Richard Hill - The Thousand Types of Tiflis (1916)

Richard Hill, The Thousand Types of Tiflis, the Capital City of the Caucasus in whose Streets a Myriad of Types Rub Shoulders - The Joys of a Caucasian Turkish Bath

Source: Travel magazine, Volume XXVII, No. 2, June 1916

WHAT a picture and what a panorama meets your gaze as your train from Baku suddenly swings around the curve, bringing you in sight of Tiflis! The city lies in the hollow of a deep saucer sprawling along the banks of the tortuous Kura, which straggles up the steep sides of the saucer, shut in on all sides by high mountains. The railroad runs along the side of the bowl, the station being some little distance above the town proper.

Coming in that way you are suddenly brought face to face with a superb view of this most fascinating and interesting city of the East. You look down over the many tinted roofs of the houses perched so perilously on the steep banks of the river, and see into the heart of the old Georgian town and into the Tartar section, with its bazaars, mosques, minarets, and, towering over them all, the grim walls of the great city prison, once a Georgian palace. From that your gaze travels across the swift flowing Kura to the newer section of the town, with its wider streets, finer buildings and more European aspect. Then along the Golivinsky [Golovinskii] Prospect, the backbone of that newer section, the eye travels over the Vera Bridge to the Michaelofski [Mikhailovskii], a busy thoroughfare, out through the Mushtihid Park to the Race Track, and then on to the German Colony, finally losing itself in the Georgian Military Road in the distance. The whole scene is backed by the narrow, precipitous ridge along which, in a rambling fashion, the old fortress was built, parts of which remain as a picturesque background for this unique Eastern city.

Looking down upon the town as it lies at one's feet the most striking feature about it is the great number of churches that raise their multicolored and diversely shaped spires in the air. What a bewildering variety of style they present! Here we have, for instance, the plain, octagonal, single-spired church of the Armenian, usually of white stone or of plaster. There you see the gray stone church of the Georgians, severely plain; not far away the tall spire of the German Lutheran is seen; and here and there in various sections of the town the gilded minarets of the Moslem mosques show themselves, these all in turn being outnumbered by the wild confusion of the strange medley of Russian ecclesiastical architecture that forces itself upon the view. By far the biggest of these is the war cathedral [on the Golovinskii Prospect]. It is situated on a large square in the very heart of the town, close by the Viceroy's palace. As you look at it from the height of the railroad, it looks for all the world like a series of huge bowls set on end, with one a little larger placed on the top of these, gilded till it shines like the top of a gigantic gold thimble, the whole surrounded by a large gold cross.

Apart from the churches, the prison and the ruins, there are no outstanding features of the landscape except it be the funicular, the cable railway that climbs to the top of St. David's mountain right behind the town. Tiflis is the capital of the Caucasus, the seat of the Viceroy who rules this province in the name of the Czar. At the beginning of the Sixth Century it succeeded Mtzkhet [Mtskheta] as the capital of the Georgian kings. In 1395 the city was plundered by the Tartar chief, Timur; later, the Persians ruled over it, and it was finally ceded to the Russians in 1801.

Nowhere else in the world can one find in a similar area so many types of peoples, so many languages and dialects, so many religions and sects, as in Tiflis, for it is here that East meets West, and here also that East remains East. Tiflis can well be called the potpourri of races, tongues and religions. New York's cosmopolitanism, great as the New Yorker thinks it to be, is provincial compared to the riotous, regardless confusion of Tiflis. Nearly seventy languages are spoken daily on its streets, and to stand, for instance, on the Golivinsky [Golovinskii] Prospect and see the afternoon parade of fashion pass by is to imagine oneself in a Buffalo Bill's congress of nations.

Look at them, then, as they pass by. Here we have the Leshghin [Lezghin] from the mountains of Daghestan, in close-fitting, long, dove-colored coat, tight-fitting around the waist. High, soft leather boots, ending at the knee in tight trousers. A huge, gray lambskin hat perched rakishly on the side of his head adds two feet or more to a stature well on to six feet, forming as handsome a picture as one could wish to see. Swinging by his side will be a long jeweled sword and dagger, reminder to all of the great fight his people made against the Russian army under Shamyl [Shamil], the hero of Daghestan.

Behind him will be a Georgian nobleman clad in snow white broadcloth coat cut long and tightly fitting as the Leshghin's, but differing in having a row of cartridges sewed across his breast. At least that is what they were once intended for, but now they have been replaced by fancy ivory pieces topped with silver. His huge hat will be snow-white lambskin shaped like a grenadier's busby. Then will come a Georgian peasant in black, shiny coat and trousers, the trousers baggy and very wide, ending in sandals made of rough canvas. On his head is a little round cap just big enough to sit on the very back of the head, something like the caps worn by English schoolboys.

After him you will see the handsomely gowned Turkoman from across the Caspian in flowered silk bathrobe and huge, gaily colored turban; then the somberly clad Persian in his stiff, black lambskin hat and flowing robes: the Moslem priest in his sweeping garments and spotless white turban; the Armenian from Ararat in his thick, padded coat and felt waistcoat: the Mingrelian; the Imeritian; the Greek—all in the national dress of their people; the Russian peasant with his slouchy gait, huge leather boots and thick fur cap; and, as it were to add whatever color had been forgotten in this motley combination, we have the Yezidee [Yazidi] Kurd from the Kars region supplying the lack. He sports visually a brilliant scarlet long coat with a richly embroidered waistcoat, trousers with a deep gold stripe down the side, the whole topped off with a gorgeous turban of varied silk.

The women's clothes I would fain describe, but my pen refuses the task; suffice to say that the Eves of the Caucasus in relation to their dress are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Do not think, however, that the newer styles of the West are not seen here, for you will find dandies and dudes quite as up-to-date as any Beau Brummel from London, and the costumes and styles of many of the ladies are not far behind those of Paris and Berlin, for many travel abroad and learn the newer fashions of the West, losing the picturesque freedom of their national costume for the slavery of the fashion plate.

Besides all this, Tiflis being a garrison town with thousands of soldiers quartered here continually, the military adds its quota of color and effect to the general scheme.

By far the most interesting part of the town is the Tartar section, known as Shaton Bazaar—in other words, Satan's market. It is really the old, narrow', congested, original town, fairly reeking of the East and a delightful place in which to be turned loose with a pocketful of money and a hankering after antiques and curios. All through it, tucked away in odd corners, you come across shops filled with loot of all kinds that gladdens the heart of anyone fascinated by the East and anxious to carry some of its glamour to the matter-of-fact West. In these shops you can find queer copper vessels made ages ago in the mountains of Daghestan; beautifully chased, old-fashioned rifles; complete suits of armor, worn not so long ago either, by these wild Caucasian mountaineers; delicately fashioned drinking cups and vases; silver spoons of odd designs; daggers innumerable of all possible shapes and sizes; samovars richly engraved and embossed; endless varieties of shoes and clothes, and a multitude of other things that one can gloat over even if the pocket cannot afford to buy them all.

Then, how interesting it is to nose around in the queer bakeshops of the Tartars, where they bake their bread in huge ovens like inverted cones, slapping the thin, flat cakes against the sides to bake, and then afterwards hanging them on a line outside the shop to dry! Or, if you should be hungry and your stomach a strong one, you might slip into a native restaurant for lunch. They will bring you a big bowl of what looks like soup, pieces of meat, onions, carrots, tomatoes and potatoes stewed together, and with it in lieu of cutlery, one of these breads, now dry and ready to eat. The bread you pull off in strips, roll it up like a cone in your hand, and then dip it in the soup, skillfully extracting with it a piece of meat or vegetable which you eat with the bread. They will be sure to serve you tea in two teapots. One contains the tea and is a small one fitting into the larger one which holds the hot water, in order to give you several glasses.

Then you will want to stop and look into the blacksmith shop, the anvil like a fort with a moat around it, for the men who swing the heavy hammers stand in a deep hole dug around the anvil, so as to give them more play in their work. They will be stripped to their waists, and as they work they sing a fierce native song, so that a sudden glimpse into the darkness of a smithy lit up for the moment by the glowing and flying sparks is one not soon forgotten. When you pass by a place filled with bloated looking animals, you will naturally wish to investigate, and you may be a bit chagrined to find that you have merely looked into a wine shop, for that is the way they keep their wine for the most part. That is, they take the skins of rather large animals, clean them, inflate them, and then fill them up with wine.

Over in the newer part of the town you can shop with as much comfort as in any large European city, with a variety of choice not a great deal poorer. Traveling about the city, you have the choice of a very good electric car service or the ever-present phaeton. This is a low carriage something like a drosky, drawn by two horses that are kept at a furious gallop all the way. They stand at every street curb and are a boon to the shopper, for they take you rapidly to any point you may wish to make and as you shop you can fill up with your purchases the capacious hollow in the hood of the cover.

