Ilia Chavchavadze lived in the house in 1902-1907 with his spouse, Olgha Guramishvili. When living in Tbilisi, Ilia Chavchavadze changed several residential addresses, in Mtatsminda and Sololaki districts. In 1889-1901, Chavchavadze lived in the house of his younger sister, Elisabeth Saginashvili, where the editorial office and printing house of the Iveria newspaper were located. Today, the building hostes Ilia Chavchavadze Tbilisi Literary-Memorial Museum of the Union of the Tbilisi Municipal Museums, which is open to visitors and guests after 4 years of rehabilitation and restoration works. In the 1900s, Ilia Chavchavadze decided to buy his own house and bought a plot of land and a small one-story house on Andreev Street (currently: #22 Giorgi Chubinashvili st.) from Gabriel and Barbara Ghviniashvili. The building originally had small rooms. Later, in order to smarten and expand the facade, Ilia added two rooms with an entrance facade in following the project of the famous architect of the 19th century, Simon Kldiashvili. Chavchavadze arranged an office in one of the built-up rooms while another became a guest room, construction of the house was led by a constructor-engineer Iakob Frangishvili.
Tbilisi Ilia Chavchavadze House-Museum (#22 Giorgi Chubinashvili st.) was founded on August 3, 1956 following the resolution of the Council of Ministers of Georgia and opened for public on October 22, 1957. Giorgi Leonidze, the People’s Poet of Georgia was the main initiator of the establishment of the museum.
Due to the scheduled rehabilitation works, cultural heritage as well as the funds preserved in the museum, have been transferred to a protected place for study and processing in accordance with the relevant regulations and instructions.
The project of the rehabilitation-reconstruction of the museum envisages the rehabilitation and repair works of the epoch-making building preserving architectural and artistic features of the monument, epochal stylistics and the facilities for the museum needs. Memorial and authentic outline and artistic value will be preserved as well. The project foresees adaptability of the building and full accessibility for people with different needs.
The works within the project are to be completed in April, 2024. Total cost of the rehabilitation works equals to 2 268 260.00 GEL.
The source of financing the cost is municipal budget funds of the years of 2022, 2023 and 2024.
The rehabilitation-reconstruction works will be perform by Ikorta 2007 LLC.
Supervision of works will be carried out by the author of the project – Senson LLC and the Collections and Funds Service of the Union of Tbilisi Municipal Museums.