It is a pity that they are not being restored.:(it's not badly preserved enough. You can go inside, through the large door in the photo. Locals often come by, apparently. There are fresh candles in the temple.
How to spend the Day of Veneration of St. George the Victorious or whether there is a future for pilgrimage in South Ossetia.
On May 6, 2021, my husband and I visited the Eredvi (St. George's Basilica) in South Ossetia. My husband talked a lot about it, he liked the architecture and the feeling of a holy place. The May holidays, and the possibility of passing through passport control, customs on Russian passports, led me to the idea of a pilgrimage to this holy place.
My description and photos are not of any political nature, pilgrimage is the most apolitical type of tourism.
My husband traveled almost the entire North Caucasus and the road was not difficult, customs and border control were good, and they are carefully inspected, but this is their service, everything is polite and correct. Communication at the entrance to South Ossetia becomes expensive for tourists, compared to the home region, it is worth thinking about buying a local number in advance, now there is the possibility of registering a virtual number (but we will think about it next time) through the operator's personal account, a megaphone operates on the territory of South Ossetia. By the way, there is an office in Tskhinvali near the Alan hotel, where you can top up your account through the terminal - this is one of the advantages, among the disadvantages there is no full-fledged banking, in particular the ability to top up your account through a card. Why is it important? Because the fact of making a payment (operation) via a bank card is nothing more than billing the subscriber, for example, if he is in South Ossetia, and he needs to be informed of his arrival in the region, a small matter of personal security of the subscriber. The quality of MegaFon communication is good, but it is expensive 59 rubles/min. I was surprised by an SMS from Beeline that I was allegedly on the territory of Georgia, but my husband explained to me that we were close to the border, and since there was no Beeline operator on the territory of South Ossetia, Georgian cell towers through billing allow such SMS messages to arrive. Once again, cash is needed for tourism. There are branches of Sberbank of South Ossetia, check the schedule on the Internet before the trip, there were even ATMs.
About security. We did not stay overnight in South Ossetia, but during the day there is an ordinary, normal life, there are no people with machine guns (no matter what they write on the Internet), the residents are friendly, there are cafes, small private hotels, a rebuilt stadium, the city is almost restored, in general, the infrastructure is present - we saw all this on the way to the basilica St. George with my own eyes.
Eredvi is the Basilica of St. George the Victorious, about 5 km from Tskhinvali, my husband knew the way, so we got there well without maps. The temple is not functioning, but when we went inside, we realized that someone was there, I heard footsteps on the stairs leading to the second floor, probably it was a monk. We prayed a little to the icons in the temple, and were happy to have visited this holy place.
Sincerely, Marina Perminova!
Postscript: any copying and illegal use of both text and photographs, without the consent of the author, is prosecuted by law.
The Church of St. George 906 stands very close to the highway, has the appearance of a three-nave basilica, typical of early medieval Georgian architecture. The authorities of South Ossetia do not allow worship services in Georgian Orthodox churches such as Yeredvi