Puli - Vakhtang VI

Vakhtang VI is better remembered as a scholar-king than a military one — he oversaw the first printing press in Georgia and commissioned the first printed edition of Rustaveli's The Knight in the Panther's Skin — but his coinage reflects a reign under constant pressure. Kartli at this moment was squeezed between Safavid suzerainty and Ottoman aggression, and Vakhtang's political maneuvering eventually led him to convert to Islam temporarily to secure the Persian viceroyalty, only to later align with Peter the Great during the disastrous 1722 Caspian campaign, after which he died in Russian exile in 1737.