William E. Curtis, "City of Tiflis" (1911) - Part 1

By the time he travelled through Georgia shortly after the turn of the 20th century, Willian Eleroy Curtis had already traversed three continents and dozens of countries. In the 1880s, the United States Congress appointed him to a three-man commission to "ascertain and report upon the best modes of securing more intimate international and commercial relations" between the US and Central and South America. Curtis spent more than two years exploring Mexico, Guatemala, Venezuela, Peru, Chile and Argentina, and produced a massive, 700-page, study, The Capital of Spanish America (New York, 1888) which became one of the most popular books on this subject.  In later years he served as a correspondent for the Chicago Inter-Ocean and Chicago Record Herald, traveling to many countries and producing lively accounts of his experiences. In 1910-1911 he traveled around the Black Sea and visited Georgia, leaving an interesting memoir of his experiences there. 

Source: Around the Black Sea: Asia Minor, Armenia, Caucasus, Circassia, Daghestan, the Crimea, Roumania (New York: Hodder & Stoughton, 1911)

The Right Honourable James Bryce, British Ambassador to Washington, who visited Tiflis thirty-five years ago or more, on his way to climb Mount Ararat, described that city as "a human melting pot, a city of contrasts and mixtures, into which elements have been poured from half Europe and Asia and in which they as yet show no signs of combining. The most interesting thing about it," he said, "is the city itself, the strange mixture of so many races, tongues, religions, customs. Its character lies in the fact that it has no character, but ever so many different ones. Here all these people live side by side, buying and selling and working for hire, yet never coming into any closer union, remaining indifferent to one another, with neither love nor hate nor ambition, peaceably obeying a government of strangers who conquered them without resistance and retains them without effort, and held together by no bond but its existence. Of national life or numerical life there is not the first faint glimmer; indeed, the aboriginal people of the country seem scarcely less strangers in its streets than do all the other races that tread them."

There are said to be seventy different languages spoken on the streets of Tiflis, or at least so many dialects of the various races of Europe and Asia who have been attracted there by business and other interests and in search of employment. Many of the dialects belong to the same parent language; many of the races sprang from the same stock, but each has acquired a certain individuality by reason of its environment and the conditions under which it has been living. As Mr. Bryce says: "Probably nowhere else in all the world can so great a variety of stocks, languages, and religions be found huddled together in so narrow an area. All these races live together, not merely within the limits of the same country, a country politically and physically one, but to a great extent actually on the same soil, mixed up with and crossing one another. In one part Georgians, in another Armenians, in a third Tartars, predominate, but there are large districts where Armenians and Georgians; or Armenians, Georgians, and Tartars; or Tartars and Persians; or Persians, Tartars, and Armenians, are so equally represented in point of numbers that it is difficult to say which element predominates. This phenomenon is strange to one who knows only the homogeneous population of west European countries, or of a country like America, where all sorts of elements are day by day being flung into their melting pot and lose their identity almost at once."

What Mr. Bryce wrote thirty-five years ago of Tiflis is equally true to-day. Perhaps it is even more true than it was then because of the increase of population. Tiflis is twice as large by the census of 1905 as it was in 1875, when he was here. Tiflis already has two hundred thousand population, and is growing rapidly. A bird's-eye view of this curious old town can be obtained by taking a funicular, or inclined plane, railway to the top of a bluff, where there are a restaurant, tea houses, a merry-go-round, and other simple amusements which are much patronized by the working classes. Standing upon a platform, you can take in the whole panorama. The different sections of the town can be pointed out to you — the Russian, German, Georgian, Persian, Armenian, and Tartar quarters, with the brown river dividing them and the roofs painted in different colours.

Wherever you see a group of dark crimson roofs you may know that they cover Russian soldiers, for that is the colour of their barracks, selected, a cynical friend remarked, by accident and not by design — although it is very appropriate to the business upon which the garrisons are engaged. The Armenians paint their roofs a copper green or silver gilt, similar to the steeples on their churches, which are ugly-looking cylinders with tin caps shaped like a cartridge, although the cross that springs from the top of each sanctifies it. They are in striking contrast with the Byzantine domes of the orthodox Greek church. There are two sects, the Russian and the Georgian, who disagree more from racial than from theological incompatibility. The Greek domes are of the shape of an inverted turnip and are painted blue, which adds to the picturesqueness of the scene.

