Access to scaffoldings in the monastery will be closed to unauthorized personnel

The National Agency for Cultural Heritage Preservation is responding to the rumors about the demolition of the frescoes in Gelati and their fastening with adhesive tape and blames Tornike Baratashvili, a member of "Europe is Our House". The agency claims that Baratashvili is an unauthorized person and that he should not have gone to the scaffolding to shoot the material.

For this reason, the Cultural Heritage Preservation Agency has made a decision, to close the access to the scaffolding in the monastery to any unauthorized citizens.

"A look at the situation on the location revealed that the mass seen in the video posted on the social network by "Europe is our home" (and used by the media to spread this information) must have been taken on a scaffolding made to monitor the frescoes in the temple yesterday, on May 18th, by a representative from the same organization, Tornike Baratashvili who ascended and moved on the scaffolding, the effects of which needs to be further examined
Due to the unfortunate fact of arbitrary movement of an unauthorized person on the scaffolding yesterday, the Monument Protection Agency made a decision to close the access to the scaffolding located in the temple for outsiders, for which the relevant works will be carried out. In this way, the monument should be protected from additional damage while the Ministry of Culture is working on ways to settle the situation in the Gelati monastery complex” the agency wrote.

The agency claims, that there has not been a fact of water leakage in the monastery for several months.