Richard Halliburton, Seven League Boots (1935)

Richard Halliburton was American adventurer and writer who, in the 1920s and 1930s, had traveled widely in Europe and Asia. In the early 1930s he visited the newly established Soviet Union and traveled to Georgia, where he paid a visit to the Khevsureti (historical-ethnographic region in the mountains on eastern Georgia)  hearing about the chain-mail clad warriors living there. In his book, "Seven League Boots" (published in 1935), he devoted an entire chapter to the Khevsurs, opening it with the legend of the Khevsurs being descended from Crusaders who became separated from the main Christian forces they were accompanying and ended up establishing themselves in the Caucasus. Despite its overt orientalism, Halliburton's narrative still provides interesting insights into the early 20th century Khevsureti.

The city of Tiflis, capital of the state of Georgia in Caucasia, has long prided itself upon its advanced ideas, its broad boulevards, its modern architecture, and its progressive-minded citizens.

The shock was all the greater, therefore, when, in the spring of 1915, some months after Russia's declaration of war against Turkey, a band of twelfth-century Crusaders, covered from head to foot in rusty chain armour and carrying shields and broadswords, came riding on horseback down the main avenue.

People's eyes almost popped out of their heads. Obviously there was no cinema company going on location. These were Crusaders—or their ghosts. The incredible troop clanked up to the governor's palace. 'Where's the war?' they asked. 'We hear there's a war.'

They had heard in April 1915 that there was a war. It had been declared in September 1914. The news took seven months to reach the last of the Crusaders.

And you wouldn't be surprised, if you tried, as Fritz and I did, to find the behind-the-beyond country in which these twelfth-century people live.

One of the most curious and romantic legends of the Caucasus tells the story of the origin of this armoured tribe. And as yet no historian has found any reason to believe that the legend is not based entirely on fact. The story declares that this race came, eight hundred years ago, from Lorraine, more than two thousand miles away. The argument is borne out by the fact that their chain armour is in the French sty;e, while their otherwise incomprehensible speech still contains six or eight good German words.

When they left Lorraine, so goes the legend, the last thing they had in mind was the colonization of the frosty peaks of the Caucasus Moutnaints, for they were followers of Godfrey de Bouillon and planned to wrest the Holy Sepulchre from the Moslem [Muslim] infidels.

But during the thousand-mile march across what is now Asiatic Turkey, this particular band of Crusaders somehow got detached from the main army, and were prevented by the Saracens from rejoining it. Whether they took a northern course of their own accord, and continued on across Armenia and Georgia to the Caucasus as pioneers, or whether they were fleeing for their lives with Moslem scimitars swishing around their ears, the legend does not say. But we do know that they called a halt in one of the most rugged and unapproachable corners of the Caucasus... and didn't emerge again in force till 1915 when the rumours of a worth-while war brought them, wearing their ancestors' coats of mail, into Tiflis.

These strange people, called Khevsoors, have continued to occupy their hidden corner for over eight centuries. But not one inch have they advanced in general culture, In fact they have lost whatever of the arts they brought with them from Lorraine, and nearly all the crafts. 

Only their Crusader chain armor, more or less indestructible, they still have, and the letters A.M.D. - Ave Mater Dci, the motto of the Crusaders — carved on their shields, and the Crusader crosses which adorn the handles of their broadswords and are embroidered in a dozen places on their home-made garments. At the same time, the Khevsoors have developed a crude culture of their own that makes them, to me, the most interesting “foreign” race in all Russia. 

Maintaining their independence unbroken for the last eight hundred years, they were walled off from the world by barriers of mountains and canyons. A highway extending ninety miles. north of Tiflis approaches to within twenty miles of one of their villages. But the single cliff-cut trail that leads off to it is traversable only on foot, or with horses that can climb, slide and swim. Even this trail is closed by ice and snow in December and remains closed till May. During these five months no one can enter and no one can depart from Khevsooria. 

