Batumi Central Mosque (Orta Jame): The City's Only Mosque

The Batumi Central Mosque — known locally as Orta Jame, "Middle Mosque," a name recording its historical position between two other mosques that no longer exist — stands in the older part of the city in Batumi, Adjara, on the Black Sea coast of Georgia, the country in the South Caucasus. Its minaret and gilded dome rise above the surrounding rooftops as one of the more distinctive elements of the older Batumi skyline. It is the only functioning mosque in the city and the main place of worship for Batumi's Muslim community, which is drawn substantially from the Adjarian population whose conversion to Islam during the centuries of Ottoman rule gave this region its particular religious character within predominantly Orthodox Christian Georgia.

What is the Batumi Central Mosque?

The Batumi Central Mosque, locally called Orta Jame ("middle mosque"), is the only active mosque in Batumi and the religious heart of the city's Muslim community. Built in the 19th century during the Ottoman period (commonly dated to 1866) and commissioned by the prominent Muslim Georgian Khimshiashvili family, it's a late-Ottoman provincial-style building with a tall minaret, a gilded dome, and a richly painted interior. It reflects the distinctive Muslim heritage of Adjara within mostly Orthodox Christian Georgia. It's an active mosque, free to visit outside prayer times, with modest dress required.

Adjara's Muslim heritage

The mosque reflects the specific demographic history of Adjara. Unlike most of Georgia, where the overwhelming majority belongs to the Georgian Orthodox Church, Adjara has a significant Muslim community — descendants of Georgians who converted during the Ottoman period, from roughly the 16th century onward. When Russia annexed the region following the 1877–78 Russo-Turkish War, it incorporated a population that included a substantial Muslim community in parts of Adjara, and that community has maintained its religious identity through the Russian imperial period, the Soviet decades (when religious practice was officially suppressed but never entirely eliminated), and into the post-independence era, when freedom of worship was restored. Adjara today is religiously mixed, with both Muslim and Orthodox Christian communities, and the mosque stands as a visible expression of that heritage.

The building

The mosque was built in the 19th century during the Ottoman period — most sources date it to 1866, though some give 1886 — and it was commissioned by the family of the Khimshiashvili, prominent Muslim Georgian nobles of Adjara. (An earlier wooden mosque on or near the site, associated with the same family, is said to have burned down before the present building was raised.) It is a typical example of late-Ottoman provincial architecture: a two-story rectangular building with a tall, slender minaret and a large gilded dome that draw the eye from a distance. The exterior is relatively restrained — plastered and largely white — with the decorative ambition concentrated inside rather than expressed outwardly.

The name Orta Jame ("middle mosque") records that it once stood between two other Batumi mosques — Azizie Jame and Ahmed Pasha Jame — neither of which survives, leaving Orta Jame as the city's only mosque. During the Soviet era it was closed and repurposed (used for a time as a warehouse) before being restored to religious use in the mid-20th century, and it has functioned as an active mosque since.

The interior is the more rewarding part of the building for visitors, and it contrasts noticeably with the modest exterior. The prayer hall is decorated in the Ottoman and post-Ottoman Islamic tradition — painted surfaces in blue, gold, and other colors, geometric and floral patterns across the walls and ceiling, and calligraphic Quranic inscriptions worked into the decorative program around the dome and prayer niche. Original wooden patterns and ornaments survive on the balconies and railings, made in the tradition of Georgian wooden architecture, and the minbar — the pulpit from which the Friday sermon is delivered — is among the more finely worked individual elements. An upper gallery serves as the space where women pray. The overall effect is warm and richly colored, quite different from the more austere character of some Islamic prayer spaces.

Religious life and visiting

The mosque is an active religious institution in daily use, with the five daily prayers observed and Friday prayers drawing the largest congregation of the week — large enough that worshippers sometimes pray on the street outside at busy Friday prayers. Visitors are welcome outside prayer times, and the interior is most easily experienced in the mid-morning and mid-afternoon periods when the space is quiet. A visit is typically calm and unhurried, the building occupied by individuals at prayer or simply present, and the contrast between the busy commercial streets immediately outside and the quiet of the interior is one of the more immediate transitions available on a walk through central Batumi. The mosque also runs a small school where children study the Quran.

Its position in the older part of the city — within easy walking distance of Europe Square, Piazza, and the historic 19th-century commercial district — makes it a natural element of a walking route through central Batumi for visitors interested in the city's religious and architectural diversity. Its proximity to the Orthodox churches and other religious buildings of the center reflects the mixed religious character of Adjara in a way the boulevard and seafront developments, focused on contemporary leisure, do not.

Practical information

• Location: Central Batumi, in the older part of the city, a short walk from Europe Square (commonly cited on Kutaisi Street).
• Hours: Open daily for the five daily prayers; visitors welcome outside active prayer times. Friday midday prayers draw the largest congregation, and visitor access around that time may be limited.
• Admission: Free.
• Dress code: Modest clothing for all visitors; women should cover their heads (scarves are typically available at the entrance); shoes are removed before entering the prayer hall.