A Terracotta feature
The historian and the king across the street
Guests at Terracotta wake up opposite Batonis Tsikhe, the royal fortress of the kings of Kakheti. One member of the family behind the apartment has spent years studying the king who ruled from it. This is where those two stories meet.
Erekle II — the king in the fortress
Erekle II (1720–1798) ruled Kakheti and later the united kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti in the 18th century — an age when Georgia stood at the crossroads of empires. From Batonis Tsikhe he governed, reformed the administration and army, supported schools and printing, and tried to steer a small kingdom between powerful neighbours.
He is remembered as one of Georgia's most energetic rulers: a warrior-king who also believed in books, law and learning. The fortress walls you see from the apartment were shaped by his reign.
The historian in the family
Tilmann Kulke — Tilla — is a historian of the early modern world. He earned his doctorate at the European University Institute in Florence in 2016 and is an Associate Professor at Ilia State University in Tbilisi, where he works on global intellectual history and the exchange of knowledge between cultures.
One of his research interests is Georgia in the age of Erekle II. Together with the Georgian scholar Nino Doborjginidze, he explored how Erekle's reforms connected this small Caucasian kingdom to the wider currents of the European Enlightenment — 'Erekle II (1720–1798) Goes Global', in the volume From Florence to Goa and Beyond (2022).
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History outside the window
There is something quietly extraordinary about this connection. A guest drinks morning coffee looking at the fortress of Erekle II — and the family behind that view includes someone who has spent years reading what the king wrote, signed and decreed.
“History here is not a museum label. It is a neighbour.”
Sources & further reading
- Tilmann Kulke — faculty profile, Ilia State University
- Batonis Tsikhe — georgia.travel
- From Florence to Goa and Beyond (European University Institute Press, 2022)