To visit this archaic, clan, this lost world, Fritz and I, having traveled inland from the Black Sea to Tiflis and motored to the starting point of the only trail into Khevsooria, made what was perhaps the last trail-passage of the season. Iron crampons on our shoes were necessary for already ice covered everything. It was explained clearly to us before starting that one more fall of snow, after we had reached our destination, would make our return extremely difficult - we might even have to remain in the village five months, as much prisoners as our hosts. 

We took the risk, but watched the sky with anxious eyes as we advanced. Our luck held. It didn’t snow, nor did we slide off the cliff-face into the frozen river below. Terrific peaks, completely sheathed in ice, rose on all sides of us. I had been used to thinking, carelessly, that Mont Blanc is the highest mountain in Europe. But the range along whose slopes we climbed includes nine peaks higher, and a score more that topped the Matterhorn. Elbrus, the highest of the range, overtops Mont Blane by nearly three thousand feet. After six hours on the steep and slippery trail we descended into a valley, and saw the first Khevsoor village, a collection of rude stone huts, in which sheep, goats, pigs, cows and Khevsoors have been living happily together for eight hundred years. 

The entire population of the village — some three hundred — came to look at us, the first foreign visitors in two months. 

It was immediately evident that the Khevsoors have developed a communal life completely unmodified by any changes that may have occurred in the world outside. If at the end of their five months’ imprisonment they found that all life at the other end of the trail had been destroyed by a passing comet, they would continue t0 have no more and no less than before. Their houses and all the articles in them are home made - the furniture, the cradle, the cooking pots. They weave their own cloth from wool their sheep provide. They have no wheeled transport, only crude sleds made by their own  hands. Cartridges [for firearms] they would lack, but these have never been of any great importance anyhow in this sword-conscious community. 

Everybody works, raising barley, shepherding the sheep and goats; and the produce of their common labor is shared by all. No man is richer than his neighbor. No house is better than any other. Money they do not understand and do not want. Before I’d been in the village an hour I decided that personal beauty in Khevsooria is rare and brief. The eternal struggle to sustain life in this rugged country soon destroys their youth. The women looked old at thirty though they sometimes live to be a hundred. All women, obviously, were considered very inferior beings. They ate what the men had left, and slept together on the floor downstairs; the men in beds upstairs. 

One particularly cruel custom, handed down from the darkest ages, shocks anyone who comes to Khevsooria. For ten days before an expectant mother is delivered of a child (she may have married at fifteen), she must retire from the community and hide, an outcast and unclean, in an animal shed outside the village. She must never show herself. No one must be seen approaching I her. Absolutely alone she must bear her baby——in the dark, beside the goats. If her cries reach the village, her husband is allowed to go and fire his rifle from the shed’s roof in order to frighten away the evil spirits tormenting his wife. But he must not, even if she’s dying’ ' go inside. 

Fortunately the Khevsoor women are as tough as goats whose apartment they are using, and give birth to their young with about the same amount of trouble. 

Cruel to their women. And also cruel to their horses. While master lives, the horse is treated like a son, loved and protected. But when the master dies, the horse must die too. As the owner's corpse is bveing borne to the cemetery,  an expert horseman mounts the animal and rides it down canyons, across rivers, up hills, at the swiftest possible speed, spurring and spurring it - to death. The corpse of the horse is left where it falls for the vultures to dispose of. 

Meanwhile the greatest possible gayety is taking place at the dead man’s house. His family must make any sacrifice to provide a banquet for the village. Nobody mourns. Instead, everyone drinks as much home brew as possible and eats himself sick on all the sweetmeats that have been saved up since the illness began to look fatal. 

It is the one event in the social life of Khevsooria to which everybody looks forward. I asked my hosts if they had any religion . . . how much of their twelfth-century Christianity had they preserved? 

Yes, they were still Christians. They even had a church. The church proved to be only a shrine in the woods, containing an altar decorated with a cross, bronze bells, and the antlers of deer - symbols both Christian and Pagan. All meaning of Christianity has long since been forgotten. Christ is only a vague name to them, nor have they any idea why they wear a cross around their necks and on their swords and shields. 

