They primarily live in the Pankisi Gorge, in the eastern Georgian region of Kakheti, where there are approximately 5,700 Kist people.

The Kist community remains quite small and is scattered across northeast Georgia, but in the past decade the number of residents in the Pankisi area has at least doubled due to an influx of refugees from neighboring Chechnya.

In the 1830s and 1870s they migrated to the eastern Georgian Pankisi Gorge and some adjoining lands of the provinces of Tusheti and Kakheti.

The Christians among them and some folk followers pray in Saint George church in the village of Joqolo and attend the religious celebration Alaverdoba in the Alaverdi Monastery of Kakheti.

Additionally, Kists celebrate Tetri Giorgoba, a local variation of St George's Day.

When the Kists first arrived in the valley in the early 19th century from Chechnya and Ingushetia, their religious practices included both Islam and their original Nakh religion, with some overlap with the indigenous beliefs of their highland Georgian neighbors.

In the latter half of the 19th century, the Russian government pressured the Kists to convert to Orthodox Christianity, and there were various episodes of mass baptisms and church construction.

There is also a small community of Kists in Kakheti (a region of Georgia bordering on the Gorge), mainly in the city of Telavi, who consider themselves Orthodox Christians.

Zelimkhan Khangoshvili (1979-2019) - Georgian military officer, platoon commander for the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.