Abraham Jackson - Tiflis (1903)

Born in New York City in 1862, Abraham Valentine Williams
Jackson was a well known American scholar of Indo-European languages. He
studied at Columbia University, where he specialized in Anglo-Saxon and Iranian
languages, and later pursued research at the University of Halle. In 1895, he
became professor of Indo-Iranian languages at Columbia University. Over the
next four decades, Jackson travelled extensively across the Middle East and
Asia and, in 1903, he also visited Georgia. He published his recollections of
this trio in his 1906 book, Persia, Past and Present.


Source: Abraham V. Jackson, Persia, Past and Present; a book
of travel and research (New York: Macmillan, 1906).


Tiflis is a combination of Orient and Occident. It is one of

those cities in which Western civilization has been welded on to Eastern
custom, but the signs of the joining will never disappear. Its languages are as
many as those at the gift of tongues at Pentecost, and its types are as
multifarious as a union of ancient and modern life can bring together. Along
its crowded thoroughfares the sheepskin-clad dweller of the Caucasus rubs
elbows with the Armenian, Georgian, Persian, Kurd, Turk, and Tartar, or moves
side by side with the European dressed in broadcloth. The ever shifting groups
and constantly changing colors rival a kaleidoscope in variety. 


The winding alleys of the native quarters, the mazes of the

bazaars, and the crowded passages between the booths are quite Oriental, but
the European sections of the town, with broad streets, long avenues, and large
squares, are Occidental and show the evidences of Russian advance. 


Being the capital of Transcaspia, Tiflis is the head of the

civil and military authority, as well as the seat of government. Its growth
commercially has been remarkable in recent years ; its busy heart throbs with
the double pulse of East and West, and its claim to one hundred and sixty
thousand inhabitants seems not at all exaggerated. 


Historically Tiflis is a place of interest also, as it was

the capital of ancient Georgia. It is said to have owed much of its original
renown to the Georgian emperor Vakhtang Gurgaslan, in the fifth century of our
era, who was attracted to the place by the health-giving properties of its
sulphur baths. The qualities of these hot springs are especially mentioned by
the Arab traveller Ibn Haukal, in the tenth century, who states that the ‘water
is warm without fire,' and adds, 'Tiflis is a pleasant place and abounds in
provisions ; it has two walls of clay and produces much fruit, and agriculture
is practiced in its territories.' In the latter part of the fourteenth century
it suffered, in common with most cities of Asia, the misfortune of being plundered
by Timur Lang, or Tamerlane. Its general development as a metropolis, though
menaced at times by the Turks, went on under Persian rule until 1801, when the
Russians took possession of Tiflis, and it has remained ever since under the
sway of Russian authority, although riots and uprisings, due to the unruly
character of the mixed population of the Caucasus, have occurred from time to
time. 


The town is situated partly upon a hill, the site of the

ancient citadel, and approaches another elevation to the north and east, so
that the city has a somewhat terraced effect. Through the middle of it, running
from northwest to south-east and roughly dividing it in half, flows the river
Kura, the Cyrus of the ancients. On either side of this rapid stream, and forming
the southern part of the town, are the native quarters of Tiflis, the Georgian
section (Avlabar) being on the east, or left, bank, the bazaars on the west, or
right, bank. Adjoining the bazaars as we look northward, and still on the same
side of the river, is the Russian quarter, with its fine edifices, broad
avenues, and imposing Alexander Garden as a centre. Crossing the river from
this point by one of its several bridges, we enter the German district, which
extends northward from the Georgian quarter and owes its name to a colony of
sturdy dissenters from Wurtemberg, who were among a number that left the
Fatherland early in the last century because of certain religious differences
of opinion and made Tiflis their adopted home. 



 In the Russian quarter are stately buildings devoted to

administration, the post, and banking, together with churches, theatres, clubs,
shops, hotels, residences official and private, parks, and gardens, all of
which show the introduction of Western ideas. One of the most interesting
edifices is the Caucasian Museum with its rich collection of illustrative
material relating to the region lying between the Caspian and the Black Sea.
Here the student will find a storehouse of antiquarian wealth amassed with care
and judgment by Dr. Gustav Radde, who devoted years of his life to the cause. 


When I arrived at Tiflis, I learned that this enthusiastic

and scholarly collector was seriously ill with what eventually proved to be his
last sickness. Despite his feeble condition he insisted upon my coming to call
at his bedside and sent a special guide to conduct me around the museum. The
kindly greeting which he gave me and the gentle farewell that followed I shall
always remember. 



 The museum well repays a careful visit. As a special collection

to illustrate the natural history, flora and fauna, ethnology, and archaeology
of the Caucasus region — a region particularly interesting as being the bridge
between Asia and Europe — it is unmatched. Two exhibits of aquatic life and
land animals around the Caspian Sea particularly interested me because of their
being referred to in the Avesta, or Zoroastrian Bible. One of these was a fine
specimen of the giant sturgeon, known as the accipenser huso, a fish fifteen
feet or more long, and mentioned in the Avesta, as I believe, under the name of
kara masya, or Aar-fish. The other was a group of wild boars, admirably mounted
by the taxidermist so as to display all the fierceness and combativeness of the
varaza, or wild boar, described in the Zoroastrian texts. 


To us of the West the chief attraction of Tiflis lies not in

its European features, but in its Oriental side and the remains which it shows
of an older civilization. A survival of Oriental mediaevalism is seen in the
fortress which crowns the height overlooking the city and commands the town
with its old-time battlements. Still older are the remains of a tower and
ruined aqueduct which overlook the Botanical Garden to the south of Tiflis. The
bridges that cross the river Kura (Cyrus) and connect the two halves of the
city are partly old and partly new. The most interesting, perhaps, because most
crowded, is the bridge of the Tartar Meidan, which leads to one of the sections
of the native bazaars. These bazaars are not so Oriental as the Persian bazaars,
but their crowded booths, the variety of wares displayed, and the bargains they
offer in Daghistan rugs and Caucasian armor, afford an attractive place of
visit for those who have not travelled in the East before.