Tiflis is red hot in the summer, the hills surrounding it keeping away the cool breezes that would ordinarily come down from the snow-capped mountains of the backbone of the Caucasus. The nights especially are humid and close, but then Tiflis does not go to bed until morning, for its people usually spend the first part of the night in the multitudinous tea gardens that are to be found everywhere. These are prettily shaded by trees strung with colored electric lights and have in one corner a large stage where native dances are danced and Caucasian songs sung. The public sit at little tables drinking either Russian tea or the famed wines of this district.

Surrounding Tiflis, however, within easy reach, are many cool mountain resorts quite the equal in scenery and in health of the famed Swiss resorts. The winters are delightful, provided there be no unusual rain, for the same hills that keep away the cool breezes in the summer also shelter Tiflis from the cold north winds, so that snow is rarely seen and frost practically unknown. In the spring and early summer it is most interesting to stand upon one of the many bridges that span the Kura and watch the rafts that come sweeping down the river from points further up country. These rafts are composed of long timbers cut down in the winter months and floated after the ice breaks up. On them at times much country produce is piled, and to see the skillful way in which they are guided down the swift current and finally brought to land on the flats in the lower part of the town is a constant source of delight to the uninitiated.

Then one must not forget the famous sulphur baths of Tiflis. These are found down in the section of the city known as Shaton Bazaar, and cover an area of several blocks. The water is quite warm, almost hot, and very sulphurous. The bath houses are composed of little rooms with dome-like roofs, an aperture in the center of the dome giving light. In these rooms are marble tanks through which the water flows. You can get a Tiflis Turkish bath if you wish, and it is an experience long to be remembered. The attendant slaps you around in an orthodox fashion and then suddenly turns you over on your face and begins to run up and down your spine as fast as he can, fairly pummeling you with his toes and feet, leaving you feeling considerably better, but also quite bewildered and breathless.

But the great charm of Tiflis lies in the fact that it is a center of a region that is rich in ancient lore. From its roads radiate in every direction that take you to the quaintest, oddest places imaginable. For instance, just along the Kura valley a bit you come to a place called Mtzkhet [Mtskheta], the old capital of Georgia, where is to be found one of the oldest churches in the world. It is just as it has been for centuries, undisturbed and unaffected by the rush and whirl of Twentieth Century progress, sleepily dreaming over its former greatness. Then back in another direction you get into Daghestan, where men still wear chain armor and where feuds as old as Noah's time determine the destinies of its people. Going south you have the whole Erivan and Ararat region to explore, Ararat inviting inspection with its historic memories. Lake Gotchka with its magnificent fish and its famed monasteries, Anni [Ani], the ancient capital of what was once the Kingdom of Armenia, where an old German professor has dug and excavated for years, bringing to light much valuable information regarding the life of that old capital and its people who were blotted out in one of the frequent deluges of invasion that have swept over this region. These little excursions, too, give you an insight into the life of the country as nothing else can, for on these roads can be seen the people as they live, work and travel, and one such trip is an education in itself.

[…]

In short, a trip out of the beaten track to Tiflis will be long remembered as a delightful glimpse into primeval conditions of peoples primitive and simple in the extreme, and will transport you back to the breezy, racy times of the Arabian Nights without the aid of the magic carpet, but accomplished in comfortable trains and by easy traveling.

Ambrogio Contarini - Questo e el viazo de mister Ambrosio Contarin (1474) - Part 2

Ambrogio Contarini (1429-99) was Venetian merchant and diplomat, author of a noteworthy report on Persia under the Aq Qoyunlu Uzun Ḥasan. He was descended from a patrician family and pursued a career in commerce. In his youth he lived in Constantinople as a merchant but had to leave after the start of the Ottoman-Venetian War  in 1463. Seeking an alliance with Uzun Hasan, the Venetian Republic charged Contarini with a diplomatic mission to Persia. Contarini departed in February 1474, traveled through central Europe, passed through Kiev and Georgia, and reached Tabrīz in August. A written version was drawn up in the same year and published in 1486 in Vicenza by the printer Leonardo from Basel, with the title "Questo e el viazo de mister Ambrosio Contarin ambasador de la illustrissima signoria de Venesia al signor Uxuncassan Re di Persia." A second edition (Venice, 1524), entitled Itinerario del Magnifico et Clarissimo messer Ambrosio Contarini was included by G. B. Ramusio in the second volume of his collection Navigationi et Viaggi (Venice, 1559). Contarini’s report was translated into Latin and French in the l7th century and, under the auspices of the Hakluyt Society, into English in 1873. This excerpt is a modified version of the Haklyut edition.

On the 12th of July, 1475 … we arrived at a city belonging to this king called Tiphis [Tiflis], situated on a little hill with its castle, which is very strong, on the hill higher up. This city has the reputation of having been very large, but much of it has been destroyed. What little remains contains a numerous population, among which are many Catholics. Here, also, we met with an Armenian Catholic, with whom we lodged.

On the 15th, while riding through Georgiania, for the most part over mountains, we passed a few villages and occasionally saw a castle on the summit of a mountain.

On the 18th, when near the confines of Mingrelia, we met King Pangrati [Bagrat] in the midst of a wood surrounded by mountains, and we all went to pay him a visit. He wished us to eat with him, and we sat down on the ground with skins for a table-cloth, according to their fashion. Our repast consisted of roast meat with a little poultry, badly cooked, and a few other things; but there was wine in abundance, as they consider that to treat their guests with wine is the greatest honour they can show them. When the eating was over, they began the debauch with certain goblets half a braccio long, and those who drank most were the most esteemed. As the Turks  [Uzun Hasan’s envoys] do not drink wine, we rose from the contest and finally took our leave, for which reason we were looked upon with much contempt. The king was tall, and about forty years of age; he had a brown complexion, and a Tartar expression of countenance, but was nevertheless a handsome man.

On the morning of the 20th we left here, and, traveling through Georgiania almost continually over a mountainous country, came to the confines of Mingrelia, where, on the 22nd, we met the captain of certain men, on foot and on horseback, belonging to the king, who, on account of some troubles which there were in Mingrelia, occasioned by the death of King Bendian [Bediani, Lord of Mingrelia], compelled us, with many menaces, to stop. They then took from us two quivers with the bows and arrows, and we gave them some money. Being then allowed to go, we left the road as fast as we could, and entered a wood, where we remained that night in great fear of being attacked.

On the morning of the 23rd, while going through a narrow pass on our way to Cotatis [Kutaisi], we were attacked by some people of a village who stopped us, threatening to take our lives. After a great deal of parleying they took three horses belonging to the Turkish ambassadors, the bearers of the present, and it was only with much trouble and by paying about twenty ducats of their money, and giving up some horses and bows, that we were allowed to pass on. We then proceeded to Cotatis [Kutaisi], a castle belonging to the king.

On the morning of the 24th, being obliged to cross a river by a bridge, we were attacked and compelled to pay a grosso for each horse, which certainly caused us much vexation. After leaving here we entered Mingrelia, sleeping continually in the forests.

On the 25th, we crossed a river by means of boats, and entered a village belonging to a woman named Moresca, the sister of Bendian, who pretended to give us a good reception, and presented us with bread and wine, and placed us in one of her closed meadows.

On the morning of the 26th, we determined to make her a present to the value of about twenty ducats. She thanked us, and would not accept it, but began to complain, saying that she wanted two ducats for each horse; and, although we pleaded our poverty as an excuse, it was, as in former cases, of no avail, and we were obliged to give her the two ducats per horse; after which, she not only wanted the present we had offered her, but gratuities besides, and it was not without difficulty that we succeeded in leaving. Certainly, from the way she went on, I thought we should have been robbed of everything.

On the 27th, some of us in boats and some on horseback, arrived at Fasso much fatigued. We lodged at the house of the before-mentioned Marta, and, as a consolation for the hardships we had endured, we heard that Capha [Kaffa, Italian colony in the Crimea], through which we had intended to pass, had been taken by the Turks. What disappointment this news afforded us may be imagined. We knew not what course to adopt, and felt as lost. Ludovico da Bologna, the Patriarch of Antioch, however, decided upon going by way of Circassia and Tartary to Russia, as he appeared to have some knowledge of the way. He himself had several times proposed that we should not abandon each other, and of this I reminded him, and begged that we might perform the journey in company. He replied, however, that it was time for everyone to take care of his own safety. This appeared to me a strange and iniquitous reply, and I again begged him not to be so cruel, but it was of no avail. He insisted on going with his company and attendants and the ambassador given to him by Uzun Hasan. When I saw this I tried to come to an arrangement with Marco Rosso and the Turkish ambassador who was with him, and take measures to return. They seemed to agree to this, and, as a sign of good faith, we kissed each other’s lips, and I counted on their promise. Having consulted together, however, they resolved to go through the territories of Gorgora, Lord of Calcican [Akhaltsikhe] and the lands of Vati [Batum] which border on places belonging to the Ottoman, and pay him tribute. When I heard this, rather than take the same direction, I considered it preferable to remain at Fasso at the mercy of God.

