The Mtatsminda Pantheon is a small terraced graveyard wrapped around St David’s (Mamadaviti) church on the slope above Tbilisi, and it is where Georgia buries the people it refuses to forget: poets, a murdered national editor, a diplomat and the wife who reburied him, even Stalin’s mother. Entry is free. You reach it either by getting off the funicular at its single middle stop or by walking up from the streets below.
It takes maybe forty minutes to see properly, longer if you read the stones. Most people pair it with the park at the summit, which is the right instinct. But the Pantheon deserves its own slot in your head, not a two-minute glance on the way to a Ferris wheel.
Getting there: the funicular’s middle stop, or your own legs
Here’s the decision that trips people up. The Mtatsminda funicular runs from Chonkadze Street up to the amusement park at the top, and it has exactly one intermediate station, right at the Pantheon and church. That middle stop is the easy way in.
One catch worth knowing before you plan an evening visit: the carriages stop calling at the middle station after 19:00, per Georgian Holidays (checked September 2026). After that the funicular only runs top to bottom without pausing, so a late ride skips the Pantheon entirely. Go in daylight and this is a non-issue.
The funicular itself is 12₾ each way, and it takes a separate 2₾ park card rather than your Metromoney transport card. If you only want the Pantheon and church, that fare feels steep for two short hops. So walk it instead.
The footpath climbs from the lower town up Mama Daviti Rise, a paved, switchbacking street with benches along it, and the climb runs under an hour at an unhurried pace according to Wander-Lush. It is genuinely steep, closer to a stair-climber session than a stroll, so save it for a cooler hour. Our advice: walk up, spend your time at the graves, then ride the funicular the rest of the way to the summit park if your legs are done. That splits the effort and still gives you the fun bit of the railway.
Free to enter, but it’s a working cemetery
There’s no ticket booth. Both the Pantheon and Mamadaviti church are free, open daily through the day, with sources putting the closing time around 18:00 to 19:00. Treat late afternoon as your cutoff rather than pushing it to dusk.
The thing to hold onto is that Mamadaviti is a functioning Orthodox church with a real congregation, and the graves beside it are visited by families, not just tourists with cameras. If a service is on, keep your voice down and stay out of the doorway. Shoulders and knees covered is the standard expectation, and women are usually asked to cover their hair inside the church; scarves are sometimes available at the door, but bringing your own removes the gamble. None of this applies with the same force out among the headstones, though quiet still does.
If church etiquette in Georgia is new to you, our wider notes on Georgian Orthodox churches cover the dress code and the small courtesies in more depth.
Who’s actually buried here
The Pantheon was formally established in 1929, timed to the hundredth anniversary of one man’s death, and today it holds more than fifty of Georgia’s writers, artists, scholars and public figures, per Wikipedia. A handful of graves are the ones people climb up to see.
Griboyedov and Nino Chavchavadze
Start with the oldest grave, because it carries the story everyone remembers. Alexander Griboyedov (1795–1829) was a Russian playwright and diplomat, killed by a mob at the Russian mission in Tehran. He’d married Nino Chavchavadze, daughter of the Georgian poet Alexander Chavchavadze, only months before. She was fifteen or sixteen when they wed, widowed before seventeen, and she never remarried across the next twenty-eight years.
Nino had him brought back over the mountains and buried on Mtatsminda, and she set the inscription on the stone herself. It reads, in translation, as a widow’s reproach to her own grief: your mind and your deeds live on, so “why has my love survived you?” That line, more than the 1929 anniversary, is why the whole cemetery exists in its modern form. The Pantheon grew up around the couple.
Ilia Chavchavadze
Ilia Chavchavadze (1837–1907), no close relation to Nino, is the figure Georgians will point you to first. Writer, editor and reformer, he did more than almost anyone to shape a modern Georgian national identity in the 19th century, which is why he’s often called the uncrowned king of the nation. He was assassinated in 1907. The marble figure of a mourning woman over his grave, known as Grieving Georgia, was carved by Iakob Nikoladze, a pupil of Rodin. It is the most striking sculpture on the hill.
Vazha-Pshavela and Galaktion Tabidze
Two poets anchor the 20th-century side. Vazha-Pshavela (1861–1915), whose verse pulled the myths and honour codes of the eastern mountain villages into Georgian literature, was moved here from the Didube cemetery in 1935. Galaktion Tabidze (1891–1959) is the modern lyric poet Georgians quote from memory the way English speakers half-remember lines of Yeats. If you read no Georgian, their stones are still worth finding for the sculpture and for how tended they are.
Keke Geladze, Stalin’s mother
The surprise for a lot of visitors: Ekaterine “Keke” Geladze (1858–1937), mother of Joseph Stalin, lies here too. She was buried on Mtatsminda in the year of the Great Purge, and there’s a quiet irony in a devout woman who wanted her son to become a priest ending up honoured on the national hill. For the deeper thread of how the city and its politics tangle together, the history of Tbilisi fills in the background the headstones only hint at.
The view, and what it’s actually like up there
The Pantheon sits partway up the slope, well below the summit, and that lower vantage is the point. From the terraces and the couple of benches near the church you look straight down onto the tin roofs and church domes of the old town, with the river and the newer city fanning out beyond. It’s a closer, more human frame of Tbilisi than the wide postcard sweep you get from the very top.
Come mid-morning and it’s often near-empty, just the sound of the funicular cable and the occasional bell. That emptiness is the best thing about the place and the reason to skip the crowded golden-hour rush.
Pairing it with Mtatsminda Park
The park at the summit is a different mood entirely: rides, cafés, families, the big wheel. It works well as the second half of the same outing, and the funicular ties the two together on one line. We keep the full breakdown of fares, hours and the ride itself in the dedicated Mtatsminda Park and funicular guide, so this piece stays on the Pantheon.
The order that works best: Pantheon first, while you’re fresh and it’s quiet, then up to the park for lunch and the view from the top. Doing it backwards means arriving at the graves tired and rushing them, which is exactly the wrong way to treat this particular spot.
Frequently asked questions
How long do you need at the Mtatsminda Pantheon?
Half an hour covers the main graves and the church; closer to an hour if you sit with the view and read the inscriptions. It’s compact, so nobody needs to budget a whole morning for the Pantheon alone.
Can you visit without paying for the funicular?
Yes. Walk up Mama Daviti Rise from the lower town and you pay nothing at all, since the site itself is free. The funicular is only a convenience, and its 12₾-each-way fare makes little sense if the Pantheon is your only target.
Is the Pantheon suitable for a short layover in Tbilisi?
It can be, if you take the funicular both ways to save the climb and keep an eye on the clock. Remember the carriages stop calling at the middle station in the evening, so an after-dinner dash won’t work.
Do you have to cover your head to go inside Mamadaviti church?
Women are asked to cover their hair inside the church, and everyone should have shoulders and knees covered. Out among the graves the rule relaxes, but modest dress and a low voice go a long way at a place people still come to mourn.
One last practical note. The single most useful thing you can do is bring a light scarf in your bag, even in summer heat. It solves the church dress code on the spot, doubles as sun cover on the exposed walk up, and means you never have to gamble on whether a spare one is waiting at the door.
Featured image: Reda Kerbush (CC BY-SA 4.0) via Wikimedia Commons.
Leave a Reply