But they do have a code of ethics and conduct that is as rigid as iron. One clause in this code concerning the honor of the clan - has caused more bloodshed than all their wars put together. 

If for any reason a Khevsoor is killed by Khevsoor, the heirs of the dead man are honor bound to kill the killer. That the killing may have been in self defense doesn’t matter. And then when this second assassination has been accomplished, the latest victim's heirs must kill his killer. And on and on, not for generations but for centuries, these vendettas continue, spreading and spreading until families not at first remotely connected with the feud are driven into it, and the original occasion completely forgotten. 

If the feud is between families of separate villages, each village spurs on its champion. The honor of the village is at stake. The appointed executioner probably has no quarrel whatsoever with the man he must kill, may scarcely even know him. That doesn’t matter. Honor must be served. If the ranking relative of the latest victim does not seek vengeance he is despised and spat upon. The men will not eat or work with him. The women will not speak to him except to jeer. His own children and family are made to suffer. The poor fellow, hating to continue the bloody and useless cycle, is driven to it by the Khevsoor code, knowing full well it means, soon or later, his own death in turn. 

Over one hundred Khevsoors have been sacrificed in the last thirty years to this insane custom.  

On first reaching the land of the lost Crusaders, I had hoped to find every man wearing his famous coat of mail. I didn't find a single one. Instead they all wore a homespun cross-embroidered shirt over baggy trousers. But on the wall in every house, the armor hung beside the shield and gun. The sword itself, varying from twelve to thirty inches in length, each man carries constantly. It is as much part of his dress as his sheepskin hat, or the ornamental row of cartridges across his chest.

Seeing how interested we were in the chain armor, the village elders took half a dozen suits and let me examine them and try one on. The entire outfit, including shield and sword, weighs about thirty pounds.

Each mesh coat is made of some twenty thousand tiny iron rings and goes on like a night shirt. The sleeves are short, but mesh gauntlets cover the forearms. With each suit goes a bag-like chain helmet with a hole cut out for the face. A flap folds over, so that the entire head can be protected. For the shins there are likewise mesh greaves. Consequently when completely arrayed, the only parts of the body vulnerable are the knees and thighs. The original mesh is terribly rusty, as the owners no longer understand how to preserve it. The newer coats are made from copper wire stolen from the telegraph line along the highroad. It is both cleaner and lighter than the iron but offers by no means as good protection.

The Khevsoors have not worn their coats of mail into battle since their famous march into Tiflis in 1915. The chief reason is that those who finally did join the Czar's army found that modern bullets have no respect for copper wire mesh.

But for dueling, which remains an accepted way for settling all disputes, the contestants still clothe themselves in their armor. Also they enjoy fighting for fun. Like their forefathers, the Crusader knights, they have a passion for putting on their iron shirts and going at each other with broadswords. Fighting, both in good and bad humor, in this land where books are unknown and where other forms of sport or diversion simply do not exist, is the only means they have of expressing themselves.

Sunday is reserved for getting drunk and dueling.

For our benefit two of the Khevsoor braves decided to put on a show. We all went to a little plateau outside the village where the duelists faced each other. There is no referee, as everybody has known and followed the rules for centuries. Unlike the jousting in the Middle Ages, when ladies were such important features in the tournament, the Khevsoorian duelists permit only men to watch. However, there is an age-old custom that permits a woman to stop a duel at her pleasure by appearing on the scene and tossing her handkerchief between the two combatants.

The fighters crouch with one knee bent almost to the ground. Their small round shields, embossed with a big cross, are used to parry rather than receive the blows of the opponent's sword. The duelists jump about with astonishing agility, circling and jockeying for position like fighting cocks.

Recklessly, the swords thud on leather shields, crunch on chain armor, or clash as they strike together. But unlike similar duels in German universities, wounds are rare, since the head and face, where most of the blows fall, are not exposed. There is no slit even for the eyes. The fighter must see as best as he can right through the mesh screen of the helmet flap.