On the 6th of August, 1475, the Patriarch mounted his horse, and, after making me some excuse, started with his people. The next day Marco Rosso, the Turk, and some Russians, who were with them, departed: some in one of the boats of the country, and some on horseback, for Vati [Batum], with the intention of going by way of Samachi [Shemakhi, in Shirvan], and then passing through Tartary. I thus remained alone with my attendants—five of us in all—utterly abandoned, without money, without hope of safety, neither knowing which way to go nor what course to adopt. What our feelings were I leave any reasonable person to consider. I was attacked on this day of trouble with a severe and terrible fever, to cure which I could get nothing but water from the river and gruel and, occasionally, a little chicken. It was a severe illness, accompanied by delirium, as, from what I was afterwards told, I said many strange things. A few days afterwards three of my people fell sick, and Priest Stephano alone remained to attend to us all. My bed consisted of a miserable counterpane, lent to me by a certain Zuan di Valcan, a Genoese, residing at that place, and served both for bed and bedding. The attendants had to put up with what few clothes they had. My illness lasted till the 10th of September, and brought me to such extremity that my attendants made sure that I should die. But my good fortune would have it, that Donna Marta applied to a little bag containing oil and certain herbs, after which, I got better. I really attribute my recovery, however, to the mercy of our Lord God, who did not wish me to die in those countries, and to Him be all gratitude. Having, then, remained united, we took counsel together as to what course we should adopt, and it was resolved, in deference to my opinion, to turn back to Samachi [Shemakhi, in Shirvan] in order to pass through Tartary. Some wished me to go by way of Soria [Syria] but this I would not do on any account, and I remained a short time at Fasso to restore my health.

On the 10th of September, 1475, we mounted our horses, and, after going about two of our miles, I could not ride any farther, on account of extreme weakness. I was, therefore, lifted from my horse and placed on the ground, and when I had taken a little rest we returned to Donna Marta, with whom we remained till the 17th. When our strength was to a certain degree restored, we mounted again, and, in the name of our Lord God, proceeded on the voyage we had resolved upon. At Fasso there happened to be a Greek acquainted with the language of Mengrelia, whom I took as a guide, and who committed a thousand rascally tricks, which it would excite pity to relate.

On the 17th, we mounted our horses, as I have mentioned, and returned through Mengrelia with some difficulty. 

On the 21st we were in Cotatis [Kutaisi], and, as our guide gave me much trouble, I was obliged to dismiss him. We remained at Cotatis [Kutaisi] till the 24th, partly because I did not feel well, and partly to wait for some people to accompany us. At length we started in company with some people whom we neither knew nor understood, and travelled over certain mountains, not without fear, until the 30th, when we reached Tiflis. Here I dismounted, more dead than alive, at the church of an Armenian Catholic, by whom we and many others were certainly well received. This priest had a son, who, to our misfortune, fell sick of the plague, which had been very prevalent at this place during the year. As my people went in his company, he gave it to Mapheo da Bergamo, the servant, who attended me, and who kept near me for two days while ill with it. Having at length thrown himself down on his bed, and his disease being discovered, I was advised to move to other quarters. A place where cows were kept at night having been cleaned as well as it was possible, and furnished with a little hay, I was made to rest in it on account of my great weakness. The priest would not allow Mapheo to remain in his house any longer, and, as there was nowhere else, it was necessary to put him in a corner of the place where I was. He was waited upon by Priest Stephano, but it pleased our Lord God to take him. I then obtained, after many prayers, another cowshed, where I was accommodated in a similar manner. We were abandoned by everyone except an old man, who understood a little Turkish, and continued to serve us. But how we fared may be easily judged. We remained at Tiflis until the 21st of October; on the day preceding which, as my good fortune would have it, there arrived the Turkish ambassador, who had accompanied brother Ludovico, the Patriarch of Antioch. From him I learnt that when they had proceeded as far as Avogasia [present-day Abkhazia] they had been robbed of everything, and that the robbery was to be attributed to the Patriarch himself. He had, therefore, left him to return to his own country, and said that this would cause great dissatisfaction to Uzun Hasan. I condoled with him as well as I could, and we left together on the 21st of October. Tifiis belongs to Pangrati, King of Giorgiania. After travelling two days we entered the territory of Uzun Hasan, as it was on our way to Samachi, and passed through a fine country.

On the 26th of October, 1475, we came to a place where we were obliged to separate, as it was necessary that I should travel through the country of Sivanza, in order to reach the town of Samachi, and that the ambassador should go towards his own country. By means of this ambassador I obtained a Turkish priest as a guide as far as Samachi. Having taken leave, we started with the guide and entered Media, which is a much more beautiful and fertile country than that of Uzun Hasan, and consists mostly of plains. Here we fared very well.

Ambrogio Contarini - Questo e el viazo de mister Ambrosio Contarin (1474) - Part 1

Ambrogio Contarini (1429-99) was Venetian merchant and diplomat, author of a noteworthy report on Persia under the Aq Qoyunlu Uzun Ḥasan. He was descended from a patrician family and pursued a career in commerce. In his youth he lived in Constantinople as a merchant but had to leave after the start of the Ottoman-Venetian War  in 1463. Seeking an alliance with Uzun Hasan, the Venetian Republic charged Contarini with a diplomatic mission to Persia. Contarini departed in February 1474, traveled through central Europe, passed through Kiev and Georgia, and reached Tabrīz in August. A written version was drawn up in the same year and published in 1486 in Vicenza by the printer Leonardo from Basel, with the title "Questo e el viazo de mister Ambrosio Contarin ambasador de la illustrissima signoria de Venesia al signor Uxuncassan Re di Persia." A second edition (Venice, 1524), entitled Itinerario del Magnifico et Clarissimo messer Ambrosio Contarini was included by G. B. Ramusio in the second volume of his collection Navigationi et Viaggi (Venice, 1559). Contarini’s report was translated into Latin and French in the l7th century and, under the auspices of the Hakluyt Society, into English in 1873. This excerpt is a modified version of the Haklyut edition.

On the 1st of July, 1474, we arrived at the mouth of the Fasso, and a boat came alongside filled with Mengrelians, who behaved like madmen. Leaving the ship, we went, in this boat, to the mouth of the river, where there is an island over which, it is said, reigned King Areta [Aeëtes] the father of the poisoner Medea. We slept there that night and were annoyed by so many gnats that we could scarcely guard against them.

On the morning of the 2nd, we went up the river in the boats of the country to a city called Asso, situated on the river and surrounded by woods. The river is as wide as two shots of a crossbow. When we had landed at the city I found a certain Nicolo Capello da Modone, who had settled there and become a Muslim; a Circassian woman, named Marta, who was the slave of a Genoese; and a Genoese, who was also settled and married there. I lodged with Marta, who certainly treated me well, and stayed till the 4th. Fasso belongs to the Mingrelians, whose chief is named Bendian [Bediani]. He has not much territory, as it may be traversed in three days, and consists principally of woods and mountains. 

On the 4th, we left Fasso with the above-mentioned Nicole Capello as guide, and crossed a river named Mazo in a boat.

On the 5th, after passing through woods and over mountains, we arrived in the evening at the place where Bendian, the Lord of Mengrelia, was staying. This prince, with his court, was seated in a small plain under a tree. I made known to him by the said Nicole that I wished to speak to His Highness, and he had me sent for. He was seated on a carpet with his wife and some of his sons by his side, and he made me sit before him. When I had spoken to him and made him presents, he merely said that I was welcome. I asked him for a guide, which he promised to let me have, on which I returned to my quarters. He sent me, as a present, a pig’s head, a little beef badly cooked, and some bad bread, which we were compelled to eat from necessity, and I waited for the guide the whole day. In this plain there were a great many trees like box trees, but much larger, and all of an equal height, with a path in the middle of them. Bendian was about fifty years of age, rather handsome, but his manners were those of'a madman.

On the 7th we left, and travelled continually through woods and over mountains, and on the 8th crossed a river which divides Mingrelia from Giorgiania, and slept in a meadow on the fresh grass, without much provision.

On the 9th, we came to a small town called Cotochis [Kutaisi], where, on a hill, there is a castle built entirely of stone, containing a church [The Bagrat Cathedral?] which has the appearance of being very ancient. We afterwards crossed a very large river by a bridge, and lodged in a meadow in which were the houses of Pangrati [Bagrat], King of Giorgiania, the castle above mentioned belonging to him. We were allowed by the governor to lodge in these houses, and remained there the whole of the 11th, much annoyed by the Georgiani [Imeretians?], who are as mad as the Mengrelians. The governor wished me to dine with him. When I went to his house he sat down on the ground, and I sat beside him with some of his people and some of mine. A skin was spread before us for a table-cloth, on which there was a layer of grease, that I firmly believe would have sufficed to cook a large cauldron full of cabbages. Bread, turnips, and a little meat, prepared in their manner, were placed before me, as well as several other unsavoury things, which I certainly cannot recall. The cup went round, and they did all they could to make me as drunk as they were themselves, and as I would not drink, they held me in much contempt, and I left them with great difficulty. The governor provided me with a guide to accompany me to the place where the king was.

