Ilia Topuria’s Ethnicity and Family Roots

From Abkhazia to Germany

His mother, Inga Bendeliani, was born in 1971 in Dranda, a town on the Black Sea coast of Abkhazia in the northwest of Georgia.^[3] Her family lived in the center of Sukhumi, the regional capital, as Ilia’s grandfather Yuza Kereselidze told the Georgian weekly Kviris Palitra. When Sukhumi fell in September 1993, the family was staying in Dranda and narrowly escaped the bombing. Together with relatives they crossed the Chuberi pass in the Caucasus on foot, Inga with her two small daughters. The war had already killed her first husband and her brother, who died together on a military operation.^[4][5]

Inga settled in Rustavi, an industrial city southeast of Tbilisi, and married Zaza Topuria there. She describes him as a man from Rustavi who fought against Russia to defend Georgia’s territories and who served in the war in Abkhazia.^[4][5] From Rustavi the couple moved on to Germany.^[6] According to ESPN, the long-running tension between Georgia and Russia was what led them there.^[7] Their sons Aleksandre and Ilia were born in Germany, Ilia in January 1997 in Halle in Westphalia.^[4] The Georgian writer Giorgi Kekelidze told Inga’s story in a book that came out in Georgian in 2024 and in Spanish in 2025.^[6][3] The Spanish publisher’s summary says she fled to Germany and met Zaza there. This profile follows her own account in Georgian interviews.

Georgia and Spain

Ilia moved to Georgia when he was seven. He and his brother first lived with their grandfather in Rustavi, while their parents were still in Germany.^[4] His father, who had wrestled as a young man, introduced him to martial arts, and in Georgia Ilia took up Greco-Roman wrestling.^[1] In 2008 he lived through the war between Russia and Georgia, which he later called a very difficult time for his family and his country.^[8] When he was 15, his parents decided to leave Georgia because of the difficult situation there. The family settled in Alicante, where he started Brazilian jiu-jitsu and mixed martial arts.^[1] Alicante is also where his brother Aleksandre’s career in combat sports took off.^[3]

Spain granted him citizenship in March 2024, a few weeks after he won the UFC featherweight title. The Spanish government pointed out that he had trained in the country since 2012, as reported by El Español.^[9] The same month he was honored in Tbilisi at a match of the Georgian national football team. El Español called Georgia “el país de su familia”, the country of his family.^[9]