The duel I witnessed was, of course, friendly. Though both fighters were well oiled on home-made barley brandy and didn't hesitate to attack with full vigor, a couple of bruises were the worst that happened.

When, however, anyone actually inflicts a wound, either in friendly or in angry battle, the victim must be compensated in cows. The village elder measures the wound in barley seed, and for every seed it will contain the guilty swordsman must pay one cow.

Julia Pardoe, The City of the Sultan (1836)

Julia Pardoe (1806 – 1862) was a well known British writer and traveller. Born in Yorkshire, she spent much of her life traveling in Europe and the Ottoman Empire. Her experiences informed her numerous books on travel and historical subjects. A keen observer, she was well known for her in-depth knowledge and understanding of the "East" and was best known for her books on her travels in the Ottoman Empire, where she first arrived in 1836 in company of her father, Major Thomas Pardoe. This voyage inspired her to write her first major book, "The City of the Sultan And Domestic Manners of the Turks" (1836), where, among other things, she described meeting Georgian women, including Devlehai Hanoum, the wife of the Ottoman foreign minister, who greatly impressed her.

The illness and subsequent death of the Buyuk Hanoum had long delayed the visit which I had been requested to make to the harem of the Reiss Effendi, or Minister for Foreign Affairs; and it may be remembered that this was the lady to whom I alluded in a former portion of my work, as having failed to find favour in the eyes of the Sultan on the occasion of the Princess Salihe's marriage ; and whom he had been graciously pleased to excuse from all further attendance at court, in favour of a fair Georgian, whom he had himself provided as her successor. 

The aged Minister had received with all proper gratitude the gift of his Imperial master; and had not failed to make the lovely slave his wife with all possible speed. And the anticipation of seeing this far-famed beauty added no little to the desire which I felt to avail myself of the very kind and flattering invitation of the family.

Having, therefore, suffered a sufficient time to elapse after the death of the Buyuk Hanoum to testify my sympathy for her loss, I prepared for this long-promised visit, and made it in company with some Greek ladies, friends of my own, and well known in the harem of the Minister. On passing the Salemliek I was much disappointed by the discovery that the Reiss Effendi himself was [away] from home ; but on reaching the harem we were more fortunate, and having delivered our cloaks, veils, and shoes to a group of slaves who received us in the marble entrance-hall, we followed one who led the way up a noble flight of stairs to a vast saloon ; and in the next instant I found myself standing beside Devlehai Hanoum, the beautiful Georgian.

And she was beautiful—magnificent! Tall, and dark, and queenly in her proud loveliness; with such a form as is not looked on above half a dozen times during a long life. The character of Georgian beauty is perfectly dissimilar from that of Circassia; it is more stately and dazzling; the whole of its attributes are different. With the Circassian you find the clearest and fairest skin, the most delicately rounded limbs, the softest, sleepiest expression — the lowest voice —and the most indolently graceful movements. There is no soul in a Circassian beauty; and as she pillows her pure, pale cheek upon her small dimpled hand, you feel no inclination to arouse her into exertion— you are contented to look upon her, and to contemplate her loveliness. 

But the Georgian is a creature of another stamp : with eyes like meteors, and teeth almost as dazzling as her eyes. Her mouth does not wear the sweet and unceasing smile of her less vivacious rival, but the proud expression that sits upon her finely arched lips accords so well with her stately form, and her high, calm brow, that you do not seek to change its character. There is a revelation of intellect, an air of majesty, about the Georgian women, which seems so utterly at variance with their condition, that you involuntarily ask yourself if they can indeed ever be slaves; and you have some difficulty in admitting the fact, even to your own reason.

Nearly all the ladies of the Princess Azme's household are Georgians : and I have already had occasion to remark that her harem is celebrated for the beauty of its fair inhabitants. But Devlehai Hanoum left every individual of the Imperial Serai of Ortakeuy immeasurably behind her. And as she welcomed us without rising from her sofa, I felt, woman though I was, as though I could have knelt in homage to such surpassing loveliness!

