Historically the main community of Upper Svaneti, Mestia has long served as a cultural center with medieval monuments, especially defensive Svan towers built between the 8th and 18th centuries

Ushguli is a collection of five medieval villages and forms part of the UNESCO-listed Upper Svaneti, inscribed in 1996.The village contains numerous defensive tower-houses built primarily during the 9th to 12th centuries

This family house-museum in Mestia belonged to the Margiani family, originally owning eight towers (four remain).

In Mestia, the Museum of History and Ethnography (often referred to as the Ethnographic Museum) was established in 1936