Information about the object:
Kukij ("French") Cemetery is Georgia's largest necropolis. In its old part there is still quite a large number of tombstones of representatives of the Polish community in Tbilisi.

It is currently the oldest cemetery in the Georgian capital. The first burials on it are most likely from the beginning of the 18th century. At the beginning of its existence, it was mainly a Roman Catholic cemetery, and was even called a Polish cemetery, due to the fact that burials here were usually carried out by the Polish community in Tbilisi. Today, the cemetery is multi-faith. It is situated on a large area of land. In 1955, the cemetery was expanded with a new part - an additional 50 hectares of land. In this part, more than 70,000 people are already buried. A dozen years ago, with funds from the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Poland, the TERPA Foundation began cleaning up the Kukiya cemetery. The work lasted several years and included several dozen Polish tombstones. The work carried out by the TERPA Foundation is still visible today.

Completed works:

2022
From 8 to 18 October in the Georgian capital Tbilisi, members and volunteers of the Odra-Niemen Association carried out a project called 'Cleaning work at the Kukii cemetery in Tbilisi'. A group of 12 volunteers from Poland renovated and cleaned Polish graves in the old part of the Kukiya cemetery in Tbilisi.As part of the project, the volunteers were supposed to renovate at least 6 graves. However, during their short stay they managed to take care of 11 graves of our compatriots, thanks to the help of 8 volunteers from Tbilisi - Poles living here, but also thanks to the excellent weather and hard work of the project participants.

Some of the restored graves are family graves - e.g. those of the Ziętek and Wierciński families, or the two Lubański children. One of the sites are monuments collected many years ago by volunteers from Poland gathered in one place. They have been renovated, cleaned up and fenced. The other gravestones are individual graves of Poles who were buried here mainly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During the works, the weeds growing thickly on the graves were removed, the grave stones were cleaned, the inscriptions were repainted, the fences of the graves were painted and concreted, the tombstones were glued to their bases, the wickets were repaired, etc.

All in all, all the anticipated work was carried out in full. Many more graves were renovated than planned. A photographic documentation of the completed work and of the graves requiring action in the following year has also been produced.

2023
The project concerned the cleaning of Kukiya Cemetery, in Tbilisi, Georgia. A group of volunteers from Poland travelled to Georgia in September 2023 and took part in the cleaning of the cemetery. Work on the Kukiya Cemetery began in 2022 and 2023 was a continuation of the work. As part of the works in the cemetery, the vegetation overgrowing the area of Polish graves was cut down, rubbish was cleaned up, inscriptions on graves were repainted, fences of graves were repaired and repainted. In addition, one section of the cemetery, where Polish graves are located, was fenced. All this work was carried out during a 15-day stay in Tbilisi.

The Odra-Niemen Association started working on the Kukij cemetery in Tbilisi in 2022 and finished work on all the Polish graves found in the cemetery in 2023.

Funding: Polonika Institute programme "Polish cultural heritage abroad - volunteering"

More about the project: https://polonika.pl

https://polonika.pl

• Stowarzyszenie Odra-Niemen, realizacja w roku 2022 i 2023