Tetritskaro (Georgian თეთრი წყარო; the traditional Russian name is White Key) is a city in southern Georgia, the center of the Tetritskaro region of the Kvemo Kartli region.

The city is located on the site of the ancient Georgian settlement Garisi. In 1121, it was completely destroyed as a result of the invasion of the Qizilbash (a branch of the ethnonym Azerbaijanis). The current name of the city is translated from Georgian as “White Spring”, or “White Key”. The earlier name of the city sounds different – “Ag-Bulag”. It is also translated from Azerbaijani as “White Key”. This name was given due to the presence of a large number of spring water sources and deposits of white limestone rocks. From 1837 to 1857, the settlement was referred to as the “Beloklyuchinsky military settlement”, created at the headquarters of the Mingrelian Jaeger Regiment. In 1857, the Belokklyuchinsky military settlement received a new name – the tract Bely Klyuch, or White Keys. This name lasted until 1937. Probably, the Bolsheviks changed the Russian name of the village because of the association with the White Guards. In 1937, the Bely Klyuch tract was returned to its original Azerbaijani name – Agbulakh. With this name, the settlement existed until 1944, when the settlement was again renamed in the Georgian manner – in Tetri-Tskaro. Since 1966, Tetritskaro has received the status of a city and a regional center.

Since 1816, the headquarters of the 14th Georgian Grenadier Regiment has been located in the White Key tract. After that, the settlement received a second birth. Geographically, the regiment was located at the foot of the “Homer Mountain”. Its height is 1.257 meters above sea level. The city owes its second birth to the conqueror of the Caucasus, General Alexei Petrovich Yermolov. It was he who, developing plans to protect Tiflis from possible enemy raids, decided to establish a military garrison there. The “Outskirts of the Empire”, as these places from St. Petersburg then seemed, turned out to be a fairly convenient place for exile. After the December 1825 uprising on Senate Square and the Polish uprising of 1830-1831, the regiment was replenished with Decembrists and Polish rebels, and “warm Siberia” (as the exiles then called the Caucasus) received new settlers. In 1840-1847, the Regimental Orthodox Church was built in Bely Klyuch. The building was a unique example of mixing styles of Russian and Georgian church architecture. The temple was richly decorated. Services were held in it, in which only officers of the regiment, the local nobility and members of their families could take part. For soldiers and local residents of the non-noble class, another church operated, with more modest decoration. Subsequently, in 1933-1934, the unique Regimental Church was completely destroyed by the “Bolsheviks”. Next to the territory of the regiment were planted terraces for flowers, a nut grove with walking paths for walking. Nearby was opened a park with linden alleys, with a rotunda for the orchestra, benches for rest. On holidays, the regimental brass band played on the rotunda, and visitors to the park danced and rested on the platform in front of it. In front of the central entrance to the park and in the walnut grove, hotels were built for the officers of the regiment, as well as for receiving and accommodating distinguished guests. There was also built a spring with cold spring water, a pool and fountains, which later received the name “Red Spring”. It exists to this day, and is a kind of visiting card of Tetritskaro. For more than a hundred years, the life of the White Key was closely connected with the regiment quartered there. The village grew gradually. Numerous military and residential buildings appeared. The cultural side of life was not forgotten either – two theaters were erected, an officer’s club was opened. Until the February Revolution of 1917, the august chief of the regiment was His Imperial Highness the Heir Tsesarevich and Grand Duke Alexei Nikolaevich Romanov. And before Alexei Nikolayevich Romanov, the august chief of the regiment was Admiral General, Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich Romanov.

In various years, the following served in the 14th Georgian Grenadier Regiment: Adjutant General, Infantry General, Tiflis Governor-General, Prince Grigory Dmitrievich Dzhambakurian-Orbeliani; Lieutenant General, Prince Alexander Garsevanovich Chavchavadze; General, Prince Yason Ivanovich Chavchavadze; Prince Ilya Dmitrievich Orbeliani; Prince Ivan Nikolaevich Abkhazov.
During the Soviet era, military units were also stationed in Tetritskaro. In 1936, on the territory once occupied by the 14th Georgian Grenadier Regiment, a training school for junior commanders of the border troops (military unit 2419) was quartered. Close to border guards there was also a division (later a regiment) for special purposes – OSNAZ (military unit 61615). And until the beginning of the 1990s, a brigade of radio-technical intelligence (military unit 13204) was deployed in Tetri-Tskaro.

In 1856, the founder of the Russian Drama Theater Fyodor Adamovich Korsh was born in Bely Klyuch. In Daget-Khachin, near Agbulakh, Armenak Khachaturovich Kechiyan, an outstanding resident of the city, a prominent master aircraft builder of the 31st Tbilisi Aviation Plant, was born in 1906. In 1861-1862, a prominent Russian statesman, Minister of Finance (1892-1903), Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Russian Empire (1905-1906), Count Sergei Yulievich Witte, lived with his parents in the Bely Klyuch tract. In 1863, the son of the Viceroy of the Russian Emperor in the Caucasus, Field Marshal Mikhail Nikolaevich Romanov, Adjutant General, Grand Duke Georgy Mikhailovich Romanov, was born in 1863 in Bely Klyuch. In 1881, the famous traveler and polar explorer Emmanuil Pavlovich von Tizenhausen was born in the White Spring. A cape on an island in the Novaya Zemlya archipelago is named after him. In 1941-1945, the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Armenia (1988-1990) Suren Gurgenovich Harutyunyan lived in Tetritskaro with his grandfather and grandmother. The ancestors of the Deputy Prosecutor General – Chief Military Prosecutor of the Russian Federation, Colonel General of Justice Sergei Nikolaevich Fridinsky come from Tetri-Tskaro.

During the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, two officers who came from Tetri-Tskaro earned the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. One of them is Ivan Gavrilovich Demetrashvili.
Population: about 4 thousand inhabitants. The city is located on the southern side of the Trialeti Range, 59 kilometers southwest of Tbilisi. The climate is continental. The national composition is mainly Georgians and Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Udis and other small peoples of the country live in small numbers.
The Tbilisi-Akhalkalaki railway line passes through the city. Near the city is the Tetri-Tskaro railway station of the Georgian Railway.

Famous Residents
Demetrashvili, Ivan Gavrilovich – Hero of the Soviet Union
Korsh, Fedor Adamovich lawyer, entrepreneur, owner of a private theater in Moscow
Khachaturov, Yuri Grigorievich – Armenian military leader, colonel general. Secretary General of the CSTO, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Armenia