Tskhinvali, or Tskhinvali (Osset. Ch'reba as it sounds (inf.), Georgian ცხინვალი [Tskhinvali], "land of hornbeams") is a city on the southern slopes of the Caucasus on the Bolshaya Liakhvi River, at an altitude of 870 meters above sea level. The main cultural, economic, industrial settlement of South Ossetia.
Until 1990, it was the administrative center of the South Ossetian Autonomous Region, currently it is the capital of the partially recognized Republic of South Ossetia.
According to the administrative-territorial division of South Ossetia, it is the center of the Tskhinvali region, not included in it and constituting a separate administrative unit of the Republic of South Ossetia, according to the administrative-territorial division of Georgia, it formally has the status of a municipality of Tskhinvali in the Shida Kartli region.

Name
Regarding the etymology of the word Tskhinvali, there are several versions: according to one of the assumptions, the name of the city comes from the Alanian sinkh / sykh “quarter, settlement” and ual “upper, supreme”, that is, “the supreme dwelling”, among Kartvelologists there is a version about the origin from Svan or Georgian (Georgian ქრცხინვალი (Krtskhinvali, Ktskhinvali)) toponym, literally meaning "land of hornbeams". Tskhinval was called in Russian-language sources until the first half of the 20th century.
In 1934, in honor of Joseph Stalin, the city was named Stalinir, or Staliniri.
In 1961 it was renamed Tskhinvali.

In 1991, the authorities of South Ossetia officially approved the name Tskhinvali, which was actually used in Soviet times in parallel with Tskhinvali. Also in everyday life, the unofficial name of the city is used - Osset. Cherba (Chreba).
Russian state media, President Dmitry Medvedev, President and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, other officials and in Russian official documents, including decrees of the President of Russia, before the military conflict of August 2008 in accordance with the "Instructions for the transfer of Ossetian geographical names" 1969 years (used up to the present) the name Tskhinvali was used. On August 26, 2008, President Dmitry Medvedev already used the name Tskhinvali in his statement. In the fall, Rosreestr, in agreement with the Russian Foreign Ministry, officially ordered that the name Tskhinval be used for the city of Tskhinvali, the rest At the same time, the settlements of South Ossetia retained the old (Soviet) names in the Russian language used in the Russian Federation.

History
The surroundings of modern Tskhinvali were inhabited in the Bronze Age. The found settlements and archaeological artifacts of that time are unique because they reflect the influence of both the Iberian (eastern Georgia) and Colchian (western Georgia) cultures, with possible Sarmatian elements.
The Kartli village of Tskhinval was first mentioned in Georgian sources in 1398.
At the beginning of the 18th century, Tskhinvali was a small "royal city", populated mainly by monastic serfs. After the entry of the Kartli-Kakhetian kingdom (1801) into Russia, Tskhinval became a settlement (successively) in the Georgian (until 1840), Georgian-Imereti (until 1846) and Tiflis provinces.
Located on the trade route that linked the North Caucasus with Tiflis and Gori, Tskhinvali gradually turned into a trading center with a mixed Jewish-Georgian-Armenian-Ossetian population.
In 1917, Jews in the city were 38.4%, Georgians - 34.4%, Armenians - 17.7%, Ossetians - 8.8%. The Jews of Tskhinval, as well as other Jews living in Georgia and South Ossetia, did not speak Yiddish and spoke Georgian with each other.
In 1918-1920, clashes took place in the city between the Georgian People's Guard and pro-Bolshevik Ossetian peasants. Soviet power was established by the Red Army in March 1921, and a year later, in 1922, Tskhinvali became the capital of the South Ossetian Autonomous Region within the Georgian SSR. Later, the city's population becomes predominantly Ossetian due to intensive urbanization and Soviet indigenization policies, which caused an influx of Ossetians into Tskhinval from nearby rural areas.

As of 1955, there were three libraries in the city, a drama theater, a music school, a printing house, and a museum of local lore. From 1935 to the present, a pedagogical institute has been operating in the city (now the South Ossetian State University named after A. A. Tibilov).
In 1959, Ossetians already made up the majority of the population of Tskhinval. The city became the main industrial center of South Ossetia, with sawmills, mills and factories. According to the 1989 USSR census, The population of Tskhinval was 42,934.
Before the outbreak of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict in the 1990s, most of the Georgian population (including a large Georgian-speaking Jewish community) left the city. During the escalation of the conflict, Tskhinvali was the scene of inter-ethnic tension and subsequent armed confrontation between the Georgian and Ossetian armies.
In June 1992, Russian Vice President Alexander Rutskoi (Boris Yeltsin was on a visit to the United States at the time) ordered air strikes against a Georgian group that was shelling Tskhinvali, and called Eduard Shevardnadze, threatening to bomb Tbilisi. The fighting has ceased. On June 24, 1992, Boris Yeltsin and Eduard Shevardnadze, with the participation of representatives of North Ossetia and South Ossetia, signed the Sochi ceasefire agreement.
After the Sochi Treaty, peacetime began from 1992 to 2004, but in 2004 the situation in the region began to worsen again (see Aggravation of Georgian-Ossetian Relations (2004)).

