11 Museums In Tbilisi You Must Visit

Tbilisi is home to some fascinating museums. The selection is quite diverse too; here you can find historical, cultural, art, folk, musical instruments and literature, to name a few. Entrance fees are low in Tbilisi and the rest of the country when compared to other European cities—some are even free! So, don’t get discouraged with the ticket price, and visit these 11 essential museums in the capital.

1. Museum of Georgia

Museum

The Museum of Georgia houses several permanent exhibitions, but the most significant of them all is the Archaeological Treasury, displaying some of the most valuable goldsmith works discovered during an archaeological expedition. The examples of Georgian jewelry date back to the 3rd century BCE.

2. Open Air Museum of Ethnography

Museum

The Open Air Museum of Ethnography lies in Vake district, on the road towards the Kus Tba, or Turtle Lake in English. There are 70 examples of different traditional Georgian buildings spread over 65 hectares of land. It’s a unique museum in that you can “visit” almost any region of Georgia in a couple of hours and learn about the traditions and architecture of that particular area.

3. Mose Toidze House-Museum

Museum

Mose Toidze was a famous Georgian artist. His house-museum, founded by the Ministry of Culture in 1986, presents his works and the start of modern Georgian art. It displays 373 pieces of Toidze’s various genre paintings and graphics, as well as archive materials that show the history of Georgia’s national cultural heritage.

4. Dendrology Museum (Botanical Garden)

Botanical Garden, Museum, Forest

The Dendrology Museum, built as a Royal Garden at the beginning of the 19th century and located in the Tbilisi Botanical Garden, showcases unusual and valuable collections of flora from different regions of Georgia and the rest of the world, as well as photo materials explaining the history of the Tbilisi Botanical Garden.

5. Niko Pirosmanashvili Museum

Museum

The museum in Tbilisi is a branch of the Mirzaani House-Museum in Dedoplitskaro, dedicated to the famous Georgian painter Niko Pirosmanashvili.

Here, you’ll see some of his personal belongings and several copies of his work. The originals are on display in the Tbilisi Museum of Arts and Mirzaani House-Museum, where he spent the last years of his life.

6. Zakaria Paliashvili House-Museum

Museum

Zakaria Paliashvili was a famous Georgian composer during the 19th and 20th centuries. His house-museum exhibits materials of his life and works, such as his personal belongings, original scores of operas Abesalom and Eteriand Daisi, manuscripts, and photos, to name a few.