Supra

What it is

A supra is a large shared meal in Georgia, and it belongs to the country's social life rather than to any single religion or region. The word itself means tablecloth. Georgians use it for the cloth, for the food set on it, and for the whole occasion. Two kinds are named. A festive supra, called a keipi, marks joyful times. A sombre one, a kelekhi, follows a burial and is quieter in tone. Large meals in Georgia seldom happen without a supra, and even a picnic with no furniture counts, since the spread can go on a cloth on the grass. In 2017 the country's national register of intangible cultural heritage took these customs in.

Origins and the word

Supra comes from the Persian word sofre, which also means tablecloth and which entered Turkish as sofra. Georgian court life in Tiflis, now Tbilisi, took in a great deal of Safavid ceremony and vocabulary while the kingdom of Kartli was under Safavid rule, and the term arrived in Georgian at that time. The historian John R. Perry traces the custom back to Safavid Iran, to drinking parties called sohbat and to formal banquets with a master of ceremonies. Those Safavid gatherings, he argues, had been shaped by Inner Asian steppe peoples, Mongol and Turkic.

How a supra runs

Guests either elect a tamada or accept the host's choice. A good one speaks well and drinks heavily without losing composure. The tamada names a theme, then talks about it at length. Everyone lifts a glass but waits. After the tamada, the turn moves on around the table. A guest who wants to speak holds the floor and then empties the glass. Anyone who would rather not speak may drink after a phrase that strikes them. Eating goes on throughout. Speech does not: while a toast is under way, the others listen in silence.

Toasts and their themes

Medieval Georgian court poetry, among it The Knight in the Panther's Skin, describes wine and feasting. Amiran-Darejaniani is another such work. None of these texts gives a tamada or toasts of the kind made today. The Georgian word for a toast, sadghegrdzelo, first appears in a poem by Grigol Orbeliani written in the middle of the 1800s and inspired by Vasily Zhukovsky. The philologist Levan Bregadze dates today's supra to the early 1800s, after Russia annexed Georgia, and says that by the 1890s it had taken hold across the whole country. In a keipi a toast is a sadghegrdzelo; at a kelekhi it is a shesandobari. Toasts commonly turn to ancestors and friends, to family and country, to the saints and the Mother of God, and to God.

How Supra is kept

The host or the guests settle on a tamada before the meal. That person sets the order of the toasts and speaks first on each theme. Glasses are raised and held while the tamada speaks. Then the table takes its turn, one speaker after another, each finishing the glass. Guests may eat at any point. A person who has nothing to add can drink after a line that moves them. When the round of speakers is done, the tamada gives the next theme. The sequence repeats until the meal ends.

When and where

A supra does not belong to one date. It is held whenever people gather to mark something, in joy or in mourning. The kelekhi, the sombre form, follows a burial. A festive supra, or keipi, can be arranged on any day that suits the hosts. Nothing in the custom ties it to a season or a fixed month.

Supra is kept throughout Georgia, in cities, towns and villages, and among Georgians who have moved abroad. Its vocabulary and ceremony grew up at the court in Tiflis, now Tbilisi, under Safavid influence. Historians also connect it to Iran, where the Safavid banquet and drinking party took shape, and note that the Georgian version may in turn have touched Russian toasting customs after Russia annexed Georgia.

What Supra means

A supra says that people belong together. Sitting at one table is the point, and the tamada gives the meal its shape by naming what the group is there to remember. Toasts carry shared meaning: they honour what people hold dear and give each guest a turn to speak. The same custom covers grief, so mourning and joy use the same table. Eating during the toasts is taken as proper rather than rude.

Questions people ask about Supra

See also

TamadaThe toastmaster who leads the Georgian supra, guiding toasts and conversation at feasts.Georgian polyphonic singingSeveral voices at once, sung without instruments at Georgian feasts and weddingsChichilakiA shaved hazelnut branch crafted as a Georgian Christmas tree and burned at EpiphanyEid il-BurbaraA winter feast of costumes, sweet boiled wheat, and sprouting seeds across the Levant

Good reading and sources

• Supra (feast) on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.