The article says the cathedral was built during the reign of Bagrat III of Georgia, with groundbreaking in 1010 and completion in 1014. It names no builder. The style is Georgian cross-dome, a domed cruciform plan with a western segment and side chapels, and the facades are smoothly hewn stone. It has one dome with twelve drum windows.
Decoration includes unbroken arcatures, ornamented window architraves, 17th-century frescoes and reliefs of the Transfiguration, the Last Judgment and the Ascension of the Cross. Figures of Saint George and Saint Theodore appear, along with real and mythic animals.
A king named Bagrat of Imereti repaired it in 1534, and a belfry was added in the 19th century. The 1991 Racha earthquake damaged it, and it was later restored. It is on the UNESCO Tentative List.

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