On the 12th, I left here and travelled over mountains and through woods, and in the evening was made to dismount, by the guide, on a meadow near a castle, situated on a mountain, in which resided King Pangrati [Bagrat]. Here the guide went away, saying that he was going to inform the king, and that he would return immediately with another guide who would accompany me all over the country, and we were left in the middle of the wood in considerable fear, and we waited the whole night suffering much from hunger and thirst. 

Early the next morning [13 July] he returned, accompanied by two of the king’s clerks, who said that the king had gone to Cotachis [Kutaisi[, and had sent them to look after the things which I had, to put them down in a letter, in order that I might be able to pass through the whole of the country without paying anything. They wanted to see everything, and to take a note even of the clothes I had on my back, which I thought very strange. When they had made their notes, they told me to get on horseback alone, and wanted me to go to the king. But, as I tried by all means to make them leave me, they began to abuse me, and after much trouble I was allowed to take my interpreter. I mounted without having had anything to eat or to drink, and rode with them to the said castle of Cotachis [Kutaisi], where the king was staying. Here I was made by the king to wait all night under a tree, and he only sent me a small quantity of bread and fish. My attendants remained in the custody of others, and were taken to a village and placed in the house of a priest. One may imagine the state of mind we were in.

In the morning [14 July] the king sent for me. He was in his house, seated on the ground, together with many of his barons. He asked me many questions, and among others, whether I knew how many kings there were in the world. I answered at random, that I thought there were twelve, on which he said that I was right, and that he was one of them ; and, he added, “And art thou come to my country without bringing me letters from thy lord ?” I replied, that the reason I had not brought him letters, was that I did not think I should have come to his country; but I assured him that he was well appreciated by my lord the Pope, who recognized him among the other kings, and who, if he had thought that I should have passed through his country, would have had great pleasure in writing to him. This seemed to please him, and he afterwards asked me many strange questions, which gave me to understand that that rogue of a guide who had brought me had informed him that I had many valuables with me. And, truly, if he had found this to be the case, I should never have been allowed to leave the place. The clerks, out of the few things belonging to me, which they had noted down, took whatsoever they pleased, and insisted that I should give them to the king. On taking leave, I begged the king to let me have a guide to conduct me safely out of the country ; and he promised to comply with my request, saying that he would also give me a letter which would enable me to traverse the whole of his dominions in safety. I then left him, and returned to my tree. I was obliged to importune the clerk very strongly, in order to get the guide and the letter, which I obtained at last, after much trouble.

On the 14th, I left the king and returned to the village, where my people were staying, who, in consequence of the bad account they had heard of the king, made certain that I should never return. They could not have been more delighted if they had seen the Messiah, and knew not what they did for joy. The poor priest seemed pleased, and prepared me food. We slept, that night, as well as was possible, and the priest made some bread to take with us, and gave us a little wine.

On the 15th, about tierce, we started with the guide, and travelled through the terrible woods and mountains of that accursed country, sleeping, at night, on the ground near water and grass, and being obliged to make fires on account of the cold.

On the 17th, we came to a place belonging to the same king, called Gorides [Gori] situated in a plain, and having a wooden fort on a hill. A large river passes by it, and it is a very convenient place. As soon as the governor of the town had been informed of my arrival by the guide, he made me enter a. house where I expected to have met with a good reception. After I had waited there a little time, however, he sent to inform me that the king had written to order that I should pay twenty-six ducats to him and six to the guide. And when I told him, with astonishment, that this could not be, as the king had received me well, and that I had already given him seventy ducats, and said much more which was of no avail, I was obliged, reluctantly, to give the money. He kept me till the 19th, and then allowed me to depart. I was very much annoyed during my stay, as the brutes appeared never to have seen men before. Giorgiania is, however, rather a better country than Mingrelia; but the customs and way of living of the inhabitants are the same, as are their religion and mode of celebrating it. We were told, when we had descended a high mountain, that in a large church, situated in a forest, there was an ancient image of Our Lady, guarded by forty calviri (or priests), which was said to perform many miracles. I would not go there, as I had a great desire to get out of that accursed country, where I certainly underwent great trouble and escaped many dangers, to describe which would take much time and only prove tiresome to the reader.

On the 20th, we left Gorides [Gori], and went on, still traveling over mountains and through forests. Occasionally, we came to a house, where we obtained refreshments. We rested in places where there was water and pasture for the horses, and our bed was the fresh grass. We journeyed in this manner all through Mengrelia and Giorgiania.

Giosafat (Josaphat) Barbaro - Viaggi fatti da Vinetia alla Tana, in Persia.... (1472)

Born in 1413, Giosafat (Josaphat) Barbaro descended from a prominent Venetian family and, following in his ancestors footsteps, he pursued a career in commerce. In 1436-1452, he frequently travelled to the Black Sea region, visiting the Genoese colony Tana on the Sea of Azov and the Crimea. In 1463, with Venice engaged in a war against the ottoman Turks, the Venetian Senate made efforts to establish an alliance with Uzun Hassan, the ruler of Persia. In 1472, Barbaro was selected as a new Venetian ambassador to Persia. On his way there, he visited Georgia and left interesting account in his memoir Viaggi fatti da Vinetia alla Tana, in Persia....  

They [Georgians] go with their heads rounded and shaven, leaving only a little around, after the manner of our abbots that have great revenues; and they let their mustache to grow [a quarter of a yard] longer than their beards. On their heads they wear a little cap, of divers colors, with a crest on the top. On their backs, they wear certain long garments that are straight and open behind down to the buttocks; for, otherwise, they could not get on horseback; wherein I do not blame them, for I see the Frenchmen use them [similar garments] as well. On their feet and legs they wear boots, up to their knees, made with their soles of such a sort that when they stand, the heel and toes touch the ground but the plant of the foot stands so high that you may easily thrust your fist underneath without hurting of it. It follows, then, that when they go afoot, they walk with pain. I would have impugned them for this if I had not known that the Persians do the same. 

Agnes Herbert, "City of Tiflis," (1912) - Part 2

Agnes Elsie Diana Herbert (d. 1960) was a prominent British big game hunter and writer. Born into a prosperous British family, she was privately tutored on the Isle of Man and later actively took up writing, becoming a member of the Society of Women Journalists and publishing some dozen books on her travels and big game hunting, including her experiences in Georgia which she visited around 1911.

Source: Casuals in the Caucasus: The Diary of a Sporting Holiday (London: John Lane, 1912)

Every Tiflisian—to coin a word—puts Amusement with a big "A" first, duty, with a small "d" next. Amusement is a fetish, an Ixion's wheel* to which everyone is chained.

There is very little of the morning left by the time the educated Russian rises. He is, like the eagle-owls, most alert at night. About 9 p.m. he rubs his eyes and wakens up, previous to repairing to the clubs which are so important a feature in the Caucasian capital. They are not clubs, as we understand the word. The peaceful gloom of the ponderously furnished mausoleum, lightened up in drifts, the sense of museum like stillness, which spells "club" to the Londoner, is not the Tiflis notion of the thing at all. Ladies are not admitted on sufferance. They are encouraged, welcomed, desired. Bright lights greet them, there are cards and supper for those who would play and are hungry, and a gay orchestra for the dancers. How exquisitely they all dance, too! With a spontaneity of harmonious grace rare in England.

In the summer months the club system is conducted alfresco, in beautiful gardens, where the band plays into the small hours.

The fashionable Georgian ladies dress very well, and have the reputation of possessing great good looks. For established beauties they really are nice looking, with what Du Maurier called "the ineffable forward shrug of a Clytie," but—such expressionless belles! Every casual observer is struck by the extraordinary lack of vivid life and spirit. Dumas pere's enthusiastic "La Grèce, c'est Galatée encore marbre; la Géorgie, c'est Galatée devenue femme," is the idealist's way of putting the case.

The most entrancing waltz fails to rouse even passing animation. Their feet "like little mice steal in and out," their lithe bodies swing languorously to the music, but the immobile faces remain doll-like in passivity.

Mr. Ruskin said that the ideal girl should prefer dancing to walking and have at least six lovers. All the "fayre ladyes" of Georgia qualified for this standard. They danced because dancing to them is as natural as walking, and they had six lovers each because in the Caucasus there are enough men to go round and a few over, very different from the chequered working overtime state of things existent in England.

The intense heat of summer drives most of the aristocratic residents of Tiflis to the numerous health resorts of the country, but just as it is with us when the newspapers tell us "London is empty," there were any number of people about. But, of course, July and August are not the time to form an opinion of local society. The notables do not return until late September; by November the season, with its unlimited gaieties, is in full swing.

