The fortress of Skanda, coupled with that of Sarapanis, stood in difficult terrain, guarding the eastern approaches to the country, by the boundary of Iberia.

[3] Around 522, shortly after Lazica accepted the Eastern Roman suzerainty, the Laz garrisons of these two frontier strongholds were substituted with the imperial troops, who soon abandoned them due to difficulties in logistics.

Beyond native historical documents, it is mentioned by the foreign visitors of Georgia, such as Giosafat Barbaro and Ambrogio Contarini in the 1470s, Nikifor Tolochanov and Aleksey Yevlyev in the 1650s, Jean Chardin in the 1660s, and Johann Anton Güldenstädt in the 1770s.

[6][7] The Russian envoys Tolochanov and Yevlyev, touring Imereti in the 1650s, visited Skanda—then a favorite summer residence of King Alexander III of Imereti—several times and described it as a well-built fortress atop a hill in a rugged river valley, enveloped by a 20 m-high and 600 m-long brick wall and fortified with four towers planted with cannons.

The Georgian historian, Prince Vakhushti, compiling his geography of Georgia in 1745, referred to Skanda as the location of a royal palace and "a great citadel of imposing construction".

Its area totals 7,000 m2 and height reaches 120 m. Relatively better preserved are the eastern façade of a royal palace and walls of a church which contains a Georgian inscription.