Afterwards, the town came to be known as '''Tskhumi'''. Restored by the kings of Abkhazia from the Arab devastation, it particularly flourished during the Georgian Golden Age in the 12th–13th centuries, when Tskhumi became a center of traffic with the European maritime powers, particularly with the Republic of Genoa. Early in the 14th century the Genoese established their short-lived trading factory in Tskhumi and a Catholic bishopric existed there which is now a titular see. The city of Tskhumi became the summer residence of the Georgian kings. According to Russian scholar V. Sizov, it became an important “cultural and administrative center of the Georgian state. A  Later Tskhumi served as capital of the Odishi — Megrelian rulers, it was in this city that Vamek I ( 1384–1396), the most influential Dadiani, minted his coins. The Sohum-Kale fort in the early 19th century.Documents of the 15th century clearly distinguished Tskhumi from Principality of Abkhazia. The Ottoman navy occupied the town in 1451, but for a short time. Later contested between the princes of Abkhazia and Mingrelia, Tskhumi finally fell to the Turks in the 1570s. The new masters heavily fortified the town and called it '''Sohumkale''', with ''kale'' meaning "fort" but the first part of the name of disputed origin. It may represent Turkish ''su'', "water", and ''kum'', "sand", but is more likely to be an alteration of its earlier Georgian name.