DISCOVER GEORGIA 0 – 5 047 m საქართველო Where to stay
Home/ Journal/ Sulfur baths The city · Tbilisi

The Tbilisi sulfur baths

The city is named after this water. How a bath visit actually works — public hall or private room, what the kisi scrub does to you, what it costs and what to carry in.

Reading 13 min Updated November Region Tbilisi Water ~40 °C
Fifteen centuries of hot water, in one line
5th c. Vakhtang Gorgasali's pheasant falls into a hot spring and the king founds a city named for warm water. 13th c. Abanotubani is a working bath quarter serving a royal capital built directly over its own springs. 1795 The sack of Tbilisi levels much of the quarter; the bathhouses are rebuilt over the following decades. 1829 Pushkin bathes here and writes that he has never encountered anything more luxurious. 19th c. The Orbeliani bathhouse gets its blue-tiled Persian facade, the one on every photograph of the square. Soviet era The houses are municipalised and numbered; the baths become a neighbourhood routine rather than a spectacle. 2012 The Legvtakhevi gorge behind the domes is cleared and opened as a walkway to its waterfall.
01

The water the city is named after

The city is named after the water. Tbili means warm in Georgian, and the sulfur springs that surface under the eastern edge of the Old Town gave the place both its name and, by the founding legend, its reason to exist: a hunting bird of King Vakhtang Gorgasali brought down a pheasant that fell into a hot spring, and the king built his capital on the spot.

Abanotubani, the bath quarter, grew around those springs. From the street you mostly see low brick domes pushing up out of a paved square, each one the roof of a chamber sunk below ground level, pierced with small glazed openings that drop daylight onto the water. The buildings are largely underground; what you photograph is their roofing.

What matters for a visitor is the plainness of the place. These are working municipal baths, not a spa. Tiling is chipped, the plumbing is loud, and men in their seventies come on Tuesday mornings the way they have for decades. That is the charm, and anyone arriving in search of scented candles will be disappointed by something never on offer.

Abanotubani: the brick domes are roofs. The baths themselves are sunk into the ground below them.
02

The water, and the smell

The springs come up hot on their own. The water reaches the bathhouses somewhere around forty degrees with no boiler involved, and it carries dissolved sulfur compounds, which is where the famous egg smell comes from. Nothing is added. What you sit in is groundwater heated underground and piped a short distance.

Georgians treat it as medicinal as much as pleasant, and people come for joints and skin rather than atmosphere. Claims of cures are best held loosely. What is not in doubt is the effect of a quarter of an hour in hot mineral water followed by a cold shower: you leave loose-limbed and slightly stupefied, and it lasts all evening.

Temperature Around 40 °C at the taps, hotter in some rooms. Cool showers everywhere. The smell Dissolved sulfur. It clings to hair and swimwear and shampoos out the same day. How long Ten to fifteen minutes hot, then cool off, then repeat. Not one long soak. Drink water Buy a bottle at the desk. Hot mineral water dehydrates faster than it feels. Not for everyone Heart conditions, pregnancy or a heavy lunch of wine: keep it short or skip it.
03

Brick domes and one blue facade

Most of the quarter is deliberately plain: low brick domes, a paved square, a line of doors leading down into the hillside. The exception is the Orbeliani bathhouse, known as Chreli Abano, whose street front is a tall arch of blue and turquoise tile in a frankly Persian idiom. It is the building on every postcard of the quarter.

Behind the domes the Legvtakhevi gorge cuts back into the hill, with a walkway along the stream and a small waterfall at the end of it, a few minutes on foot. It pairs naturally with a bath, and it is better done before you go in, while your hair can still get cold without consequence.

Old Town roofs above the bath quarter. Everything worth seeing at Abanotubani is at ankle height or below.
04

How a visit actually works

There are two ways in. The public hall is one large single-sex chamber entered for a flat fee: you undress in a changing area, wash yourself first, sit in the hot pool, and use the cold shower whenever you need it. It is cheap, plain, and entirely ordinary to the people around you.

The private room is the other option and the one most visitors take. You book the room by the hour and get your own hot pool, a cold shower or plunge, benches and a door you close behind you. Two to six people share one, which is why couples, mixed groups and families use rooms rather than halls.

Prices vary by house and by room. A public hall runs roughly 5–20 GEL (2025); a private room is more like 50–200 GEL an hour (2025), charged for the room rather than per head, with the tiled showpiece rooms at the top of the range. Scrubs, towels and drinks are extra and usually cash.

Public hall Single-sex, communal, flat fee. Roughly 5–20 GEL (2025). No booking needed. Private room By the hour, for the room. Roughly 50–200 GEL (2025) by house and size. Included Hot pool, cold shower, changing space. Towels and sheets rent for a few lari. Extras Kisi scrub, massage, tea or lemonade, slippers. Priced separately, often cash only. How long to book One hour suits two people. Ninety minutes if you want a scrub and a slow finish.
On booking Private rooms are sold by the hour and the good ones fill on winter evenings and weekends. Message or call the same morning for anything after six, especially at the well-known houses on the square. Before eleven, walking in usually works.
05

The kisi scrub, and why to say yes

The kisi is a coarse mitt, and the scrub is as much the reason to come as the water. A mekise, the attendant, sits you on a warm slab, soaks you, and works the mitt over you until grey rolls of skin come off in quantities you will want to discuss afterwards. It is vigorous to the point of comedy.

Then the soap: a cloth bag full of lather flicked over you until you vanish under foam, a short massage that is more folding than kneading, and a bucket of water over the head to finish. The whole thing takes fifteen or twenty minutes, costs roughly 20–40 GEL (2025), and the people who skip it regret it.