You can see several mosques patronized by the Persian Mohammedans, but they are shabby, dirty places, without the slightest attractive feature, and very poor places for any respectable person to pray in. Judging from their houses of worship, the Persians have not much respect for their own religion, although they look thoughtful and earnest and sincere, and pray aloud like the Pharisees of the Bible, regardless of others, and the sounds from a mosque are often like a hubbub. 

We went into a mosque in the tailors' quarter one morning and saw an old Persian priest with whiskers dyed a vivid scarlet. I asked Naskidoff, our dragoman, why the old man made himself look so ridiculous, and he explained that it is the fashion — that is all. As the priest is the only man in Tiflis I had seen so decorated, he must be introducing the style and is not receiving much encouragement.

There are several other cities in the Caucasus, but none of any importance, and Tiflis, being the political capital, with a viceroy; the military headquarters, with a force of 135,000 men; and the centre of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, there is much beside commercial business and agriculture to draw the people there. 

The city is divided almost equally by the river Kur, a swift, muddy stream about the colour of strong coffee, which is confined to a narrow canyon, with steep walls of stone, where it dashes through the town. There is a great waste of manufacturing power, which might be profitably utilized, but, with the exception of some curious floating flour mills, I did not see any mechanical industries.

These flour mills are built of wood, and at first glance look like bath houses. Each of them has a big water wheel, which turns the stones. The houses are supported on the water by a sort of catamaran, a wide float being underneath the mill and a narrow one on the other side of the power wheel. They are anchored near the banks, and their position can be shifted according to the will of the owner. Usually each of them has a little warehouse barge attached, where the raw material and the finished product are stored, and if you will watch you can see men going back and forth between the sawmill ship and the shore carrying bags upon their backs.

At the eastern end of the town is a narrow pass between two rocky hills, which seems to have been cut by the water. The walls are precipitous — one hundred feet or more above the river. On one side the bluff is crowned by a citadel strongly fortified. It commands the entire city. A few shells from one of the guns could utterly destroy both the business and the residence sections. Within these fortifications is a repulsive looking prison, said to be crowded with political offenders. Strangers are not invited to visit the place, and they are likely to make themselves unpopular by discussing it.

The Russian section is new and modern, with wide, clean streets, good sidewalks, an opera house, a theatre, a club, and a military museum or "Temple of Glory," as they call it. There trophies won by Russian arms, battle flags, portraits and relics of military heroes and other interesting mementoes, have been collected, with several battle pictures and other representations of war. One of the pictures, painted on a mammoth canvas, represents the entrance of the Russian army into Tiflis in 1808, when the king of Georgia asked [Russian Emperor] Alexander I to come down and protect him against the Persians; another represents a treaty being negotiated in a forest between a native chief and a Russian general; but the most interesting of all is a relief map of the Caucasus which shows you at a glance the extraordinary configuration of this part of the earth. Bronze tablets inscribed with records of all the battles fought by the Russian soldiers in the Caucasus from 1567 to 1878 have been embedded in panels in the outer walls of the museum, which are of great historical value. They give the number of men engaged and the casualties.

The principal street of the town is called Golovinski Prospekt, in imitation of the Nevsky Prospekt of St. Petersburg, and it is a fashionable promenade. 

To the east of this clean Russian town is the Persian quarter, as genuine as any city of Persia, with narrow, crooked streets and mud houses of only one or two stories, which were built when the Persians occupied this country. On both sides of the street are little shops, like closets, set back into the walls, not more than six or eight feet square, with no light or ventilation except that which comes through the door. Each line of business has a street or a covered arcade to itself. The rug dealers are all in one street, the silversmiths and goldsmiths in another; the hat makers, the dry-goods dealers, the hardware men, the butchers, the bakers, and even the bath houses and the barbers are segregated like the tailors and the dealers in kitchen utensils, which is a great convenience.

One whole street is given up to barbers, who do a big business, for the Persians shave their heads instead of their faces. All the bath houses are on one street, which seems to be well patronized also. Naskidoff, who knows everything, says the Persians wait until they are very dirty and then go and take a long, hot bath.

Many of the merchants make their own goods and work at their own trade in their shops where their customers can see them. The Persians are petty merchants; the Georgians manufacture arms and are gold and silver smiths. Their handiwork is rude but artistic; that is, they show more taste than skill. They run to belts, daggers, revolver handles, cups, flagons, filigree buttons, and saddle ornaments, which the Georgians covet more than virtue. They do some very clever work by inlaying steel with silver and gold, but it is not so fine or so artistic as the cloisonne of Japan.

