Rooms Hotel Kazbegi

We had never breathed air so fresh or seen the sunlight break quite as it did over the Caucasus Mountains. In this place outside time, we felt the pleasure of slowness, of pure, exquisite nothingness.

Our days were spent walking misty mountain passes, stopping to rest in the lilac shadows of ancient churches carved from volcanic stone. Men and women, with weathered faces that told of a million stories, worked the fields or sat laughing in the sunlight. In the evenings we ate together—gorgeous, never-ending meals of wood-fired khachapuri, giant soup dumplings, sizzling lamb sprinkled in pomegranate seeds, crushed chili, and fresh plum sauce. Our glasses ran full with rich Georgian wines, Saperavi poured from clay jugs, and soda made from fresh tarragon. Then we would sit before the crackling fire, sharing stories and remembering the day as white stars lit up an indigo sky.

Rooms Hotel Kazbegi, a singular retreat set among the Caucasus mountains, looks out on a dramatic terrain of deep green verges, snowcapped peaks, and craggy Caucasian highlands where traditional Georgian life goes on as it has for centuries. Built on the site of a former Soviet worker’s retreat in Stepantsminda, the sleepy capital of Georgia’s Kazbegi region, Rooms Hotel Kazbegi is reachable by private plane from its sister property in Tbilisi. The hotel’s Brutalist architecture received a stunning timber-clad restoration, lending it the semblance of a Nordic or Alpine retreat. Warm wood interiors, including a chic restaurant and a bar with a fireplace, evoke a serene ambience, which is harnessed from the deep armchairs and book-laden shelves of the lounge to the hotel’s stylish and intimate bedroom suites. Designed by Adjara Arch, who worked with two Tbilisi-based designers, Nata Janberidze and Keti Toloraia, the meticulously restored Rooms Hotel Kazbegi showcases the rich heritage, traits, and charm of Georgia to a new audience.

“This enchanting, silent, and delightful night, when the scent of hay and aromatic flowers filled the air.”
Alexander Kazbegi

Forward-thinking entrepreneur Temur Ugulava is forging a new future for hospitality in Georgia by combining the traditional with the contemporary and stirring in a bit of authentic urbane glamour. With a passion for cultural authenticity and a unique, avant-garde approach to design, each property by his Adjara Group Hospitality is a proud showcase of a new Georgia. Ugulava opened his first, wildly successful Rooms Hotel Kazbegi in 2012, then followed it up with Rooms Hotel Tbilisi, a focal point for a new wave of thinkers, artists, and designers who are reclaiming the capital’s Vera district as a local cultural hub for the 21st century.