[1] Comprising the small river valleys of the Migmakhevi, Shatili, Arkhoti and the Aragvi, the province borders with Ingushetia and Chechnya and is included in the present-day Dusheti Municipality, Mtskheta-Mtianeti region.

Khevsureti, with the area of approximately 405.3 square miles (1050 km²), is traversed by the main crest of the Greater Caucasus Range, dividing the province in two unequal parts.

Chronicler Leonti Mroveli mentions that after the conversion of the King Mirian III of Iberia and Queen Nana to Christianity in the early 4th century, St. Nino continued to preach among Georgian highlanders (მთიულნი, mtiulni), including Pkhovi.

They were exceptional warriors, embodying traditional Georgian qualities of courage, openness and honesty, fraternity, independence and love of freedom,[4] who were often promoted as royal bodyguards.

[5] Although Zisserman claimed to have arrived at the speculation himself and is often credited with the idea, this theory had already appeared in earlier sources and was a popular story among non-Georgians in Tbilisi.

[8] The Khevsur men, dressed in chain mail and armed with broadswords, wore garments full of decoration made up of crosses and icons, which served as a means of protection according to Christianity which Georgia adopted early in 4th century.

Greek historian Herodotus (c. 484 – c. 425 BC) notes that the Caucasian highlanders of that time, were brilliant knitters and embroiders of their dress or Chokha, which wore out but never faded from frequent usage.

Young girls started knitting at the age of 6-7, but men studying and military training, because according to their tradition women were deprived from education and higher social status.

Even during the Soviet period, with its harsh restrictions against any religious activities, each year the Georgian highlanders gathered with a group of elder Orthodox Christian priests and performed their traditional rituals.

Although these figures must of course be taken with a pinch of salt (in the sense that they are based upon data whose reliability is unproven and debatable to say the least), a comparison between the two years (1873 and 1935) reveals Some disobedience offered by the Khevsurs to the Soviet ideology was a reason for obligatory migration to the plain initiated by the government in 1951.

While this bears some resemblance to the classic Georgian Chokha, it is shorter and trapezoidal in shape and features a more powerful color balance and a greater use of cruciform decorative motifs.

The architecture of Khevsureti is mostly highly fortified and defensive in character, featuring a profusion of towers clinging to the mountainsides, signifying constant vigilance in the face of enemy attack.

The Encyclopædia Britannica reported in 1911 that many curious customs still prevailed among the Khevsurs, as for instance the imprisonment of the woman during childbirth in a lonely hut, round which the husband parades, firing off his musket at intervals.

Along with their bellicose history and experience, they have also a custom of the opposite peaceful nature and ethics: if a young girl or a woman throws her kerchief between the fighting Khevsurs, it signals her order to stop the combat and the men always obey the lady’s interference.