested in the c. 800 Georgian chronicle of Pseudo-Juansher . Guria first appears c. 1352 as

168-498: The Black Sea health resort of Ureki , which is rich in magnetic sand. Guria is also one of the largest tea growing regions in Georgia. According to the 2014 census, Guria has a population of 113.350 inhabitants, which accounts for 3.1% of the total population of Georgia . 98% of the population is ethnic Georgian (mostly native Gurians ), 1% is ethnic Armenian and the remaining 1% is composed of Russians and Ukrainians and

196-666: The Cossack punitive expedition . The region was a native powerbase of the Georgian Social Democratic (Menshevik) Party which dominated the Democratic Republic of Georgia from 1918 to 1921. Guria was a scene of guerrilla resistance to the militarily imposed Soviet rule early in the 1920s. Under the Soviet government, Guria was an agrarian area divided into three administrative districts. In 1995,

224-562: The Mingrelians , a subgroup of Georgians . Mingrelia is bordered by the secessionist region of Abkhazia to the north-west, Svaneti to the north, Imereti to the east, Guria to the south and the Black Sea to the west. Administratively, the historic province of Mingrelia is incorporated joined with the northern part of the neighboring mountainous province of Svaneti to form the Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti region,

252-512: The Russian towns of Tuapse and Gelendzhik . It features in the medieval Greek and Georgian sources as a Byzantine outpost and then as the northwestern extreme of the Kingdom of Georgia . A center of Christianity in the region known as Zichia , Nikopsis was at times a Byzantine bishopric and was believed to be a burial place of the apostle Simon the Canaanite . Nikopsis first appears in

280-543: The Soviet Union , as the Georgian SSR . On 9 April 1991, independence was restored to Georgia, of which Mingrelia is now part. The first President of the post-Soviet Georgia, Zviad Gamsakhurdia , was a Megrelian. After the violent coup d'etat of 21 December 1991 – 6 January 1992, Mingrelia became the centre of a civil war, which ended with the defeat of Gamsakhurdia's Megrelian supporters. Even so, this region

308-497: The 10th century. The Kingdom of Georgia expanded to the vicinity of Nicopsis during its "Golden Age" in the 12th and 13th centuries. Well known in the medieval Georgian texts was the boast that their kings held sway from "Nikopsia to Daruband" . This formula determined the extent of the territory over which the Georgian monarchy claimed authority by means of its northwestern and northeastern geographic extremes, Nikopsis on

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336-700: The Black Sea and Derbend on the Caspian . It first appears in the controversial testament will of David IV "the Builder" , composed (or forged) in 1125, and recurs in the chronicles of the reigns of his successors, especially, Queen Tamar (r. 1184–1213). According to the 9th-century Byzantine author Epiphanius the Monk , who toured the area, there was a tomb in Nikopsis, containing relics, inscribed "of Simon

364-513: The Canaanite ", an apostle . The tradition is also found in the 11th-century Georgian Vita of George the Hagiorite by Giorgi Mtsire, who claims that Simon the Canaanite was buried "in our land, in Abkhazia , at the place which is called Nikopsi". Nikopsis was the seat of a Byzantine bishop of Zichia, probably founded under Justinian in the 6th century. In the middle of the 10th century,

392-406: The Georgian government decreed the creation of the region ( mkhare ) of Guria, restoring the province's historical name to official usage. The Orthodox churches of Likhauri and Shemokmedi are the main historical buildings in the province. Some say that the root of the word [Guria] refers to restlessness and the word should mean “the land of the restless” and is associated with events during

420-530: The anonymous periplus of the 5th century as a Black Sea locale otherwise known as Palaia Lazike ("Old Lazica "), a toponym also mentioned in the 2nd-century Periplus of the Euxine Sea by Arrian . This name suggests that the area was a scene of a considerable tribal movement or, in the view of Anthony Bryer , could have been the original homeland of the Laz people . Nikopsis, as Napsa (ნაფსაჲ), appears as

448-484: The capital of which is Mingrelia's main city, Zugdidi . As it is the case with most Black Sea coastal areas of Georgia, Mingrelia's climate is subtropical with frequent rains. The coastal areas have many marshlands despite the Soviet Georgian authorities' efforts to dry them up. These marshlands contain many rare birds and animals not found in other parts of the country. For this reason, substantial part of

476-461: The conflict with the breakaway region of Abkhazia, disarmed groups of Megrelians who tried to fight a guerrilla war against the Abkhazians by incursions from Mingrelia. Nicopsis Nicopsis , Nikopsis , or Nikopsia ( Greek : Νικόψις ; Georgian : ნიკოფსი, ნიკოფსია ; Adyghe : Ныджэпсыхъо ) was a medieval fortress and town on the northeastern Black Sea coast, somewhere between

