Johann Jacob Friedrich Wilhelm Parrot (1791 - 1841) was a German naturalist and traveller, who spent much of his life in the service of the Russian Empire. Born in Karlsruhe, Parrot studied medicine and natural science at the University of Dorpat and took part in several scholarly expeditions to the Crimea and the Caucasus in the 1810s. In 1816-1817 he traveled to Italy and Spain and upon return to Russia, became professor of physiology and pathology (and later professor of physics) at the University of Dorpat. In 1828-1829 Parrot traveled to south Caucasia, spending considerable time exploring Eastern Georgia and Armenia. During this expedition, he led a scientific expedition to the summit of Mount Ararat. He later published his account of the expedition entitled "Journey to Ararat."
To hear of Tiflis, or to have visited Tiflis, never fails in Europe to excite a degree of interest, which seems neither to be justified by distance, nor any other striking peculiarity which that city possesses; an interest, too, which is so much the more extraordinary, since every stranger in Tiflis is so sure to express himself in the language of discontent, that it becomes at last inconceivable why every other foreigner is not deterred from venturing to visit such a place.
There is no doubt that Tiflis, both from its geographical and local position, would be one of the most delightful spots upon the earth, were it not that the mountains among which it lies, and which might otherwise contribute the most to render it agreeable, are totally divested of wood, and consequently deprived of those natural treasures, fertilizing and cooling rivers and fountains; for, if we except the flows from one of the western valleys between the warm mineral springs till it joins the Kur [Kura/Mtkvari], there is only one poor rivulet, which trickles down from the Narikaleh [Narikala], or rock-mountain, on the south side of the city, and distributes its scanty store to the vineyards in the town, into which it is only permitted to be turned for an hour or so under the superintendence of the police. The mountains about Tiflis are accordingly of no other use than to concentrate the rays of the sun, which would otherwise be kept off by the cool winds from the north and east, and give rise to those fiery blasts in the valleys, which strike the inhabitants like the air from a furnace, and, in all likelihood, occasion those diseases of the biliary organs which are endemic in the sultry districts of Georgia and Armenia.
The personal beauty of the Georgians would naturally attract the attention of Europeans, and secure a lively interest in their favour, if their intellectual condition were only in keeping with their outward bearing. The Georgian would win the esteem of all the world did he but unite with the symmetry of his person and the energy of his character a taste for useful occupation, and the laudable improvement of the faculties of his mind; while the women of Georgia would be admitted on all hands to have a just claim to the possession of the highest order of female loveliness, did they not prematurely impair the advantages which. nature has so lavishly bestowed upon them by the immoderate use of cosmetics, of apparel prejudicial to their health, and by their reckless licentiousness, instead of directing their thoughts to the regulation of their households, to economy, cleanliness, the education of their children, and the other duties proper to their sex.
It must be confessed that in this, as in all other cases, some praiseworthy exceptions will be found; but I only speak here of the general impressions which are made by Georgian society upon a stranger, and am therefore obliged to aver that there is a total want of industry, activity, and domestic feeling everywhere apparent; and though cleanliness and love of order have, in a few instances, gained a footing among the higher class, it is yet only as objects of imitation and luxury, not of necessity and habit.
The venerable existence of Tiflis in an Oriental form gives it another claim upon the sympathy of Europeans, when we reflect that it has found means to maintain its nationality, by an enormous expenditure of life, for 2000 years, against the Persians, Turks, and Caucasians; and it is only now, and by friendly intercourse with strangers, that that independence is threatened which hitherto has baffled the utmost efforts of Mohammedan and Pagan. Notwithstanding the presence and example of numerous strangers from Russia, Germany, and France, the Georgian still adheres to his own primitive agricultural implements, and defective system of cultivation in the field, the vineyard, and the garden. He is not even so far advanced in the construction of his mills as to supply himself with a good quality of flour: this has to be procured from the Russians. His antiquated wheel-carriages are still as clumsy and rude as they were in the Golden Age. He still, as of old, shaves off all the hair from his head, which he covers, when he goes into the broiling sun, with a heavy cap of sheepskin, well calculated, when aided by excesses in the use of wine, to produce a constant determination of blood to the brain. The native of Tiflis still makes it a daily practice to indulge, as of old, in the use of his disgustingly filthy sulphureous warm bath, where he exposes his body for hours to the heating and enervating influence of the vapour.
Yet all this is national and sanctioned by immemorial usage. What are we to think, though, of the merchant of Tiflis, with his stiff collar and Oriental robes? What of a coquetish Georgian lady, with a French capote instead of the veil of the olden time? Why must the houses of Tiflis, with their well-contrived flat roofs of clay, overgrown with weeds, to which the city is indebted for immunity from fires—though, even here, a violent storm of lightning, occurring during the height of the summer, will occasionally set the dry grass upon the housetops in a blaze—why, I ask, should this roof of the southern Asiatic, the place of his recreation and exercise, give place to the high, sloped tiling of the North?
But the Georgian will one day have to deplore the total downfall of Georgian customs, under the influence of modern refinement; the main cause of all which changes must be sought in this truth, that no characteristics of a people, unless founded on pure religious feelings, can ever draw down a permanent blessing, or command respect; and this is the basis which the Georgian nationality has failed to establish.
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