This metropolis of Caucasia would have been a much less grilling spot in summer had the town planners of old time chosen a site a little farther up the Kura, a really ideal situation. I asked an Ossetian warrior the whys and wherefores of this palpable mistake, and he said that the city naturally would grow up about the hot sulphur springs, the springs now glorified into baths and run by the ubiquitous Armenians, who, like the Chinaman on the Pacific coast have " arrived " and no mistake about it. The Russians call the invaders " the Jews of the East," and have a frequently trotted-out saying to the effect that a Jew can out-bargain any two Russians, and an Armenian overreach the lot.

They are just everywhere, this most energetically pushing of peoples, who hold the trade of Transcaucasia in the hollow of their hands. The streets are full of them, dressed in European clothes, or an imitation of the cotton tunic of the Tatar, pad, pad, padding along, plantigrade fashion, on large flat feet. Tiflis is said to contain more Armenians than any other city on earth save Constantinople, though the casual passer-by might be inclined to rank Manchester ahead of both. But—a big But—we cannot get past statistics. The baths are in the Tatar quarter, and Kenneth, who sampled them, told us that you pay by the hour, and it is just as cheap for two people as one person— that is, if you get in together! Soap and towels are "extras." The water was very hot, and, after being parboiled, the bather is expected to lie on a table whilst an animated Tatar dances a war-dance all over him.

The name Tiflis, pronounced Tiflees, accent on the "ees," is derived from the Georgian word, Tbilisi, which means hot. Whether the comprehensive appellation refers to the intense heat of the ovenlike place in summer, to the warm sulphur baths, or to the character of what I will call the Soho areas is rather hard to determine. All three are of an equal torridity.

The amount of poor-class drinking shops in Tiflis almost outnumbers the myriad saloons in Butte City, U.S.A., surely the most thickly sprinkled town on earth. Here in these filthy cabaks, or duchans, the man in the street (I suppose this mysterious synonym finds his illustration in the Caucasus as elsewhere), drinks the native vodka, a bitter unsweetened gin, and a variety of beer which tastes like bad vinegar.

All the wine shops worthy of the name have the most grandiloquent titles, opulently eastern in tone. The patrons of "Rose of the World " kept us awake with the distant sound of revelry by night, and "Heart's Desire" ran a close second for popularity. Another cellar-hole, got at down earthen steps, had a long title emblazoned in blue letters across a rickety door, and this Cecily would only translate as " Bid me good-bye and go.”

The wines of the country are said to be very good, and Kenneth, who is one of those people who affect to "understand wine," and therefore spend a life of thraldom to a label and a cork, endorsed the general opinion. "Warmer than Bordeaux, but not so full bodied as Burgundy" is his description, whatever it may mean.

The making of the various brands is a great industry, but so much wine is got through in the country that the export trade is of little account. The conquerors and the conquered are very fond of "potations pottle deep," as Horace termed it. Which is, I think, such a nice way of putting the case, don't you?

Through the Tatar Bazaar a wander below the solemn Avlabar Prison leads on across the river to the old market-place of Turkish days, and hereabouts are the labyrinthine cellars where the wine supply of Tiflis is stored.

In an evil-smelling little cave room, airless and infinitely gloomy, we found a shaven-headed Tatar worthy converting the whole skin of a calf into a mammoth wine bottle. The hair had been left on the skin, and thickly coated with naphtha of the consistency of train-grease. Next, the industrious worker proceeded to sew the pathetic disembodied creature into a semblance of its former self.

The man left his task to take us down to his storage cellar—a rouble bribed him. Here was a catacomb of weird shapes! Contorted skins filled to bursting point, lay on shelves, animal wraiths made less fearsome by a rare weave of silver cobwebs. In and out the gossamer cables twisted, and amid the criss-cross of slender strands colossal spiders, striped like wasps, waited patiently for the sugar-loving flies who crept about in sated indolence.

Our guide, who had lived so long among his Noah's Ark of inflated animals that he had taken on to some extent their grim appearance, swept away the maze of enshrouding gauze that we might see the panorama better, gathering up the silver tissue in henna-stained hands. The cobwebs removed, the charm of the place vanished. It was ugly, bizarre. The light of day was what we wanted, not hideous Has-Beens, filled to repletion with Kakheti wine.

On the old market-place a great crowd gathered, and from the network of streets people hurried to an impromptu platform, where a group of long-coated figures fought for a foothold. We joined in the rush, pressing alongside a Georgian woman of the people, cocoon-like in an all-enveloping wrapper and a brilliantly embroidered tiara-cap, from which hung a long white veil, on her dark hair. She was so anxious to be in time, that, like the Mad Hatter, she wandered glass of tea in one hand, and a little hard circle of bread, which she called a " bublik," in the other.

Forcing our way to the edge of the rough dais, we looked up at the fierce frieze of Hebraic faces and waited for the show to begin. Cecily promised to translate as things progressed, but half the time the Russian eluded her, or it wasn't Russian, but a patois of Tatar, or something. But we caught a little, and in a political meeting all over the world enough is as good as a feast.

One stalwart, more pushing than the rest, began to harangue, punctuating his words with a long whip. Crack! We demand this! Crack! We demand that! For all the world like the familiar tub-thumper of Hyde Park. Then a great shout arose. Stephan would speak. Stephan! Stephan! Evidently the Lord Rosebery of the Caucasus.

"Stephan! Stephan!”

The words rolled away, a riot of resonant sound, over the Maidan, up and up to the hoary ruined fortress built by Mustapha Pacha in the sixteenth century. The harsh echoes woke the hallowed spell, and the towers flung back the name faintly, tersely, "Stephan! Stephan!”

The orator was hoisted aloft, a little weatherbeaten figure, but clean and well brushed-up looking. "Your politicians have evermore a taste of vanity." He looked at the crowd in an all-embracing smile of gay friendliness, shaking his head the while. At last he spoke.

"I will wait," translated Cecily, " I will wait until I have something to say."

If every orator followed Stephan's example, what on earth would become of our political meetings!

Some diplomatist—Talleyrand, I think—told us that in a political career it is just all the world to know how to quit the arena with a smiling grace. Stephan had learnt the lesson. He vanished as he had come, on the shoulders of the people, laughing and bowing as he sank submerged. And there we left him.

Perhaps Stephan found his subject later. I cannot tell.

Returning to our auberge we found Kenneth on the verandah, sitting in a bower of red geraniums, tired out after a hunt for a sort of dragoman-courier. He was taking a little rest, he said, reading of the misfortunes of Calandrino in the Decameron. Something like the old soldier who found peace in the pages of the first volume of the official history of the South African War.

The Caucasus has not as yet, luckily for its comfort, produced the species of dragoman peculiar to the East, and the local make-shift guides are not even a graft on the well-known type, being manufactured on the whilst-you-wait principle. Nomadic European travelers in the Caucasus are not plentiful enough to create a race of vampire traveling servants. Even the roads of the country in its wilder parts are constructed on the old Spanish principle of keeping people off them.

If you feel that you cannot do without a guide and express that desire, something will turn up. And from the recesses of old Tiflis came Ali Ghirik, a black-browed, extremely old stalwart from Daghestan. After a soaking in one of the famous baths, he seemed a really worth-having acquisition, notwithstanding his weight of years. Our requirements were extremely simple, for we sought no professed courier, but a hard as-nails fellow, willing to saddle and picket horses, fetch and carry, cook for us on occasion, talk for us, translate for us, and assist us in the carrying through of any project.

Our would-be servant spoke Avar, his own tongue, and claimed acquaintance with Tatar, Georgian, and Russian. Of English he knew a few words; one in particular, "Look!" pleased him mightily. An excellent stock-in-trade for a guide, too, and I wonder where he picked it up. He often used it when there was nothing to look at, and smiled as though realizing how often he sprung the allusion and how much he liked it.

He had a "character," a chit given him by a Russian officer. The worn old piece of paper set forth that Ali had many excellent qualities, counter-balanced by many failings. He was very truthful, a somewhat negligible point, the writer added, among the Eastern tribes. Ali Ghirik counted this as something to be proud of, and pointed out the words to us with a henna-stained forefinger. Well, he was right. A Washingtonian character is the most valuable asset to which a servant can aspire. It enables him to tell as many fibs as ever he pleases.

The lengthy credential went on to hint that had Ali been a Christian he would have been perfect morally. As it was, a half-hearted Mahommedanism demoralized him.

But Christianity, to my mind, is not comprised of morals as the world accepts the term. The worst man has some touch of divinity in him. Ali Ghirik wore his generously.

"We are going to shoot in the mountains of Daghestan!" I said, through the medium of Kenneth. 

"Do you know that part of the country well?"

Our would-be henchman sniffed scornfully. “I! Ali Ghirik, who fought with Shamil!”

I felt abashed. It is a wise man who knows his own capacity. Shamil, the famous patriot-fanatic of the Caucasus, leader of the mountain tribes who for thirty years held at bay the mighty power of Russia, made his last stand at Guinib, in Daghestan. Ali Ghirik, therefore, was a find indeed. Though he was but a stripling in the stirring days of the fifties, he would be able to tell us of his chief, of the ambuscades and wild sorties in the grim ravines, of the schemes and plots and plans which made Schamyl what he was.

