Dadiani Palace Museum

Dadiani Palace Museum is one of the oldest museums in the Caucasus region located in the center of Zugdidi, near Kutaisi. The museum also holds 19th-century paintings of the Caucasus and a fine collection of icons and crosses from the 10th to 20th centuries in its Treasury section. Inside, you can find more than 41,000 items that span from the second millennium BCE to the late 1800s. One of Napoleon’s four bronze death masks is also kept here. 

The museum complex includes a palace for Ekaterine Chavchavadze-Dadiani, a residence of her son Niko Dadiani, the Blackernae Virgin Church, and the Zugdidi Botanical Garden. Some of the popular exhibits in the museum are the items from the archeological expeditions in the ancient town of Archeopolis, archaeological materials representing the ancient period of Greece and Georgia, samples of European applied art, relics of Samegrelo princes, and a collection of crystal, china and faience crockery. “The holy robe of Virgin Mary” is also stored in the palace museum but visitors are allowed to see it only once a year on July 15 when orthodox Christians in Georgia celebrate Vlakernoba. On this day it is taken out and transferred to the church where the public can pay their respect.