Dadiani Palace
The Dadiani Palace, which was the residence of the Samegrelo princes, is one of the famous places that you will definitely have heard about. However, we will tell you the history of its establishment once again. The museum complex located in the center of Zugdidi consists of the palaces of the Samegrelo Queen Ekaterine Chavchavadze-Dadiani and Niko Dadiani himself, the gate church and the botanical garden planted by the Dadiani family. The Dadiani Palace is currently the State Historical and Ethnographic Museum. The reconstruction of one of its parts - the royal palace - belongs to the German architect Reiss in the 1960s, who used elements of Gothic architecture during the renovation. The two-story palace of Niko Dadiani was built in the 1980s by the Russian architect Vasiliev. The museum is adorned with a forest park planted by the main Dadiani of Samegrelo on 67 hectares, which is loaded with unique and perennial trees and shrubs brought from different parts of the world.
The palace-museum currently houses more than 40,000 exhibits. Among them, the Virgin Mary's robe, Napoleon Bonaparte's mask, Shamil's sword, collections of European and Georgian artists of the 18th-20th centuries are particularly noteworthy. The museum's gold fund preserves works of antique and medieval goldsmithing: national (from the Bronze Age to the end of the 19th century, including memorial items of the Dadiani) and European cultural heritage.