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Pitsunda – Пицунда – Пиҵунда 1970



Pitsunda (Abkhaz: Пиҵунда, Georgian: ბიჭვინთა, Bichvinta; Russian: Пицунда) is a resort town in Gagra district of Abkhazia.

The town was founded after colonizing Kingdom of Lazica by the Greeks in the 5th century BC as a trade colony Pityus (Ancient Greek: Pityus, Πιτυοῦς, genitive Pityuntos, Πιτυοῦντος) or Pitiunt. Excavations guided by Andria Apakidze unearthed remains of three 4th-century churches and a bath with superb mosaic floors. The former “Great Pityus” harbour is now a mere lake within the town. Saint John Chrysostom was exiled there and died near the shore in 407. Like Dioskurias, it remained under Roman control within the Georgian kingdom of Colchis until the 7th century. The city passed under Abasgian control and became one of the major political and religious centres of the kingdom of Egrisi (Lazica). An archbishopric of Pitiunt was instituted in 541. In medieval Georgia, the town’s name was spelled as Bichvinta. At the end of the 10th century, King Bagrat III of Georgia built there the Pitsunda Cathedral which survives to this day and contains vestiges of wall-painting from the 13th and the 16th centuries. Bichvinta also served as the seat of the Georgian Orthodox Catholicate of Abkhazia until the late 16th century when Abkhazia came under the Ottoman hegemony within Georgia. It is still a titular see of the Roman Catholic Church. In the late 13th century, the area housed a short-lived Genoese trade colony called Pezonda.

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Пицу́нда (абх. Пиҵунда, груз. ბიჭვინთა — «бичвинта») — город (c 10 июня 2007 года) или посёлок городского типа[4] в Абхазии, приморский климатический курорт на одноимённом мысе Черноморского побережья Кавказа, в 25 км к югу от Гагры.

(wikipedia.org)