Nestan-Darejan of Kakheti, Queen of Kartli

Nestan-Darejan (Georgian: ნესტან-დარეჯანი; fl. 1556–1612) was queen consort of Kartli, a kingdom in eastern Georgia, as the wife of King Simon I, whom she married in 1559. Nestan-Darejan was a daughter of King Levan of Kakheti and a half-sister of Levan's successor to the throne of Kingdom of Kakheti, Alexander II. Her husband spent nearly five decades fighting the Safavid Iranian and Ottoman encroachments on his kingdom, twice losing his throne and personal freedom. Nestan-Darejan suffered further, being humiliated by his half-brother, the king of Kakheti, who capitalized on Simon's difficulties to attack and loot Kartli. After Simon had been sent a prisoner to Iran in 1569, Nestan-Darejan's estates had been pillaged by Prince Bardzim Amilakhori, Alexander's father-in-law; and in 1580, following Simon's return to Kartli and his defeat by Alexander at Dighomi, the latter carried off after the battle his half-sister's drawers on the point of a lance. Nestan-Darejan outlived her husband and died sometime after 1612, having mothered six children, including Simon's successor to the throne of Kartli, George X.

Nestan-Darejan was born of Levan of Kakheti's second marriage to a daughter of the shamkhal of Tarki, whom the king married in 1529 after he divorced his first wife, Tinatin Gurieli. Nestan-Darejan married Simon I of Kartli in 1559. This union was one of the first interdynastic marriages between the Kartlian and Kakhetian branches of the Bagrationi dynasty, holding sway over the two breakaway successors of the once united Kingdom of Georgia. The union was followed by a pact between the two monarchies, one aim being to evict the Iranian garrison from Tbilisi, the capital of Kartli. Levan of Kakheti eventually hung back, but allowed his son and heir, Prince Giorgi, to join Simon's army. The Georgians lost the ensuing confrontation and Giorgi was killed on the battlefield.

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