Sergi Makalatia was a Georgian ethnographer who researched Georgian history, archaeology, numismatics, art and ethnography. From 1930 he produced a series of valuable descriptions of traditional local customs for several Georgian provinces. In 1933, the Georgian Geographical Society sent an ethnographic expedition to Khevsureti under the leadership of S. Makalatiya, which collected rich material, which after processing was published in Georgian in 1935 by the Georgian Geographical Society. In 1937, it was possible to make additions to the Russian edition of Makalatiya's work under the title Khevsureti. In this work, all means of work were used: sketches, photographs, recording of materials, presence at weddings, temple festivals and other rituals, and the nature of the region's life and labor processes were given in a comprehensive unity.
Khevsureti( ხევსურეთი) is a historical-ethnographic region in eastern Georgia. Khevsurs are the branch of Kartvelian (Georgian) people located along both the northern and southern slopes of the Great Caucasus Mountains. By the conventional definition of the Europe-Asia boundary as following the watershed of the Greater Caucasus, Khevsureti is geographically a European part of Georgia