GOBI, a town in the Georgian S.S.R. north-west of Tiflis, on the river Kura; altitude, 2,010 ft., lat. 42° o' N., long. 44° 7' E. Pop. (1926) 10,192. It is the centre of a corn and wine district. The climate is delightfully cool in summer, owing to refreshing mountain breezes, though these are disagreeable in winter. It has timber mills and manufactures railway sleepers, and a jam industry is being established. Gori was founded (1123) by the Georgian king David II., the Renovator, for the Armenians who fled their country on the Persian invasion. The earliest remains of the fortress are Byzantine ; it was thoroughly restored in 1634-1658, but destroyed by Nadir Shah of Persia in the 18th century. There is a church constructed in the 17th century by Capuchin missionaries from Rome. Five miles east of Gori is the remarkable rock-cut town of Uplis-tsykhe, which was a for tress in the time of Alexander the Great of Macedon, and an in habited city in the reign of the Georgian king Bagrat III. (98o– I014).