In Abanotubani - Tbilisi's historic bathhouse district, named for the natural hot sulfur springs said to have inspired the city's very founding - stands Chreli-Abano, also known as the Orbeliani Baths. Dating to the 17th century, with its striking blue-tiled, ornamented facade added in the 19th, it's the most photographed of Tbilisi's sulfur bathhouses, its Eastern-style minaret-like domes rising above a street of brick arches and steam. Legend holds that King Vakhtang Gorgasali discovered these hot springs while hunting in the 5th century and founded the city on the spot - giving Tbilisi its very name, from "tbili," meaning warm.
This enamel pin captures the bathhouse's unmistakable colorful facade in miniature - a small piece of one of Tbilisi's oldest living traditions.