What it is Hard exfoliation with a mitt, soap-bag foam, brisk massage. Fifteen to twenty minutes. What it costs Roughly 20–40 GEL (2025), on top of the room. Cash is easiest. How to ask Say kisi at the desk when you take the room, not once you are in the water. Tipping Not required, commonly done. A few lari to the mekise is normal.
It is not gentle The mekise is not testing your limits, this is simply how it is done. Saying nela — slowly — is understood and nobody takes offence. Skin stays pink for an hour and then feels better than it has in months.
06

What to bring

Most houses rent or sell everything, so nothing on this list is a crisis if you forget it. But the rentals are basic, the towels are thin and the soap at the desk is whatever they had, and a small amount of packing the night before is the difference between a good hour and a fussy one.

One thing to plan around: hair and swimwear hold the sulfur until they are washed. Shampoo properly at the bath and rinse the swimsuit that night, or you will carry the quarter around with you the next day. The smell washes out easily. The loose, heavy calm afterwards does not.

Flip-flops Floors are wet, hot and slippery. The single most useful thing to carry in. Swimwear For private rooms and mixed spaces. Single-sex public halls are nude. Own towel Rentals are thin and cost a few lari. Bring a big one if you have it. Shampoo Sulfur stays in hair otherwise. Your own small bottle and soap. Cash Scrub, drinks and tips are often cash. Card at the desk is not guaranteed. Water A cold litre. You will drink all of it and want more.
07

Etiquette, in a place with rules

The public halls are single-sex and nude, and that is not negotiable: turning up in trunks in the men's hall marks you as someone who did not ask. A private room is yours, so swimwear or not is your own business. In neither space does anybody look at you twice; the baths are ordinary here in a way that takes visitors a few minutes to believe.

The rest is what you would guess. Wash before you get into the pool, do not dive or swim lengths, keep your voice down in the halls, and put the phone away entirely — photography is unwelcome anywhere people are undressed, including through an open door. Alcohol before a hot pool is a bad idea that someone will nonetheless offer you.

The quarter sits at the foot of the Old Town. For the neighbourhood the baths are a habit long before they are a sight.
08

When to go, and what to do after

Winter is the season. Walking out of a hot pool into a cold Tbilisi evening is most of the point, and the quarter is busiest from November to March, which is exactly when private rooms need arranging in advance. In July the appeal drops and the houses are quieter, though the water itself is indifferent to the month.

The hour matters more than the season. Mornings are quiet and the halls belong to regulars; after seven the place is social, slower and fuller. Leave the time afterwards empty — the gorge walk, tea, a plate of khinkali a few streets uphill. Booking a transfer straight from the door wastes the best part of it.

Best season November to March. Cold air on the way out is half the effect. Best hour Before eleven for quiet, after seven for atmosphere and a wait. Book ahead Private rooms on winter evenings and weekends. Same morning is usually enough. Afterwards Nothing scheduled. Gorge walk, tea, food. You will be slower than you expect.
09

Five mistakes, so you skip them

Four of these we have made ourselves, and the fifth we watched play out at the desk on a Saturday night in January. None of them ruins a visit outright, but each one costs either money, an hour of standing around, or the part of the experience actually worth having.

Turning down the kisi It is the best fifteen minutes in the building. Say yes, say nela if needed, tip a few lari. Walk-in on a winter night Private rooms are gone by seven. Message the house that morning, or go before eleven. Expecting a spa Worn tiling, loud pipes, municipal fittings. Judge them as baths and they are superb. Swimsuit in the public hall Single-sex halls are nude. Bring swimwear for private rooms and mixed spaces only. Bathing before a flight Sulfur in the hair, lead in the legs. Book the bath for an evening you have kept free.
FAQ

Questions people ask before going

In the public single-sex halls, yes. Swimwear is not worn there, and arriving in trunks marks you as someone who did not ask. In a private room it is entirely your choice, which is why mixed couples, families and self-conscious first-timers book rooms rather than halls. In either space nobody pays you the slightest attention.

The hall if you want the cheap, ordinary, local version and do not mind being undressed among strangers of your own sex: roughly 5–20 GEL (2025), no booking. The private room if you are two or more, want a door, or want to bathe together: roughly 50–200 GEL an hour (2025), charged for the room rather than per person.

For two people in a private room with one scrub each, plan on something like 100–250 GEL (2025) all in, towels and drinks included. The same evening in a public hall costs a small fraction of that. Bring cash: the scrub, the tips and the lemonade are rarely payable by card, even where the front desk takes one.

For a private room on a winter evening or a weekend, yes. The well-known houses on the square fill from about six onwards, and walking in at eight in January usually means waiting or leaving. A message or call the same morning is normally enough. Before eleven most days a walk-in works, and public halls never need booking.

Vigorous rather than painful, and comically thorough: the mitt is coarse and the amount of skin that comes off will be a conversation topic for the rest of the day. Say nela, slowly, if it is too much and nobody minds. It costs roughly 20–40 GEL (2025), takes fifteen or twenty minutes, and it is the part people remember.

On skin, about as long as it takes to dry off. In hair and swimwear it stays until they are washed, so shampoo properly at the bath and rinse the swimsuit that night. The heavy, loosened feeling in your legs lasts a great deal longer, which is why a bath goes better before a quiet evening than before a bus or a flight.

In short Private room, kisi, nothing after Book a private room by the hour, say yes to the kisi even when it stings, bring flip-flops and your own shampoo, and leave the evening empty. The egg smell washes out in one shower; the heaviness in your legs stays until morning. Tbilisi Back to the journal