William Dunbar is a writer and researcher based in Tbilisi.

The Georgian avant-gardists who embraced the past

The country’s short-lived independence in the early 20th century gave birth to a thrilling artistic movement that is only now being rediscovered

26 Feb 2024

Is Uzbekistan poised to become a major cultural player?

The country is keen to rebrand by promoting its art and architecture – and the modernist buildings of its capital Tashkent are part of the plan

23 Oct 2023
Bacon in Moscow

Spying an opportunity – how Francis Bacon made it to Moscow

James Birch recounts the improbable story of how, with help from the KGB, he put on a show of Bacon’s work in the Soviet Union

5 Apr 2022
The rebuilt Svaneti Museum of History and Ethnography in Mestia, Georgia, which reopened in 2014. Photo: Georgian National Museum/Fernando Javier Urquijo

The mountain stronghold that has kept Georgia’s medieval art safe for centuries

The Svaneti Museum of History and Ethnography is a testament to the local people’s long-standing determination to preserve their cultural heritage

18 Mar 2022
From ‘Taming the Garden’ (dir. Salomé Jashi).

The Georgian billionaire who is digging up the nation’s most majestic trees

Salomé Jashi’s film ‘Taming the Garden’ documents how a tree-hogging former prime minister is pillaging the landscape to create a private paradise

26 Jan 2022
The cave monastery of Sabereebi, Georgia.

‘For the full Indiana Jones experience, it is best approached on horseback’

The spectacular cave monastery of Sabereebi in Georgia is full of frescoes as stunning as their rocky setting

17 Sep 2021
The building now home to the Shalva Amiranashvili Museum of Fine Arts, Tbilisi, shown in a 19th-century photo.

Georgia’s greatest museum has been saved from demolition, apparently – but for how long?

The fate of the Shalva Amiranashvili Museum of Fine Arts in Tbilisi remains uncertain, with curators ordered to evacuate its vast collection within six months

11 Aug 2021
A cardboard presentation case for storing silkworm eggs. State Silk Museum, Tbilisi. Photo: Guram Kapanadze

Sheer delight – at the State Silk Museum in Tbilisi

The world’s most significant collection of silkworm cocoons, and many other marvels of sericulture, can be found in the capital of Georgia

12 Feb 2020