Ushguli is a community in Upper Svaneti. It is one of the highest mountain settlements in Europe, and is situated at a height of 2,200m above sea level. Four villages make up the community of Ushguli: Murkmeli, Chazhashi, Chvibiani, and Zhibiani, which follow the Enguri Valley, beginning from the headwaters of the River Enguri at the foot of Mount Shkhara, and are distributed along one vertical axis like a string of beads. The Ushguli community is bounded to the east by the vast Caucasus Mountains, whose branches border the valley to the north and to the south with the Svaneti mountain range. Accordingly, the villages of the community are bordered on three sides by mountains, and may be viewed against the backdrop of the breathtaking Mount Shkhara, perpetually covered with snow, which is enclosed by a valley .

Ilia Chavchavadze was born in 1837. At that time, Georgia had already ceased to exist as a political entity, not with even a minimal degree of sovereignty. By the manifesto of 1801 of Alexander I, the Kingdom of Kartli -Kakheti officially joined the Russian Empire. Soon, the Kingdom of Imereti fell to the same fate.

The formation and evolution of socialist realist art in Georgia commenced during the 1930s and 1940s. However, its ideological foundations in Russia were seen between 1922 and 1932. Critical realism (peredvizhniks), constructivism, neoclassicism, and French classical realism conditioned the eclectic visual language typical of socialist realism and its utopian ideology.