Kvetera, a ruined fortified town, lies hidden in the hills 12 km to the west of Akhmeta, in Kakheti province. Founded in the early Middle Ages, the town played a particularly significant role in the late tenth and eleventh centuries, when it became one of the political centres and major strongholds of the Kingdom of Kakheti. Later it lost its former importance and fell into disrepair.
The Medieval town of Kvetera consisted of an outer fortress and a citadel. Residential quarters sheltered in the outer fortress, defended by a strong wall with towers, while the citadel was occupied by local lords and their guards.
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A large two-storeyed palace of the lords is a rectangular structure built of roughly cut stones and once covered with a timber roof. Subsidiary rooms were located on the ground floor, and an audience hall and living rooms on the second, open with large arched windows. Remains of various utility buildings and a water reservoir can also be seen in the citadel.
In the late tenth century, in the period when the town was beginning to rise, a small church was built in the eastern part of the citadel. Standing close to the palace, it served as a palatial chapel to lords.
The chapel is a domed structure built on a tetraconch plan with deep circular niches arranged in the corners of the central square bay. The design of Kvetera was inspired by that of the second domed church of Dzveli Shuamta Monastery, which in its turn is a simplified version of the celebrated Church of the Holy Cross at Mtskheta.
The chapel, built of smoothly hewn travertine blocks, is one of the most harmonious buildings of Medieval Georgia. Perfectly proportioned, it is composed of symmetrically arranged polygonal masses of the main body and a tall round drum of the dome rising in the middle. Decorative blind arches surround the walls from all sides. The airy interior of the chapel is distinguished by finely elaborated details.
Initially, Kvetera Palatial Chapel was covered with turquoise-blue glazed ceramic tiles. The present roof was made in the late 1960s with tiles modelled after the old ones.