Colchis Fountain, Kutaisi: Golden Treasures of Ancient Colchis

The Colchis Fountain occupies the central square of Kutaisi, in Georgia — the country in the South Caucasus — its multiple tiers and dozens of golden animal sculptures making it the most immediately striking public monument in the city and the visual reference point around which the center of western Georgia's largest city organizes itself. Installed around 2011, as part of the broad program of public-space development that reshaped many Georgian cities in that period, it has become the defining image of modern Kutaisi in much the way the Narikala Fortress defines Tbilisi or the Alphabetic Tower defines Batumi. It draws directly on the city's deepest historical identity: ancient Colchis, the kingdom of the Golden Fleece.

What is the Colchis Fountain?

The Colchis Fountain is a large tiered fountain in the central square of Kutaisi, Georgia, installed around 2011 and designed by the Georgian architect David Gogichaishvili. It's crowned and surrounded by around 30 gilded animal sculptures — most famously a pair of golden horses on top — which are enlarged replicas of ancient gold and bronze treasures excavated at Vani, a major site of the ancient Kingdom of Colchis nearby. It celebrates Kutaisi's identity as a center of Colchis, the land of the Golden Fleece in Greek myth, and is especially striking when illuminated at night. It sits on David Agmashenebeli Square in the city center.

The golden sculptures and Vani

The fountain's design draws on the archaeological heritage of ancient Colchis — the kingdom that occupied what is now western Georgia and won enduring fame through the Greek myth of the Golden Fleece and the Argonauts. The roughly thirty gilded sculptures across the fountain's tiers are large-scale reproductions of artifacts recovered from Colchic archaeological sites, above all the extraordinary gold and bronze objects found at Vani, the ancient Colchic city (a short distance from Kutaisi) whose excavations — including major finds in 1982 — produced some of the finest metalwork of the pre-Christian Caucasus. The originals are held in Georgian museums, principally the Georgian National Museum.

The animals that dominate the program — horses, deer, lions, rams, sheep, mountain goats, birds — reflect the zoomorphic vocabulary of Colchic decorative art and the creatures the Colchians held sacred, and a pair of golden horses crowns the highest tier (popularly associated with the legendary King Aeëtes of Colchis). Reproduced in gold-finished metal against the white stone and moving water, the effect is deliberately theatrical and pointedly referential to a specific ancient culture rather than a generic decorative fountain. The figures derive from real jewelry and bronze pieces — earrings, ornaments, and figurines of the kind Colchis was renowned for — which gives the spectacle a genuine archaeological grounding.

The Colchis connection

The choice of Colchic heritage for Kutaisi's central fountain is not arbitrary. Kutaisi is traditionally identified with the ancient Kingdom of Colchis — the Aea (Aia) of Greek mythology, the realm of King Aeëtes, where the Golden Fleece was kept and from which Medea fled with Jason and the Argonauts. Whether or not the mythological geography maps precisely onto the historical, the connection between Kutaisi and Colchis is ancient and deeply embedded in the city's sense of itself. The fountain makes that identity visible and central, placing the deepest layer of local historical consciousness at the literal center of contemporary urban life.

This same Golden Fleece and Argonaut heritage threads through western Georgia: the Medea statue in Batumi's Europe Square, the legends attached to Gonio Fortress on the Adjara coast, and the wetlands of Kolkheti National Park near Poti — the literal land of Colchis. Kutaisi's fountain is the inland, urban expression of that shared mythology.

A note on the square itself: David Agmashenebeli Square is named for King David IV "the Builder," and its centerpiece has changed repeatedly over the past century — from a cathedral, to Soviet-era monuments, to a statue of David the Builder, which was relocated (to the Kutaisi railway station area) when the fountain was installed. The fountain is the latest chapter in a long-contested civic space.

The square and evening experience

The fountain sits within a busy traffic roundabout, which makes it most visible from the surrounding streets and the café terraces on the square's perimeter rather than from directly beside it — and crossing to it on foot means navigating heavy traffic, so caution is needed. The civic prominence comes at the cost of close-up access; the best approach is to find a viewing point on the square's edge (the cafés, the Drama Theatre steps) from which the whole composition — the tiers, the sculptures, the water — reads as a unified spectacle rather than as individual details.

The evening illumination transforms it. The gold surfaces catch the artificial light and reflect it with a warmth that neutral daylight doesn't produce, and the combination of lit water and glowing golden figures is the most dramatic version of the monument — it's frequently cited as the best time to see and photograph it. It's at its most photogenic in the transition between late afternoon and full dark, when some residual light in the sky gives the background depth while the fountain's lighting is already active. Most walking tours of central Kutaisi begin here, which makes it a natural orientation point as well as a sight.

Practical information

• Location: David Agmashenebeli Square (the central square), Kutaisi, Imereti region, western Georgia.
• Getting there: In the heart of Kutaisi, walkable from the center; it sits in a busy roundabout, so take care crossing to it.
• Hours/Admission: Freely accessible at all times; free. The fountain and its evening illumination run daily (illumination from dusk into the late evening).
• Best time: Dusk to early evening, when the illumination is on and there's still some light in the sky — the most photogenic window.
• Combine with: Kutaisi's other central sights; it's a common starting point for a walking tour of the city.