Sujuna Old Jewish Cemetery

There are two Jewish cemeteries in Sujuna, located adjacent to one another. One of them was cleaned and fenced in 2013. Private houses located around the site of this cemetery separate the territory from the synagogue, which is on a parallel street. The description at the entrance states the cemetery was in use from 1830 until 1990. However, legible dates on tombstones indicate the cemetery was actually in active use from the mid-19th century until 1966.

Sujuna is a village in the Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti region in Western Georgia. According to various sources, Jews began living in the area by the 11th-12th centuries. Another source, however, states that the Jewish population came to Sujuna from Lailashi in the North-West of Georgia through Bandza at the end of the 17th century. A document dated 1770 suggests that Jewish serfs were gifted to a church in Sujuna and settled near the monastery. In the mid-19th century about 75 Jewish merchants lived in the town who played an active role in the region’s trade. According to the documents of the USSR’s Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults, the stone synagogue in Sujuna was built in 1819, and about 100 people were attending it for religious holidays in the mid-20th century.