Georgia · K'alak'i T'bilisi · Tbilisi
Saburtalo District, Tbilisi — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Saburtalo is one of Tbilisi's largest residential districts, spread across the western side of the Georgian capital. It grew from open plains into a dense grid of apartment blocks, and its name means the place where ball games were once played. Visitors know it best for the Tbilisi Zoo and the exhibition grounds of Expo Georgia. Museums and monuments dot the quieter streets.
About Saburtalo District
Where to stay in Saburtalo District
The right area depends on your trip — here's what each neighbourhood is best for.
Staying in Saburtalo means trading old-town character for space, calmer streets, and easy metro links into the center. The mood is residential, not touristic. Families gravitate to the blocks near the Tbilisi Zoo and the exhibition halls at Expo Georgia, where there is room to breathe.
Beds here run mostly to apartments and mid-range hotels rather than boutique stays, so anyone set on riverside sightseeing may prefer central Tbilisi. For a quiet night within reach of the whole city, it works well.
About Saburtalo District
What are the main landmarks in Saburtalo District?
Its landmarks split between recreation and remembrance. Tbilisi Zoo draws families along the Vere gorge, while the domed Tbilisi Sports Palace and the fairgrounds of Expo Georgia host events on the flatter ground. Scholars come for the Georgian National Centre of Manuscripts, which guards centuries of written record.
Smaller collections fill the side streets, among them the Georgia State Silk Museum and the Georgian State Museum of Theatre, Music, Cinema and Choreography. Monuments mark the district too, from the Statue of Taras Shevchenko in Tbilisi to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Tbilisi.
What is the history of Saburtalo District?
Saburtalo takes its name from the old plains west of Tbilisi, where ball games were once played on open ground. For centuries it stayed farmland. Soviet planners built it up from the late 1950s onward, raising rows of apartment blocks and pushing the capital's residential heart westward.
Major public works rose with the housing, among them the Tbilisi Sports Palace begun in 1956. The Tbilisi Zoo, laid out in 1927 along the Vere gorge, had already given the lower district its first landmark.
Where is Saburtalo District?
The district occupies the western slopes of Tbilisi, with the Mtkvari river running down its eastern side. Lower Saburtalo drops toward the Vere River gorge, where the Tbilisi Zoo spreads along the water. Vake lies just to the south.
From these lower streets the ground climbs westward into the upper residential terraces that give the district much of its housing.
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Updated July 2026