Imerkhevi

Imerkhevi (Georgian: იმერხევი, Turkish: İmerhev) is a valley in the north of the Şavşat district in the Artvin Province of Turkey, along the border with Georgia.

[1][2] After these territories were conquered by the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century, Imerkhevi (İmerhev) became a sanjak and its people gradually converted to Islam.

[3] Following the turmoil of World War I (1914–1918) and the short-lived independence of Georgia (1918–1921), Imerkhevi became a part of Turkey according to the territorial rearrangements in the 1921 treaties of Moscow and Kars.

They are Balıklı (Tskalsimeri), Maden (Badzgireti), Demirci (Daba), Dereiçi (Dasamoba), Erikli (Agara), Çukur (Chikhori), Sebzeli (Jvariskhevi), Çağlayan (Khevtsvirili), Çağlıpınar (Khokhlevi), Yeşilce (Manatba), Oba (Ube), Dutlu (Surevani), Yağlı (Zakieti), Tepebaşı (Ziosi), and Çiçekli (Tsetileti).

The first who brought the local culture to a scholarly attention was Nicholas Marr, who, while on an expedition in Shavsheti in 1910, collected folk literature and ethnographic information from several villages along the Imerkhevi river.

A group of Imerkhevians. A photo from N. Marr's travelogue, 1911