The best definition of the character of the remarkable chieftain that I ever heard, or read, came from our servant. "The greatness of Shamil was so great," he said proudly, "that it made his littlenesses less than nothing.”

NOTES

* In Greek mythology, Ixion was king of the Lapiths, the most ancient tribe of Thessaly. He was infamous for killing his father-in-law (reckoned the first man guilty of kin-slaying in Greek mythology) and trying to seduce Zeus' wife Hera, for which Zeus ordered Hermes to bind Ixion to a winged fiery wheel that was always spinning. Therefore, Ixion is bound to a burning solar wheel for all eternity.

Melville Chater - Land of Stalking Death (1919) - Part 2

Source: Melville Chater, "The Land of the Stalking Death: A Journey through Starving Armenia on an American Relief Train," The National Geographic Magazine, XXXVI 1919.

TIFLIS A CITY OF SURPRISES

Though one has penetrated fairly far into the East at Tiflis, if one expects vistas of caravans, camels, and Rebekahs-at-the-well, he will suffer disillusionment in his first impressions. The Golovinsky Prospekt, which runs through the heart of the Georgian capital, is as handsome a bit of modern metropolitanism as can be found anywhere. With its restaurants and cafes, its jewelers, art shops and opera, its vice-regal palace—now ousted of the Romanoff dynasty's last grand ducal vice-regent, and flying the Georgian republic's black and cerise flag—the Prospekt, especially when seen in the lounging hour, is undeniably chic.

Here stroll Russians, Georgians, Armenians, and the representatives of a score of mountain tribes who have business in the new capital. There is a splendor of uniforms and of side-arms, the Caucasian national costume dominating the picture. A very long, swagger overgarment of brown or gray, padded square at the shoulders, with wasp-like waist, and descending as a smartly flared skirt—this, together with high, heel-less boots, a square astrakhan cap, a clanking sword, two magnificently chased daggers, a brace of pistols, and sixteen fountain-pens strung across his chest represents what I would term the picturesque scenery worn by your typical Georgian in war, in peace, and in the bosom of his countrymen. What I have called fountain-pens turned out to be more weapons—hollow tubes, anciently designed to contain powder and shot.

One looks at these magnificently accoutered swaggerers, with their stiff mustaches and close-shaven skulls, and thinks of comic opera and of the dear old Kingdom of Zenda; also one trembles for the League of Nations, fearing that the Georgian will never consent to a reduction of his armament. 

WHERE EVERY ONE WEARS A UNIFORM

Mere militarism has no mortgage on uniforms at Tiflis. Everybody wears one, including school children and their teachers, according to Russian custom; and hundreds upon hundreds of civilians are thus attired because clothes being scarce and expensive, they prefer buying some officer's cast-off outfit.

I had almost overlooked the presence of the British uniform along the Prospekt; and perhaps that is because the British, being in occupation, comport themselves so quietly. Compared to the arsenal-carrying Georgian, the British officer, with his little swagger stick, is an exemplification of that "invisible force" principle which makes one believe in the League of Nations.

The Tommy, too, is seen everywhere, having adapted himself to the ways and speech of the Georgian, after his own peculiar method.

THE ART OF CONVERSATION IN GEORGIA

The Doctor and I were puzzled by one Tommy who stood on the street corner with a Georgian soldier, carrying on what seemed to be fluent conversation. We afterward questioned him about it.

"You don"t speak Georgian?" asked the Doctor.

"No, sir," answered Tommy.

"And that Georgian doesn't understand English?”

"No. sir.”

We stared at each other.

"How on earth, then, do you manage it?" asked the Doctor.

"Well, you see it's this way, sir," replied Thomas with the utmost solemnity. "One of these 'ere foreign chaps 'll come up and say to me, 'Nitchyvilla, nitchyvilla?' And I'll say to 'im, 'Don't mind if I do 'ave one.' And then maybe 'ee 'll say to me 'Bittsky-ittsky, boo!' And then I biffs 'im one on the jaw.”

"But why?" I asked. "Why knock him down?”

"Because, sir," answered Thomas with simplicity, “for all I know, sir, ‘ee may be making insulting remarks about me.”

HOW THE GEORGIAN ENTERTAINS

I have mentioned the "lounging hour." In fact, there are some sixteen of these to the Georgian's day, and perhaps it would be simpler to speak of the working hour. Between 2 and 3 o'clock in the afternoon, down go the steel lattices which guard the shop windows—windows which present to your amazed glance a fifth-year war stock of champagne, liqueurs, and articles de luxe of every kind: then Tiflis resumes its national pastime of joie de vivre until 6 o'clock of the following morning: for that is the hour when the Georgians' all night parties break up—break up, I mean, with a crash of china and with shots exchanged across the table.

The Georgian is renowned for his hospitality. His customary greeting is,"While in Tiflis you will consider my home yours"—an offer which was tendered us so regularly that we suffered, I may almost say, from an embarrassment of homes.

The Georgian dinner-party, a mighty matter of courses and wines, begins at 2.30 in the afternoon and lasts until 5. Then there will be a dance in the evening, refreshments commencing at 9 o'clock and continuing between dance-numbers until the company reels homeward in the dawn.

Occasionally the floor is cleared for a dagger-dance, a picturesque and barbaric business performed to a rhythmic accompaniment of hand-clapping by some tall, beskirted native, who prances murderously about with from five to seven daggers held between bis teeth.

The Georgian public function is a superb affair of uniforms, healths drunk, huzzahs, celebrities carried shoulder high about the room, and a chorus of liveried trumpeters who sound fanfares at the close of every toast. Once again one realizes that, though the Georgians have gone red republican, Zenda's dear old comic-opera kingdom still lies deep in their hearts.

THE GEORGIAN IS ENJOYING A BELSHAZ-ZAR’S FEAST  

In short, the Georgian has absorbed all that was worst in the luxurious Russian civilization, under which he lived from the conquest of the Transcaucasus in 1801 to the downfall of Tsardom. Of earlier influences, the Persian is betrayed in his national costumes and in his arts, which have been completely obliterated by the Turks. He and his language alike are unclassifiable. They originated too far back of that respectably remote past when Tiflis was already a caravan center, linking East and West.

Whencever he came, the Georgian is of an ancient race, and embodies all of an ancient race's charm, together with its tendency toward degeneration. The Georgian nobility is a byword, resting upon a feudalism which endured so long as to become an anachronism and a decay.

What with an incredibly fertile soil of pasture land and vineyards, exhaustless manganese mines, and an enriching tithe system, the Georgian noble sank into a sloth from which his present-day descendants have never risen, and which left them an easy prey to Russian upperclass luxury. Just now, drunk with the heady wine of sudden liberty, they are enjoying what looks to the outsider very much like a Belshazzar's feast.

Melville Chater - Land of Stalking Death (1919) - Part 1

Melville Chater was a well known National Geographic magazine writer who had traveled widely reporting on his experiences in North America, Europe, Asia Minor, Western Asia and South Africa. In 1919 he was sent to report on condition in Armenia where a humanitarian catastrophe unfolded in the wake of the World War I. On his way to Armenia, Chater passed through Georgia and later published his impressions on the country and its people. 

Source: Melville Chater, "The Land of the Stalking Death: A Journey through Starving Armenia on an American Relief Train," The National Geographic Magazine, XXXVI 1919.

ASK the average American what he knows about the Transcaucasus, and he will probably draw from his boyhood memories the fact that it produced those blonde-haired beauties who used to be headline curiosities in dime museums. And if you particularize in Transcaucasian topography by asking "What do you know about Georgia?" it is ten to one that he will answer promptly, "Sherman marched through it.”

And so, it was not without curiosity that I, as an average American, caught from a British transport's deck my first glimpse of those mountain-ringed shores which the maps of one's childhood depicted as a pea-green isthmus lying between the Black and Caspian Seas.

Everyone was on deck for the night— British Tommies and their officers, the little Mongol-faced Ghurkas, the tall and dignified Sikhs, the gray-clad nursing sisters—and even the Punjabi cooks in our fore hatchway ceased work on the flour-and-water cakes, which they had been baking incessantly for four days, and shaded their eyes toward the wide, squat port of Batum, with its foreground of British warcraft and its sky-line where the pear-shaped church domes of Russian civilization spired upward.

Out went the Black Sea's raw wind, like an extinguished candle, and over us crept a soft, warm land-breath, heavy with springtide, from the base of snowcapped mountains. And hardly were we trudging off over Batum's waterside ways—cobbled in high relief like Spotless Town, in the Country of Advertismentia—when the dingy scene burst into brilliant patches of blue and yellow, where February's violets were hawked for sale and mimosa trees drooped, heavy with bloom and scent—a sight to stun sea-wearied eyes, and to make one believe again in long-lost miracles.

