[3] Lagodekhi Protected Areas are in north-eastern Georgia, on the southern slopes of the Caucasus, bordering Azerbaijan and the Dagestan republic of Russia.

The forest includes a wide variety of plant species; reputedly almost two thirds of those found in the entire country; and the lowland parts have been compared to the warm temperate vegetation in the Black Sea region (locally called "subtropical").

[11] The Lagodekhi reserves include archaeological traces of Bronze Age settlement and burials, especially in the village of Ulianovka.

[7] The reserves originated with the Polish army officer and amateur naturalist Ludwik Młokosiewicz, who established a regimental park at the settlement of Lagodekhi while stationed with the garrison there.

[12] Beginning in 1889, Młokosiewicz urged that the area be protected, but this did not occur until 1912, after advocacy by the Imperial Russian Geographical Society and by Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov, a professor of geobotany at the University of Dorpat (now Tartu).

[15] After the breakup of the Soviet Union and the re-establishment of independent Georgia in 1991, a period of war led to a great increase in poaching and reduction in the animal populations at Lagodekhi.