Mountains

Rooms Hotel, Kazbegi

a modernist eyrie facing Mount Kazbek

setting

Mountains

where

Stepantsminda (Kazbegi), Khevi, Georgia

best season

Year

ideal for

Mountain Retreat

( the feeling of it )

Two thousand metres up in the Caucasus, a Soviet sanatorium reborn in wood and glass, the whole snow-mass of Kazbek held in the window. You come for the view; the view does the rest.

( the story )

A design hotel high in the Georgian Caucasus, reborn from a Soviet-era sanatorium — a long terrace and a glass-walled pool held open to the snows of Mount Kazbek and the ridgeline church of Gergeti.

In Soviet times there was a sanatorium up here, and it is from that modernist complex — now tastefully wood-clad for the 21st century — that Rooms Kazbegi has emerged. It sits above the town of Stepantsminda at the foot of the Greater Caucasus, and it is, unapologetically, all about the view: a broad terrace running the length of the building, a glass-walled indoor pool, and room after room turned toward the snows of Mount Kazbek and the tiny silhouette of Gergeti Trinity Church on its ridge. The restaurant keeps to classic Georgian cooking and qvevri wine; the fireplace stays lit through the cold; and on clear nights the immense green yard becomes an open-air observatory, an entire range away from any other light.

( field notes, dawn to night )

A day here

Dawn

First light finds the peak before it finds the valley. You take coffee to the long terrace and watch Kazbek turn from grey to rose while the town below is still in shadow.

Day

A walk out toward Gergeti Trinity Church, or higher toward the glacier; then back to the indoor pool, a wall of glass the only thing between you and the mountains.

Evening

The restaurant fills with the smell of khachapuri and the pour of qvevri wine, amber and old. The fireplace is lit. Nobody is in a hurry.

Night

Out on the dark lawn with a blanket, the light of the world an entire range away, and more stars than you have names for.

( what stays with you )

The experience

All about the view
The terrace runs the length of the hotel, and from every seat the mighty snow-capped Kazbek is the entertainment. This is what Rooms Kazbegi is for — the mountain, framed and unhurried, in every room and on every plate.

The pool at altitude
An indoor pool behind a full wall of glass, the Caucasus range turning pink through the windows at dusk. You swim, you float, you watch the light go off the snow.

The Georgian table
The kitchen keeps to classic Georgian cooking — khachapuri pulled hot from the oven, everything local and seasonal — with a long list of qvevri wine, fermented in buried clay as it has been in Georgia for eight thousand years.

By the fire

When the snow closes in, the day contracts to the fireplace, a kilim cushion, and a book from the library. Warmth against the cold, and the mountain white beyond the glass.

Into the mountains

The old trails run from the door — up to Gergeti Trinity Church on its ridge, on toward the Kazbek glacier, or just out across the meadows. In summer you walk; in winter you turn to the sky instead, in some of the darkest air in the Caucasus.

( worth underlining )

What sets it apart

A design hotel reborn from a Soviet-era mountain sanatorium

A broad terrace and glass-walled indoor pool facing Mount Kazbek (5,047 m)

Rooms turned to Mount Kazbek and Gergeti Trinity Church

A classic Georgian kitchen and eight-thousand-year-old qvevri wine

Fireside lounge and library for the deep mountain cold

Open-lawn stargazing under some of the Caucasus's darkest skies

What you can do

Hiking & Trekking

Indoor Pool & Wellness

Stargazing

Georgian Wine & Dining

Mountain Excursions

Fireside Reading

On the property

Glass-Walled Indoor Pool

Panoramic Mountain Terrace

Restaurant & Lounge Bar

Fireplace & Library

Conference Halls

Free Wi-Fi & Parking

( plan your stay )

Altitude simplifies things. Up here the day narrows to weather and light and the mountain's slow change of colour, and after a few days of it the noise you carried in has quietly gone. You leave clear-headed, a little windburned, already working out when to come back.

Come for the mountain. Stay for the stillness it leaves in you.

best time to visit — Year-round — June to September for green trails and the long walk up to Gergeti and the glacier; December to March for snow, firesides, and the clearest star-filled nights.

book via hawa club →

( keep wandering )

More high in the mountains