Georgian

Locations

Identity

Georgians (Kartvelebi) are a Kartvelian-speaking people of the South Caucasus, the core nation of Georgia, with a written language and Christian tradition going back to the 4th-5th centuries (conversion under St. Nino, c. 337). Their unique Georgian alphabet (Mkhedruli) and Kartvelian language are unrelated to their neighbours'. Historic provinces (Kartli, Kakheti, Imereti, Samegrelo, Svaneti, Adjara) carry strong regional identities, and Mingrelians and Svans are often counted as Georgians. Centuries of Persian, Ottoman and Russian rule produced Georgian communities abroad: Shia Fereydani Georgians in Iran (Safavid deportees, 1610s), Sunni Chveneburi in Türkiye, Ingiloy in Azerbaijan, and modern labour diasporas in Russia, Greece and Western Europe. In Persian and Turkish they are called Gorji or Gürcü.

Culture & traditions

Georgian culture is famous for polyphonic singing (UNESCO-listed), the supra feast led by a tamada toastmaster, winemaking in qvevri clay jars (one of the world's oldest wine traditions), and dances such as the kartuli and khorumi. Families are close-knit and hospitable; guests are 'a gift from God'. Cuisine includes khachapuri, khinkali, churchkhela and walnut-based sauces. Traditional dress includes the men's chokha with cartridge pockets. Literature centres on Shota Rustaveli's medieval epic The Knight in the Panther's Skin.

Religious practices

In Georgia, the Georgian Orthodox Church is a central marker of national identity, with high trust and widespread observance of feasts, icon veneration, fasting and pilgrimages to monasteries such as Svetitskhoveli and Jvari; practice is often more cultural than devotional among urban young people. Muslim Georgian communities follow the Islam of their host region: Sunni Hanafi in Adjara and Türkiye, Twelver Shia in Iran's Fereydan, where Muharram and Ashura rites are kept.

Gospel access

The full Bible exists in Georgian (first translations from the 5th century; modern Bible Society editions), along with the JESUS film and audio recordings. The Georgian Orthodox Church is dominant in Georgia; evangelical churches are small. Muslim Georgian communities, especially the Shia Fereydanis in Iran, have no known Christian believers and face legal barriers to hearing the gospel.

The Fereydani Georgians: Georgian-speaking Shia Muslims

The Georgians of Fereydan are one of the few communities in the world who speak Georgian yet are Shia Muslims. Deported by Shah Abbas I in the 1610s from Kakheti, they were settled on the cold Zagros plateau to farm and to shield Isfahan, and their dialect preserves features of 17th-century Kakhetian with a heavy Persian overlay. Isolated from Georgia for three centuries, they were rediscovered by the ethnographer Lado Aghniashvili in 1890, courted by Soviet Georgia in 1945, and visited by a Georgian head of state for the first time in 2004. Today Fereydunshahr's museum, Georgian shop signs, folk ensembles and student exchanges with Tbilisi keep the link alive.

At a glance

Language: Georgian
Language family: Kartvelian
Affinity bloc: European Peoples
People cluster: Caucasus
Primary religion: Christianity - Eastern Orthodox
Bible status: Complete Bible
Jesus Film: Yes
Audio recordings: Yes
Gospel recordings: Available
Radio broadcasts: Not Available
Religious school: Eastern Orthodox

Religious breakdown

Religion	%	Denomination	Notes
Christianity	c. 85%	Georgian Orthodox	Homeland majority (Georgia)
Islam	c. 10%	Sunni (Adjara, Türkiye) and Twelver Shia (Fereydan, Iran)	Muslim Georgian communities in Adjara, Türkiye's Chveneburi and Iran's Fereydanis
Non-religious / other	c. 5%		Includes Catholics and Protestants

Presence by country

IranNativeVerified presence

Population: ~50,000-100,000
Location: Fereydunshahr and surrounding villages of Fereydan (western Isfahan province); descendants in Isfahan, Najafabad, Tehran and Karaj

The Fereydani Georgians descend from Georgians whom Shah Abbas I deported from Kakheti and Kartli in the 1610s and settled in the high Fereydan basin west of Isfahan, where they gave their villages Georgian names and guarded the road to the Safavid capital. Unlike almost all other Georgians, they are Twelver Shia Muslims, converted under the Safavids, yet in Fereydunshahr and its villages most people still speak a 400-year-old Kakhetian dialect of Georgian alongside Persian. Fereydunshahr, at about 2,500 metres the highest town in Iran, has Georgian lettering on its shop signs, and local ensembles still sing Fereydani Georgian songs. Perhaps 50,000 to 100,000 Iranians are of Georgian descent, though outside Fereydan most now speak only Persian.

Türkiye (Turkey)NativeVerified presence

Population: ~100,000-180,000
Location: Artvin (Borçka, Şavşat-Imerkhevi, Yusufeli, Macahel); Chveneburi villages in Ordu, Samsun, Giresun, Amasya, Tokat, Sinop and in Sakarya, Bursa (İnegöl), Kocaeli, Düzce, Yalova, Balıkesir; Istanbul

Georgians have lived in north-eastern Anatolia for more than a thousand years, and the villages of the Imerkhevi and Machakhela valleys in Artvin, cut off from Georgia by the 1921 border, still speak their own Georgian dialects. Most Georgians in Türkiye, though, descend from Muslim refugees who left Adjara, Batumi and the surrounding highlands after the Russian conquests of 1829 and 1878 and settled in some 420 villages along the Black Sea coast and around the Sea of Marmara. They call themselves Chveneburi, "our people", are Sunni Muslims fully at home in Turkish society, and mostly speak Turkish today, with Georgian kept by the elderly and in songs. In villages such as Hayriye near İnegöl, choirs sing Georgian polyphonic songs to the chiboni bagpipe, and feasts are led by a tamada, the Georgian toastmaster. Since the 1990s they have been joined by tens of thousands of workers from Georgia, mostly Orthodox Christian women employed as carers and housekeepers in Istanbul.