504-585: The eighth and ninth centuries when “ Leon became the King of Abkhazeti . Guruls (governor of Guria) refused to obey the ruler of Odzrakho , ceased their vassal relations with Adarnase and Ashot Bagrationi and united with Leon” as it was described in Vakhushti Bagrationi ’s historical works of the eighteenth century. According to a later explanation, in the times of Georgia’s prosperity, when its borders stretched from " Nikopsia to Daruband ", Guria

532-539: The majority of the population is Orthodox Christians (87%), followed by Islam (11%). The Gurians or Gurulebi ( Georgian : გურულები) is one of the ethnographical groups of Georgians, inhabiting Guria. Gurians are Orthodox Christian and speak the Gurian dialect of the Georgian language . The administration centre is Ozurgeti . There are 194 populated areas, including: To date, the following politicians have held

560-412: The new Kutais Governorate . By 1904, the population was just under 100,000, occupying an area of approximately 532,000 acres (2,150 km) of mountains and swampy valleys, covered by corn fields, vineyards, and some tea plantations. It was the most ethnically homogenous of Georgian areas, with the peasantry and lesser rural nobility making up almost the entire population, with a high level of literacy and

588-418: The office of Governor of Guria: 41°58′N 42°12′E  /  41.967°N 42.200°E  / 41.967; 42.200 Samegrelo Mingrelia or Samegrelo ( Georgian : სამეგრელო , romanized : samegrelo ; Mingrelian : სამარგალო , romanized:  samargalo ) is a historic province in the western part of Georgia , formerly known as Odishi . It is primarily inhabited by

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616-684: The see of Nikopsis was abolished or moved to Matracha . The location of Nikopsis is not known. A popular, but not universally accepted hypothesis first advanced by Frédéric Dubois de Montpéreux and followed by Fillip Brun, Boris Kuftin , Zurab Anchabadze, and Leonid Lavrov, places Nikopsis at Novomikhaylovsky at the mouth of the Nechepsukho river near Tuapse , where the early medieval imported pottery, roof tiles, and marble pieces have been unearthed. Alternatively, Nikopsis has been identified with Anakopia near present-day New Athos or placed by Yuri Voronov at Tsandripsh/Gantiadi , where there are

644-483: The territories is protected by the Georgian law as part of the Colchetian Nature Reserve. In ancient times Mingrelia was a major part of the kingdom of Colchis (9th-6th centuries BC ) and its successor Egrisi (4th century BC-6th century AD ). In the 11th-15th centuries, Mingrelia was a part of the united Kingdom of Georgia . From the 16th century to 1857, the independent Kingdom of Mingrelia

672-600: Was abolished and absorbed into the Tsarist Russian Empire. Prince Niko Dadiani officially renounced his rights to the throne in 1868. Plant specimens of Astrantia colchica were found on Mt. Kwira in Mingrelia in 1894 by the Russian botanist Nikolai Albov . From 1918 to 1921, Mingrelia was part of the Democratic Republic of Georgia (DRG). In 1921, Georgia was Sovietized and later became part of

700-475: Was established by the treaty concluded on June 19, 1810 between Mamia V Gurieli and the empire, and in 1829, during the regency for the last prince, the Gurieli David , the principality was annexed by Russia. There were uprisings against Russian rule in 1819 and again in 1841 . In 1840, Guria was made a county ( uyezd ) and renamed Ozurgeti, after one of its main towns. In 1846, it was transferred to

728-457: Was situated in the heart of the Georgian territory. The linguistic evidence for the above hypothesis is the Megrelian word for “heart” – “guri” (Georgian: “guli”). Subtropic farming and tourism are a mainstay of the region's economy. Water is one of Guria's main assets. The province is famous for the mineral water of Nabeglavi , which is similar to Borjomi in its chemical composition, and

756-664: Was under the rule of the House of Dadiani . Between 1568 and 1803, it was vassal of Ottoman Empire. In December 1803, the kingdom came under the patronage of the Russian Empire by an agreement between the Tsar and the Megrelian Prince Grigol Dadiani . The last adult Prince, David Dadiani, died in 1853, leaving his wife Ekaterine as regent for his young son, Niko . However, in 1867, the principality

784-561: Was unmanageable by the central government throughout the presidency of Eduard Shevardnadze (1992–2003). The fact that the Georgian refugees from the Abkhazian war zone (who are considered by Georgians as victims of ethnic cleansing) are mostly Mingrelians has contributed to the region's instability. In 2004, following the Rose Revolution of November 2003, newly elected Georgian President, Mikheil Saakashvili , who vowed to resolve

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