The Armenians are the big dealers, the bankers, the money lenders, and, like most prosperous people, are the object of jealousy and resentment. I was told that when an Armenian loans money he expects to have it repaid. His business reputation is fine, but the people who owe him money hate him. All the Armenians are thrifty, industrious, and temperate, and do not waste their substance in riotous living.

The Tartars, who have their own section of the town, hate the Armenians more than the Persians do, not only because of a difference of temperament and habits of life, but because the Tartars and Persians are Mohammedans and the Armenians are Christians. The Tartars are the toughest of the lot. They are kindly and loyal but hot-headed, with a fondness for a fight and strong drink, notwithstanding the prohibition of the Koran. When a Tartar lets himself go, other people are wise to give him the right of way, particularly when he wears a knife at his belt and "totes" a couple of guns. He abominates the Armenians, who are a constant moral reproach to him, and makes no effort to conceal his hatred.

Upon the summit of a mighty rock, upon a promontory projecting from a ridge rising several hundred feet above the river that bathes its base, is an old citadel built in the twelfth century by Georgian kings to defend Tiflis against Persian invasion. It is a mighty mass of brick masonry but was abandoned a hundred years ago. The ruins are well cared for and the government has made a botanical garden which is very creditable in the old moat and the approaches that surround the fortifications. I noticed a number of American trees tagged in English with the botanical and the common names and acknowledgments to the Agricultural Department at Washington, from which they came.

[...]

The Tartars are as careless and indifferent about money matters as the Armenians are keen and cunning, and are always in debt to the latter, which makes hatred, of course. No man loves his creditors. The Tartars, who are Mohammedans, abominate the Armenians as much as the Kurds do, first, because they are Christians; second, because they are money makers, economical, frugal, and thrifty; and, finally, because they won't fight. The Tartars care nothing for money nor for property of any kind, except that they love their horses and their wives and children alike and are extremely jealous of all three. The family attachment and devotion of this rough and turbulent race is said to be an example for all the rest of mankind.

The Tartars have been the terror of Asia for centuries. You have read, of course, about the invasions of the Tartar hordes from time to time that have overrun the eastern part of Europe. They are always fierce, always restless, and do not thrive under the restraints of civilization. A Tartar will fight his weight in wildcats on any provocation, but an Armenian is a man of peace.

Not long ago there was an international row here between these two races, whose settlements adjoin on the east side of the river. I cannot find out how it began but it was over some trifle that everybody has forgotten. It waxed more serious daily, and when the Armenians, who have been butchered mercilessly for ages in Turkey as well as in the Caucasus, saw the bloodthirsty Tartars sharpening their knives, they sent a committee to the viceroy to plead for protection. The viceroy, who is a humane man, understood the situation, but naturally did not care to butt in for fear of exciting animosity against the government. Hence he instructed the leaders of both races to appoint committees of representative men to discuss the troubles with him.

The delegates were selected and came to the palace; they went over the history of the feud from its primal causes to the present moment, and then each side submitted arguments. The viceroy, having heard them through, dodged the issue, and told them that it was not a matter for the government to meddle with, but one which they must settle among themselves.

"You are all rational, sensible, business men of intelligence and experience," he said, "and it is absurd that you should quarrel over such trifles as you bring here for me to settle. The government does not propose to take any part in your controversy; it is too trivial to waste our time about, and now I simply ask you to sit down together like sensible men and settle it among yourselves," and with that he dismissed the delegation.

The next morning the Armenian committee received a challenge from the Tartar committee demanding that it select one or two hundred men, or as many as it pleased, of the best fighting Armenians in Tiflis, to go out into the country and fight to the death with an equal number of Tartars.

The Armenians returned a scornful reply. They are better at writing than at fighting. With great dignity and decorum they rebuked the Tartars for suggesting such a barbarous method of settling a quarrel in the twentieth century of human civilization.

The Tartars reported that the Armenians were cowards and offered to give them odds of two to one, but the Armenians refused to discuss the subject any further, and kept inside their doors as closely as possible until the excitement died down.

There is no unity among the seventy races of Tiflis, there is no common national feeling; there is nothing upon which patriotism could be based. No two of the many races represented here are on amicable terms, except the Germans, who mind their own business and are friendly to everybody.