Cholokashvili

It claimed an exotic foreign lineage and first appeared in the eastern Georgian province, and later kingdom, of Kakheti in 1320.

They were enfeoffed of the office of Prince-Master of the Palace of Kakheti and produced several notable members from the 16th century into the 20th.

[1] Traditional genealogical accounts have it that the family's ancestor was a Genoese officer who moved, in the 14th century, from a Crimean colony to Dagestan where he was dubbed by locals as Cholagh "for the multitude of sheep and cattle he possessed".

King George V of Georgia welcomed Cholagh and granted him an apanage and the princely title of the extinct family of Irubakidze in Kakheti.

[2] The family played an important role in later-day Georgia and intermarried with the Kakhetian branch of the Bagrationi dynasty.