Archaeological evidence shows that Kutaisi was the capital of the Colchian Kingdom as early as the VI-V centuries BC.
Ancient authors associated ithis city with the myth of the Argonauts.
Later, it became the center of Lazica region, was devastated by the Arabs in the VIII century, restored by the Kingdom of Abkhazia.
In 808, King Leon made it his residence, and in the XI century Kutaisi became part of the unified Georgian state.
In the XVII-XVIII centuries, the city repeatedly changed hands: Imeretian princes ceded the fortress to the Turks until Solomon I, with Russian support, liberated it in 1770.
Negotiations on the Treaty of Georgievsk were held here.
In the early XIX century, after the Elaznauri Convention and the deposition of King Solomon II, Kutaisi was finally incorporated as the center of the Imeretian region.