Military conflict in August 2008
Until August 2008, 30 thousand people lived in the city. On the eve of the events of August 2008, from August 2 to 8, a mass evacuation of the population was carried out. On the night of August 8 (about 00.15 Moscow time), Georgian troops bombarded the city from Grad rocket launchers, and at about 03.30 Moscow time they began to storm the city using tanks. The city was never taken by the Georgian armed forces. According to the authorities of South Ossetia, during the storming of Tskhinval and neighboring villages, 1,492 residents of the republic were killed. As of August 20, 2008, the Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation was reliably aware of 133 dead residents. On August 12, the return of refugees began.
According to the former mayor of Tskhinval, Robert Guliyev, about 80% of the buildings in the city were damaged as a result of the attack by Georgian troops: “the city, in addition to mortar and artillery attacks, was fired several times from the Grad systems. As a result, 80% of the city's housing stock is damaged in terms of roofing aspects, as for residential premises, this is at least 60% damaged, almost the entire southern outskirts of the city can be attributed to them, and almost the entire private sector has significant damage. Deputy Minister of Regional Development of the Russian Federation Vladimir Blank said that every tenth building in the city cannot be restored, and 20% were damaged to varying degrees. The results of the analysis of satellite photographs revealed 5% of destroyed or damaged houses. According to Russian Ambassador to Georgia Vyacheslav Kovalenko, “The city of Tskhinvali no longer exists. It just doesn't exist. It was destroyed by the Georgian military.”

Restoration
For some time in North and South Ossetia, the issue of a possible transfer of the city was discussed at an unofficial level, but this idea did not receive real implementation.
Under an agreement with South Ossetia, the Russian construction division SU-155 was allocated 60 hectares at the end of August 2008 for the construction of a new microdistrict. During the year, construction of about 80,000 square meters of housing was planned.
During the fighting, the Agara-Tskhinval gas pipeline, coming from Georgia, was damaged. On August 26, 2009, the Dzuarikau-Tskhinval gas pipeline was launched, going directly from Russia to South Ossetia.
The damaged water supply of the city through the Yedis-Tskhinval water pipeline was restored.
On August 31, 2009, the grand opening of the new microdistrict "Moskovsky" took place, built with money allocated from the budget of the city of Moscow. This fact aroused indignation on the part of Tbilisi, since the microdistrict was erected on the site of the Georgian village of Tamarasheni, burned in August 2008. In response, the Foreign Ministry of South Ossetia recalled that the construction was carried out on the territory of the former village, where vineyards were previously located, and not residential buildings.

Sights
The following architectural monuments were located in the city:
- The Caucasian Church of St. George (VIII-IX centuries),
- Assumption Church (Tskhinvali) (XIX century),
- Church of St. Nicholas (Tskhinvali) (XIX century),
- Kviratskhovelskaya, Zguderskaya church of St. George. During the war in South Ossetia in August 2008, some of them were completely destroyed, others were seriously damaged.
- Church of the Holy Virgin (1718). At its foundation, the temple was Armenian and bore the name of Surb Astvatsatsin (Holy Mother of God), then changed the confession from Miaphysite to Orthodox and became Georgian Khvtismshobeli. Now the temple is Ossetian, the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
- Post office building. At the time of the unrecognized existence of the republic in the safe of the Tskhinvali post office, colorful stamps with the inscription "Respublikae Xussar Iryston" ("Republic of South Ossetia"). The first saw the light in 1994, two years after gaining de facto independence from Tbilisi.
- War memorial at the fifth school. In 1992, during the South Ossetian war, here in the courtyard between the school and the neighboring five-story buildings, about 500 residents of South Ossetia were buried - militias, Tskhinvali riot police, townspeople and refugees. It was not possible to bury the dead in the city cemetery - its territory was occupied by Georgian formations.
- Monument to Kosta Khetagurov - the founder of Ossetian literature, poet, artist, publicist, revolutionary.

Jewish Quarter
The Jewish Quarter is one of the most picturesque parts of Old Tskhinvali, where craftsmen and merchants, ethnic Jews, have lived since the Middle Ages. In 1922, Jews made up 36.3% of the city's population.
With the beginning of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict in 1991, most