Queen Tamar (1160–1213) is the most celebrated monarch in Georgian history, and Vardzia is her most visible monument. She expanded the cave city begun by her father George III into a full monastic and defensive complex, had the Church of the Assumption excavated and painted, and reportedly visited regularly from the royal court. Her portrait in the church is the reason many Georgians make the trip.
Tamar presided over the golden age of medieval Georgia, when the kingdom stretched from the Black Sea to the Caspian and Georgian art and architecture flourished across the Caucasus. Vardzia was not just a monastery — it was a statement of that power, carved into a cliff in the far south of the kingdom. Today she is a saint in the Georgian Orthodox Church, and the church inside the cave bears her image in the place of honour.