Sources Thermales de Tbilissi

Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia in the South Caucasus, derives its very name from the thermal springs upon which it was founded — the old Georgian word Tbili means warm — with bicarbonate sulfurous spring waters that have been used continuously since the 5th century AD when King Vakhtang Gorgasali legendarily discovered the springs while hunting. The sulfurous thermal bath houses of the Abanotubani district, whose distinctive domed structures rise from the bedrock of the old city gorge, have been praised by Alexander Pushkin, Alexandre Dumas, and countless writers as providing the most pleasurable bathing experience in the Caucasus. The ancient bath district embedded in the citadel gorge of Tbilisi, with warm sulfur springs flowing through stone-floored hammam-style bathhouses of the 17th and 18th centuries, creates an atmosphere of historic Oriental thermal culture unique in the former Soviet space.