I visited the British base-commander and mentioned Tiflis and a first-class carriage. "Good Lord!" ejaculated the B. C. "Wish I could wave a wand and produce such a thing! Try the American flour-train that's moving out tonight. And here's an order for three days' rations. One never knows, you know.”

And so I climbed aboard a stumpy little living-car, hitched midway on a long freight train, to be welcomed by a genial faced American doctor, who was en route to gather data for one of the various relief commissions at home.

The B. C.'s warning that "one never knows" was well founded. As we lounged lethargically over the distance that required but sixteen hours from Batum to Tiflis in peace time, days passed uncounted, and the engineer held us up while he dropped off at various towns to spend the night with friends; and dogs snoozed and cats kittened under our car between the rails during lengthy waits on sidings.

Though we had American flour aboard, a British guard, Russian-built cars, an Armenian cook, and a Georgian engineer, we were not sufficiently polyglot to read the station signs, all of which had been changed from Russian lettering to that of Georgia's own peculiar alphabet. Yet the red flags which presently sprouted all along the line apprised us that we were traveling on the anniversary of the Russian revolution, and hence of Georgia's second birthday as a republic.

“EVERYBODY’S PLAYING DOLLS’HOUSE” 

As to what had been happening of late in the Transcaucasus, we were both quite ignorant until a friendly British boarding officer dropped in for the distance of a few stations and chatted with us over bully beef and tea.

"Everybody's playing dolls'-house in the Transcaucasus," he said. "There are five post-revolutionary republics up to the present, the three main ones being Georgia to the west, Erivan of the Armenians, which is centrally situated, and Azerbaijan, the Tatar State, on the east. This arrangement gives Georgia the Black Sea littoral. Azerbaijan the Caspian littoral, and the Armenians no seacoast at all.

"The republic-forming business was made possible, of course, bv Russia's smash-up. Though the three States have formed what they call the Transcaucasian Commission, it hasn't been very successful on account of jealousies, boundary disputes, and that sort of thing. The Georgians backed the wrong horse: that is to say, they expressed their willingness to continue statehood under German protection, when the Boche troops entered at Batum. The Tatars, being Moslem, not only welcomed Turkey's 40,000 soldiers when they marched up from Asia Minor into Azerbaijan, but actually supplied troops to their army.

"At the Bolshevist revolution the Russian army of the Transcaucasus had flung down its arms and gone home, so there wasn't any one left to stop the Boche and Turk from having their way.

"The Erivan Republic—the Armenians, you know—refused to join hands with the Central Powers and held out pluckily with a small force until the Turks had driven them to within six miles of their capital. Just about that time Bulgaria sued for peace, and within the next few weeks the British entered the Transcaucasus at Baku, the Germans cleared out, and Turkey threw up the sponge.

MORE THAN' A HUNDRED DIFFERENT PEOPLES IN THIS REGION 

"Since then we've been doing a kind of police job here, while the Peace Table— heaven help it!—decides. What with a hundred and twenty different peoples, or tribes, in the Transcaucasus, it's even worse than the Balkans.

"Meanwhile the country's flooded with a billion and a half of paper rubles, issued jointly by the States. The Georgians kept most of it. They're great spenders, and just go on turning out more paper money as it's needed. Their Treasury Department is officially known as the Bureau of Public Printing, and when recently they ran out of printing ink, they applied to us for a loan of two thousand British pounds, so as to go off somewhere and buy more. Cool, eh?

"All three States are doing a lively customs business, there being a baggage inspection at each of the frontiers, which keeps a civilian passenger pretty busy turning out his traps every hundred miles or so.

"Through railroad traffic is almost impossible because of squabbles over the rolling stock. When freight cars arrive from Erivan, the Georgians paint out the Armenian lettering and stencil on their own. And, of course, the Armenians are busy at the same game with Georgian freight cars at their end of the line. Yes, I'd say that the life-blood of the Transcaucasian republics consists of printing ink and paint.

HOW TWELVE BRITISH SOLDIERS BROUGHT PEACE

"Then there was their little postscript war last December. The Georgians and Armenians fell at loggerheads over some boundary dispute, and the latter were getting the best of it. Well, one day an officer of ours, with a dozen or so Tommies, comes along to where the two armies lay on either side of the railroad, about to go at it again. The officer chap jumps in between the opposing forces and makes a bit of a speech from the railroad ties.

"'Commanders of the Georgian and Armenian Armies in being,' he says, 'since you can't carry on without killing some of His Majesty's forces, I propose an armistice.’

"So the British army of twelve sat down to its tea, in between the firing lines, while terms were concluded. And now we are occupying the disputed region, in trust, as it were, and the two republics have called off the dogs of war. Peace reigns in Georgia.”

Hardly had our friend uttered these words when the brakes began grinding, the train came to a stop, and a fusillade of musketry rang out in the near-by town.

"Comparative peace—I beg your pardon." added the boarding officer with a smile. "Firearms are as necessary to a Georgian's happiness as dolls are to little girls. They must be always shooting, if it's only among themselves. Today's their Red Anniversary, you know, and I suppose that what we hear is the result of a vodka party.”

Five minutes later there climbed aboard a rather scared looking Georgian official. He sought out the British colonel commanding our train and appealed to him for assistance against the crowd of Georgian convivialists who were shooting up the countryside.

"LEND US A BRITAIN THOMAS!”

"Is it war, or mere joy?" coldly inquired the colonel, who knew the Georgian temperament."

”It is—revolutionary enthusiasm," responded the official, speaking in broken English. "If you have a Thomas—a Great Britain Thomas or so to lend us”

"'Fraid not," said the colonel. "I have just four men with me.”

"It is enough!" exclaimed the official joyfully. "The Great Britain Thomas is much respected by my countrymen.”

"So sorry!" And the colonel brought the interview to a close. To us he remarked after the official's withdrawal. "They obstruct us, shoot our sentries in the back, actually rob 'em of their uniforms when they catch them alone: and yet at the first signs of disturbance they call upon the Great Britain Thomas to restore order.”

The Pontic Mountains' snow peaks dwindled away behind us ; we crossed the fertile plains where lay Kutais, the ancient Colchis, reminiscent of Greek colonization and of the fabled Argonauts; we passed sandy and sterile tracts, where rock-hewn caverns in the overhanging heights represented the long-emptied cells of medieval monasticism : and at last one evening we slid down into an encircling cup of hills wherein glimmered the outstretched lights of Tiflis.

Oscar Cosby, From Tiflis to Tibet (1905)

Excerpt from Cosby's essay in Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, XXXVII, No. 12 (1905)

My stay at Tiflis is notable in memory for one loss... The loss was my illusion concerning the beauty of the Georgian women; they are comely, with symmetrical features and dark complexion, and they are prettily gowned; but one begins already, even in this rather superior Asiatic type, to miss that fineness of feature and expression to which the high development of feminine beauty in Europe and America has accustomed us. Early travelers who have rhapsodized over these and other Eastern women may have been somewhat affected by the fact that they approached them much more laboriously and tardily than is now necessary. To-day Tiflis may be reached in four or five days' railway journey from Paris, with but a two-days' drive over the Caucasian Mountains from Vladikavkaz. Thus the Caucasian beauty is put into immediate juxtaposition in one's mind with the more perfect type in France.  

Agnes Herbert, "City of Tiflis," (1912) - Part 1

Agnes Elsie Diana Herbert (d. 1960) was a prominent British big game hunter and writer. Born into a prosperous British family, she was privately tutored on the Isle of Man and later actively took up writing, becoming a member of the Society of Women Journalists and publishing some dozen books on her travels and big game hunting, including her experiences in Georgia which she visited around 1911.

Source: Casuals in the Caucasus: The Diary of a Sporting Holiday (London: John Lane, 1912)

Picturesque Tiflis, surrounded by an amphitheater of barren, drab hills, lies on both sides of the swiftly rushing Kura river, and from the steep banks are flung connecting bridges which link together the several quarters into which the city is divided.

Our hotel was situated in the Erivansky Ploshad, or Square, a most lively centre, right in the heart of things, amid a variety of European shops, and not very far from the palace in the Golovinsky Prospekt, with its beautifully laid out gardens, of the Viceroy (Namiestnik) of the Caucasus. The longish drive from the station rather caused us to question the reputation Russians give themselves for superior road-making. The little phaeton, pneumatic-tyred, with two long tailed ponies going ventre-a-terre, bumped about like a coracle in a storm. It was not exactly an ideal conveyance, lacking the saving grace of polish and cleanliness. But what have I to do with idyllic carriages? I, who keep nothing more pretentious than a wheelbarrow. And did not Schiller tell us that—" No man should measure by a scale of perfection the meagre product of reality." I expect he meant "woman," also.

We lurched past some really beautiful turn-outs as we raced down the hill. Such a medley of conveyances! Carriages of Hyde Park variety, splendidly horsed, trotted past lethargic buffaloes drawing primitive native carts, made up of a mystery of tangled baulks tied together with knotted ropes, clattering wooden wheels, and a general air of abandon which called for the pencil of a Lawson Wood.

