Alaverdi stands on the open plain of Kakheti, in eastern Georgia, with the wall of the Caucasus closing the horizon behind it. The cathedral is one of the tallest medieval churches in the country, a soaring cruciform structure of pale stone whose height is all the more striking for the flatness of the land around it. Tradition traces the site back to an ascetic community founded long before the present building, and the cathedral itself belongs to the great age of Georgian church construction. What makes Alaverdi unusual is its double identity: a place of worship enclosed within substantial fortified walls, gates and outbuildings, a monastery that was also a refuge. The surrounding valley is one of the oldest wine-growing regions in the world, and the monastery's own cellars connect the liturgical year to the agricultural one. Filmed in 4K from the air and inside the church, the programme sets scale and silence against the vineyards, the harvest and the mountains.
