The Georgian State Silk Museum celebrates and supports sericulture (the process of making silk) as an act of biology, engineering, handicraft, and art. Its displays take you through the lifecycle of the silk-worm to the gathering, weaving, and dying of silk threads to the final cultural products sericulture produces. The facility also hosts a reference library, offers artist residencies, and hosts contemporary art exhibits in their rotating galleries.
A visit to the State Silk Museum is essential for anyone interested in fabrics or art, but is also a fascinating look into a beautiful, important, and often overlooked aspect of Georgian history and heritage.
History of the State Silk Museum
The State Silk Museum was founded in 1889 by the Caucasian Sericulture Station as part of a broader initiative to develop Georgia’s silk industry and promote healthy silkworm breeding. Its classic red and cream brick building, with a detailed Victorian-style facade, was designed in the early 1890s by Tbilisi-based Polish architect Aleksander Szymkiewicz, features silkworm-inspired motifs, such as decorative silk-moth moldings in the entrance hall—reflecting its specialized purpose.
The museum’s early collection was built from objects taken from across Georgia and surrounding regions as well as from the Sericulture Station’s labs. Most artifacts date from the late 19th to early 20th century and provide examples of cocoons, worms, machinery, dyes, and contemporary textile practices. The collection was at its peak in the early 20th century when the work of the Sericulture Station was at its height; the current collection is estimated to be only 40% of what was held in 1905. After the 1917 revolution, few records were kept on its fate.
In 1929, the building and collection were absorbed into the new Sericulture Institute. The museum was closed to the public and focused only on research. Efforts were made in the late 1980s to rescue the museum from closing, and it briefly came under the protection of the Georgian Ministry of Agriculture. In 2006, the Ministry of Culture took over the care of the museum and it was declared a state museum of significant cultural heritage. In 2007, the museum opened to the public again, and the collection and exhibitions were re-assessed and revived to create a seamless educational experience for layman visitors.
The museum closed in 2020 for a total renovation and reopened in October 2024 with a small but dedicated staff. It now operates in partnership with initiatives like the EU-funded Arachne project, which supports countries with strong textile traditions. Through this collaboration, the museum contributes to preserving Georgia’s silk heritage as part of a broader European effort to research, preserve, and educate the public about silk production and culture in Europe.
The Collection and Exhibit
Today, the Museum sits in the shadows of the Dinamo Arena in Tbilisi, enclosed within a large gate and surrounded by a small and slightly overgrown but beautiful garden. Guests are welcomed through a cool and quiet entrance hall and up a grand stone staircase towards the main exhibition space.
The exhibit begins with the natural foundation of sericulture—the mulberry tree and the silkworms that feed on it—and progresses to finished silk textiles from the Caucasus and beyond. The chronology thus follows the full sericulture process, from larvae to finished product.
Off to the side of the spacious main hall the exhibit begins with a small room dedicated to the mulberry tree. Endemic to and abundant in the Caucasus region, the mulberry tree helped make Georgia one of the first places where large-scale sericulture took root outside of China. The room displays samples of leaves and wood from various mulberry species and educates visitors on their cultivation—showing healthy specimens as well as those that show signs of having been infected with common diseases and pests. Other uses of the tree in Georgian life are also highlighted, such as musical instruments carved from mulberry wood.
Moving into the main hall, a high-ceilinged, classically-proportioned room lined with wooden display cases, the focus shifts to the silkworm. Specimens are preserved in glass jars and bottles, some partially dissected to show the anatomy, while others illustrate each stage of the silkworm’s life, from larvae to cocoons to adult moths. These surprisingly beautiful scientific displays, suspended in blue-toned fluids or creatively pinned to display boards, are accompanied by a striking wall of hundreds of tightly packed silk cocoons of various silkworm species collected from around the world. The floor-to-ceiling display overwhelms the viewer with the richness of the silk industry and the surprisingly simple, biological origin of such a prized material.
The exhibit continues with the growth and processing of silkworm cocoons and the extraction of silk fibers. This section features laboratory equipment and machinery from the Sericulture Station that were key to industrializing silk production, along with numerous samples of raw silk—twisted into sleek, white braids—to illustrate the delicate strength of the fiber.
The room’s second half transitions to a long central case displaying powered dye pigments and their raw materials, sourced from around the world and used to color silk in every imaginable shade. Sources include indigo plants, cochineal insects, cupric sulfate, and walnuts. Opposite, another case presents silk threads treated with these dyes, revealing how different pigments interact with various silk types. Looms with partially woven samples stand nearby, paused mid-process to illustrate how thread becomes fabric. Fabric swatches from around the world showcase a range of textures and designs—from simple solid colors to vivid patterns produced in Soviet-era silk factories, familiar from clothing and upholstery. Another case features a delicate collection of silk lace.
Next are turn-of-the-century Caucasian textiles. The focus is on traditional fabrics found in pre-industrial homes. These non-luxury textiles were made by hand from blends of silk, cotton, and/or wool in ways unique to each family and region. This includes jejim, an ancient carpet-weaving technique that yields a rough, simple, colorfully-patterned fabric. Some simple handicraft textile examples are displayed as well, in bright stripes and plaids as well as solid colors.
The final and most recent addition to the museum’s collection showcases silk textiles and costumes from around the world. This part of the collection was acquired primarily through gifts to the museum. The display includes Japanese kimonos as well as traditional Azerbaijani dress, embroidery, and silk carpets.
Education and Inspiration
The Silk Museum’s dedicated staff preserve the legacy of Georgian silk traditions, the Sericulture Station, and Soviet silk production of the 20th century through museum programming, community outreach, residencies, and partnerships.
Silk was an important part of Georgian trade and handicrafts for millennia and even appears in its oldest texts. In the distant past silk-making was largely a homecraft rooted in individual groups and families, with practices unique to each region. The Sericulture Station brought Georgian silk-making into the industrial age, and Georgia eventually hosted silk factories. However, with Communism’s fall, the factories and farms were abandoned. Silk and silk products are no longer made in Georgia. Thus, the museum’s preservation efforts are all the more vital.
In speaking to the museum’s curator, Salome Phachuashvili, I wondered if there was a chance that silk production might someday be revived in Georgia and in the Caucasus region. Salome believes that yes—there is a chance that the abandoned art might once again thrive in the region. The country maintains a cultural memory of its textile history and farmers still preserve Georgia’s ancient silkworm species in the hopes that silk production will one day resume in Georgia. The resources are still present, waiting to be taken up again (much as with tea production, for instance), and modern textile artists have the interest and talent to make it happen. If such a revival takes place, Salome hopes the State Silk Museum might play a role in educating and inspiring Georgia back to its roots.
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