 An upsurge in pilgrimage followed, driven by a belief that stones in the nearby stream acquired a reddish hue after a massacre of local monks by the soldiers of the Persian shah Tahmasp I in the 1550s.The Chitakhevi Monastery consists consists of a three-nave basilica, stylistically dated to the late 9th or 10th century, and a two-storey bell-tower, likewise dated to the 15th or 16th century.There are remnants of old monastic cells and some accessory structures nearby.