Imperturbable donkeys, moving beneath vast loads of charcoal, scarce made way for a great automobile— a pioneer, from the excitement it created—autocratically "Teuf-teufing" behind. A quartet of two-humped Bactrian camels, stately and aloof, carried mountainous burdens of bright-hued carpets, and behind, a little apart, as though to emphasize class difference, strode a majestic dromedary like a ship in full sail, loaded to the gunwale with embroidered cushions.

Down the centre of the wide roadway came the quaintest figure imaginable, a jester in motley, Touchstone to the whole. A little black tent, with a waving red pennon at its apex, trotted along on four slender legs, and as the perambulating structure neared us we saw that it disguised a Tatar, mounted on a donkey, wrapped about in the indispensable bourka, though Tiflis in summer is not, one would think, quite the moment for the wearing of it!

The good Caucasian loves his bourka — said to be the chlamys of the ancients — above all his possessions. It is a large cloak-like arrangement, and being enormously thick and of a felt texture, though light for its size, is waterproof to a surprising extent. A good one costs about thirty roubles, or roughly, three guineas. Now and again in mountain regions you see a white bourka, but the majority are very black and rough surfaced.

To the native his bourka is often tent, bedding, all; wrapped in one he defies the weather, and even holds at bay the predatory domestic chamois of the Caucasian post-houses, the most voracious and energetic insects in the world.

Our hotel was extraordinarily civilized. I don't quite know what we expected, but anyone who has studied the subject of hotels in Southern Russia may apprehend anything.

[...]

Tiflis is a trio of three distinct towns. The Russian, lying on the south-west bank of the Kura, where the fashionable world, the great officials, and the Armenian money-lenders live, where also you find the best hotels, fine shops, and electrically-lighted and tree-planted streets; old Tiflis, going eastward from the Muscovite centre, tucked away in a hollow; and, linked to the Russianized town by a fine bridge, the German quarter, where live the descendants of the Wurtemburg emigrants who accepted Russian hospitality some ninety years ago. Here they flourish, in stolid Swabian fashion, happy exiles in a community with whom they have nothing in common. Bordering their tree-lined principal street are the beer-gardens. Everything is German, language, shops, schools, people. Somehow or other, you have stepped into Hans Andersen's Magic Trunk, and, opening the lid, peep out on Tubingen.

Does everyone feel the mysterious allurements of an untracked town? Unexplored cities have an irresistible fascination for me. It is, I think, the cobwebby remnants of childhood's days clinging about one still. Memory is harking back to those fairy valleys and make-believes, which were for all of us.

Russian Tiflis is like many another European town, but old Tiflis is like nothing on earth but itself. The narrow streets and overhanging balconies were made for Caucasian Romeos and Juliets. Only there are no flowers. Plenty of colour, but no flowers.

We make for the Tatar Bazaar first, to the tortuous winding lanes where the airless air hangs heavy with the potent smell of the East. The congested ways would not pass muster with a sanitary engineer! We should have to remind him that it is easier for a native to rid himself of caste than of ingrained habits of insanitation. And the winter frost rids this country of most of its ills. 

Each street, the narrowest of narrow lanes really, has its own speciality. The shops are not jumbled up heterogeneously as with us. Go down each unpaved alley, and you know just what to expect. The vegetable street provides only vegetables, that opening strewn with garbage leads to the furriers', that to the shoemakers' special section, and this uneven gully takes us to the one of all for us—the silversmiths'. We need courage to go down it! A foreign excursionist is hailed with the abandon of joy and delight which greets the first American visitor of summer in the Lake District of England, with the consequent rise of prices all round.

No sun shines here, and overhanging houses, built largely of wood, hide the light of day. From alcoved balconies above veiled houris peep down on us. At least, they are houris whilst they remain veiled, and just peep!

The scene is that of the old-time setting of a pantomime harlequinade, if you can remember when children were young enough to appreciate the now obsolete foolery. Every low door way seemed just the one for the clown to rush from, thrusting yards of stolen sausage into his capacious pockets as he ran; each window frame, innocent of glass, waited for the lithe, silver figure of harlequin. But for the dainty shoes of Columbine there was no resting-place. A Columbine in American gum-boots would not do at all, and nothing else would keep out the sea of dust, which after a rain-storm churns into banks of brown foam at the street comers, through which the mules, with bells a-j angle, wade knee-deep, and camels with disdainful heads level with the roofs, moving silently as grey wraiths, sink in philosophic calm.

Here is a medley of nations, and the tongue of every land. The familiar " Salaam Aleikum" of a stately Arab answers the gay "Bon Jour" of a smiling Frenchman, our awkward "How-do-you-do ?" replied to the dull " Gutenmorgen " of a ponderous German. Georgians, Mingrelians, wild mountaineers from Daghestan, in massive sheepskin papakhs and ragged tscherkesskas, Tatar shepherds, and Tatar traders in blue cotton tunics and white skull caps, Persians, longhaired Russian priests in cassocks of rusty purple and with conspicuous rosaries, graceful Arabs, with the lithe swinging walk which tells of the desert and the great silences, smartly uniformed Russians, stolid Armenians, and strange primitive people to whom I could give no name. We were rubbing shoulders with the remote centuries, and felt the subtle charm of antiquity charged with the vital force of a gripping modernism.

[...]

The Persian population of Tiflis is a very large one. Many are thriving merchants, descendants, perhaps, of the one-time Iranian rulers, who preside over cave-like dark rooms where you may see in shaded perfection the glorious glow of carpets from Tabriz and Khorasan, Shemakha and Kurdistan, or handle lumps of turquoise shot with the greeny-blue effects of a William Morris.

The saddlers are mostly Persians, too, and the craftsmen ply their trade in the open doors, which enables you to see Caucasian leather-work in every stage of transition. Bits of horse jewellery hang on pegs around the dirty little shops, stirrups which out-stirrup any ever invented, and saddles, from the prehistoric example to ornate specimens adorned with bosses of silver and tooled red leather.

Everywhere the wrought and inlaid silver-work of the country attracts the roving eye. Every Caucasian wears a kinjal [dagger] at his waist, and the beautiful scabbard in which the better-class native sheathes his weapon displays the art of the metal manipulator at his best. Often the dagger hangs from a belt of Orion-like splendour, traced and deeply cut into designs of extraordinary grace and freedom of line.

We were inveigled into a tiny shop by the attractions of a most alluring kinjal, and commenced a protracted haggle over its price with an old Armenian, whose cunning eyes, always the same and yet ever changing, kept glancing at his familiar, a tawny Persian—whose moustache and beard were dyed to the music-hall comedian shade of red—as though for encouragement to doughtier deeds in the way of extortion. Cecily, picking her words, for her Russian seemed to grow rustier, bargained Scotch-fashion for three quarters of an hour so successfully that, after a make believe to quit the shop for ever, a proceeding which sent both Shylocks after us to the door, she stood possessed of an elaborate kinjal, in an inlaid sheath, and a handsome belt, for a quarter the price asked. Our Armenian extortioner seemed quite unable of his own volition to count the amount due him, and flew in frenzied haste to a rickety frame, the abacus of the Chinese, with wooden balls set on wires, and had a tremendous game with this contraption, knocking the bobbins about hither and thither. Then, as he got weary of it, with a far-away smile he announced that we owed him so much, exactly what we had made it out to be before the fun commenced. We paid the bill in rouble notes, notes so dirty and worn that we were almost glad to be rid of them.

Luxuries are expensive in Caucasia. Fruit is cheap enough and food generally; the ubiquitous cucumber, most popular of eatables, may be had almost for the carrying away, but indulgences, the [...] "little comforts," are heavily charged for, or else it is that the transient Britisher is expected to keep up the traditional open-handedness of his nation. Some philosopher or other once observed that all things are dear in the Caucasus save human life...

The outstanding feature of the whole city is its militarism. A warlike atmosphere pervades everything. The very water-carriers walk with martial tread, and the cocks prisoned in long cylindrical baskets in the Caravanserai—a sort of general emporium—poor victims waiting to make a Roman holiday for someone, crow their requiem in clarion reveille

Almost every soul—that is the Russian method of taking the census—is in uniform. Here is a military community, if you like!...

"C'est magnifique, mats ce n'est pas la guerre!" At least, not entirely. In the Caucasus, as in so many places, all is not gold that glisters. These swaggering warriors are often gilded deceptions, for no self-respecting citizen, be his occupation what it may, wears mufti. If you can't be a soldier, then try and look like one, seems the obsession of all and sundry. Under that martial cuirass and row of medals, won Heaven knows how, beats the gentle heart of a life saver. No slaughterer he, a local medico, at your good service. That clanking sword, much too long for its little wearer, is every day put to the blush by the mightier pen of its overworked driver, a worthy telegraph clerk.