In September 1993, Zviad Gamsakhurdia took advantage of the struggle in Abkhazia to return to the city of Zugdidi, western Georgia, and rally enthusiastic but disorganized Georgians in Samegrelo region against the demoralized and unpopular government of Eduard Shevardnadze.
The river emerges from the high Caucasus near the highest mountain in Georgia, Shkhara, and winds through the mountain valleys to the northwest before turning southwest to empty into the Black Sea near Zugdidi.
Princess Nino's only surviving portrait, produced by an unknown artist during her St. Petersburg years, was purchased in 2010 by the Australian entrepreneur Victor Greenwich Dadianov, a scion of the Dadiani dynasty and Honorary Consul-General of Georgia in Sydney, at one of the auctions of Europe, and was presented by him to the Dadiani Palaces Museum in Zugdidi, Georgia.