The sofa on which she was seated, occupied the deep bay of a window overlooking the Bosphorus, at the upper end of a saloon which terminated in a flight of steps leading upwards to a second apartment, that, in its turn, afforded similar access to a third: and this long perspective was bounded by the distant view of a vine-o'ercanopied kiosk, beneath which a fine fountain of white marble was flinging its cool waters on the air, from the midst of clustering vases, filled with rare and beautiful flowering plants.

Groups of slaves were standing about the sofa; and gilded cages, filled with birds, were arranged in its immediate vicinity. I was much amused by a superb parrot, evidently the favourite of the harem, which had become so imbued with its high-bred tranquillity, as to speak almost in a whisper : and which kept up a perpetual murmur of such phrases as the following: " My heart! — My life! — My Sultan, the light of my eyes! — Am I pretty ? — Do you love to look upon me? " and similar sentimentalities.

Devlehai Hanoum was dressed in an antery of white silk, embroidered all over with groups of flowers in pale green ; her salva, or trousers, were of satin of the Stuart tartan, and her jacket light blue ; the gauze that composed her chemisette was almost impalpable, and the cachemire about her waist was of a rich crimson. Her hair, of which several tresses had been allowed to escape from beneath the embroidered handkerchief, was as black as the plumage of a raven; and her complexion was a clear, transparent brown. 

But the great charm of the beautiful Georgian was her figure. I never beheld any thing more lovely; to the smoothly-moulded graces of eighteen she joined the majesty and stateliness of middle life ; and you forgot as you looked upon her, that she had ever been bought at a price, to remember only that she was the wife of one of the great officers of the Empire.

Charles Fillingham Coxwell, Through Russia in War-time (1916) - Part 2

Charles Coxwell Fillingham (1856 - 1940) was a well-traveled writer, translator and folklorist.  he had traveled widely across Europe and the Russian Empire, collecting folktales and translatinf German, French and Russian literature into English. His most famous work is "Siberian and Other Folk Tales" that introduced Western readers to the folk culture of ethnic groups residing in Siberia. During World War I he traveled through the Russian Empire, crossing the Caucasus Mountains and visiting Georgia before proceeding to Baku and Daghestan.

Early next morning I walked among the primitive houses of Kasbek. Great dogs, like white St. Bernards, barked defiance from the flat roofs, which have a special interest, since frequently they are covered either with ten or twelve inches of earth for the cultivation, at certain seasons, of vegetables, or with a fine stony material. The inhabitants may pass directly from sloping paths on to the tops of the dwellings. The way from one home to another lies generally through an untidy yard, and the alleys and lanes are very irregular. Some of the habitations possess a second story reached by an outer staircase of stone. The people seemed more prosperous and intelligent than those at Gergeti, opposite, but they follow the same occupations, namely, tillage on a small scale, or rearing cattle, or pursuing the tur. A traveler [Captain R.N.Telfer], supplying a valuable narrative, relates that a hunter, having promised him sport in this neighbourhood, would not fire a gun because a corpse lay unburied. He tells us that Pushkin found a funeral party who did not desist from beating their foreheads till the body, enveloped in a 'bourka,' had been taken from the house and the dead man's gun laid by his side. Apparently the observance of such customs does not militate against a prevalence of superstitious beliefs, carried so far that a guide is reported to have exhibited the utmost dread before penetrating recesses in Mount Kasbek sacred to biblical Abraham and the Virgin Mary. Among its snows are said to linger the patriarch's tent and, within it, the holy manger.

Making my way up an acclivity, I reached diminutive fields where natives, mostly women, wearing, under short skirts, long coloured calico trousers, were cutting hay. So I attained an advantageous position whence I could look, across the valley, at the great pinnacle of snow beautifully illumined by a sun still invisible. Photography was futile, for the light remains bad till late amid such high mountains. On the road a poor fellow, whose eyes were much inflamed, accosting me, said he had heard I was a doctor, and asked me to cure him, and I made a suggestion which may have alleviated his suffering.

