Day: June 3, 2026
The Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has relocated to the former Presidential Palace in Tbilisi’s Avlabari district and has been operating from the building since March, the government administration’s press office confirmed to several local outlets, including Netgazeti and BM.ge, on June 2.
The Ministry’s departments have operated from two buildings in central Tbilisi: an older building on Shio Chitadze Street in the Mtatsminda district and another on Giorgi Leonidze Street near Liberty Square, where major ministry units moved in 2023. The Ministry’s Consular and Administrative Departments will continue to operate from the Leonidze Street premises.
Located on a hill overlooking central Tbilisi’s older districts, the large glass-domed Avlabari Residence, like the round glass parliament building in Kutaisi, is among the ambitious architectural projects built during Mikheil Saakashvili’s presidency that eventually lost their original purpose after the end of the United National Movement’s rule and have since struggled to find a new function. Since 2019, the Avlabari Palace has been called the State Ceremonial Palace, serving as a venue for state ceremonies and other official events.
The palace remained the official presidential residence during the tenure of Georgia’s fourth president, Giorgi Margvelashvili. Although Margvelashvili had pledged before the 2013 election to move to the Atoneli Presidential Palace, he ultimately chose to work from the Avlabari residence after taking office, drawing criticism from the founder of the ruling Georgian Dream party, Bidzina Ivanishvili.
In contrast, Georgia’s fifth president, Salome Zurabishvili, moved her office to the Atoneli Presidential Palace after taking office in 2018. The Atoneli residence remains the official workplace of the presidency under Georgian Dream-elected President Mikheil Kavelashvili.
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