[2] One princess of the Gelovani family is said to have survived the destruction of her clan by the princes Dadiani, who usurped the Principality of Svaneti in the mid-17th century, and to have fled to Kabarda in the North Caucasus.

In the 1820s, the Principality of Svaneti effectively split into two as a result of a blood feud between the rival Dadeshkeliani branches.

Nevertheless, they continued to run their affairs independently and did not allow Russian officials or church missions into the area until the late 1840s.

On a farewell audience in Kutaisi, he quarreled with a local Russian administrator, Alexander Gagarin, and stabbed to death him and three of his staff.

Several members of the Dadeshekeliani family were exiled to the remote Russian provinces and those who remained in Georgia were deprived of their privileges of autonomous princes.