Driving into the village on the winding Sno-Akhaltsikhe-Juta road, just before the entrance, you pass a collection of massive stone heads, somewhat reminiscent of Easter Island, carved out of granite.
It was in mid-August 2020, we took a day trip to Juta village to fly drone when our guides told - hey look there are these cool carved stones, let's take a stop here. I thought cool, I will google this place later, but for now, will just take some photos with a drone.
And so I did
Carved stone sculptures near Sno village in Georgia
It took me some time and technical knowledge to find more information about this place using metadata for photos from my DJI Mavic Mini drone (Adobe Lightroom metadata to find GPS coordinates)
Sno village in Georgia from a drone flight
Doing my research on this place it was fun to learn that the village of Sno is famous not only for mineral water but also is known as the birthplace of the current head of the Georgian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Ilia II.
Carved stone sculptures near Sno village
I was able to find that author of these carved stone sculptures is sculptor Merab Piranishvili:
Merab has been carving these statues by hand since 1984. Each statue is of a different prominent figure from Georgian history, some will find sculptures of: Ilya Chavchavadze, Vaja Pshavela, Shota Rustaveli,and Alexandre Kazbegi.
Author of this blog captured in action flying a drone
Used resources: The Man Carving History out of the Caucasus Mountainside