Kasbek posting station stands at an elevation of about 5,600 feet, so that I had risen more than 3,000 feet since leaving Vladikavkaz. The immediate route was along a flat valley which lies between mountain-sides a mile or so apart. Here the road closely accompanies the Terek, which though tolerably broad and deep, reveals a stony bed as clear as that of an English trout stream. On the right across the river, and high up the great rocky wall, hung a hamlet, having the highest tower I had yet seen, but not easily distinguishable because made of the reddish mountain stone.

Next we met a small caravan. Upon the grass, and near half a dozen small wagons with arched canvas-covered roofs, drivers were beginning their day. They had passed the night in little bell-shaped tents, and, in the middle of their camp, one of their number sat upon a high stone that his head might be conveniently shaved by a friend. The outlook soon became a little less desolate, and as the road wound about and ascended, a mountain of magnificent craggy outline seemed to lie across our path. A foreground to this picture was formed by the little village of Sion, whose ancient tower stands almost as a landmark, while the basilica resembles outwardly the early Christian churches. Upon a horizontal pole beside it are hung its bells. At this point we overtook some carts driven by Ossetes, dressed, as usual, in white slouch hats and tight-fitting garments. The party interested me because we left Vladikavkaz at nearly the same time, and its rate of progress towards Tiflis approximated to my own in the twenty-four hours —that is, about thirty miles. This seemed a fair rate for transport of merchandise in such a district, but the amount of traffic on the famous route was disappointing.

Gradually the scenery, although continuing grand, grew less wild until, after the descent to the post-house at Kobi, the river was seen to fork and the valley to broaden out. Altogether the view in the bright sunshine had grown less tremendous and awe-inspiring.

The Stanzia is here sheltered by an interesting geological formation, a cliff of lava. Up to now the rocks coming under my notice had been chiefly granite, with in one place slate, but as Mount Kasbek was originally a volcano, naturally enough columns of lava appeared where engineering operations had exposed the strata. Happily when I arrived, but little business took up the attention of the staff, consisting chiefly of two Georgian damsels, with an Ossetian lady friend, a visitor, and I was enabled to form an opinion of the feminine comeliness for which Georgia is renowned. The pretty Ossetian wore a red silk kerchief over the head in the manner customary with the women of her race; but the Georgians were more beautiful, possessing dark, languorous eyes and very regular features, charms which, with fine fresh complexions, accompanied a gentle and winning manner. It was my obvious duty to use the camera, and, after some little demur and exhibition of shyness, they let me have my way. Unwilling to lose time, I did not visit some troglodyte caves, to be reached by a difficult path in the neighbourhood. Regret for such an omission remains one of the penalties of imperfect travelling. But the solitary visitor must weigh various pros and cons, and a small command of a language may limit his movements.

Before my vehicle started on the next stage, which was toward the summit and the Station Gudaur, I had an opportunity of witnessing how busy a posting-house can be. Several carriages having arrived almost simultaneously on their way to Kasbek, there occurred much harnessing, unharnessing, and redistribution of horses. 

Finally I was dispatched with four steeds abreast and two drivers, whose hats, of white sheepskin and black astrakhan respectively, offered a sufficient contrast. The ascent soon became severe, and disclosed wooden sheds and various forms of masonry, for protection at times against avalanches and falling boulders. We were now surrounded by not rocky precipices but lofty grass-covered slopes. Sheep browsed at great heights, and men, standing on giddy inclines, cut a crop of hay with their sickles. By the roadside was noticeable a large red incrustation, due to the existence of iron and lime in a trickling stream. Toward the summit of the pass, which attains an elevation of nearly 8,000 feet, patches of snow lay on the ground, and a little way to the left rose a stone cross, first erected by 'Queen Tamara,' doubtless a different person from the lady who threw her lovers from castle walls on a lonesome rock in Daryal Gorge. When the two outside horses had been unhitched so as to follow with the wearer of the black 'shapka,' his fellow 'yemshchik' began the descent, absence of a brake being remedied by such strong roping of the shaft horses to the pole end as enabled them, if necessary, to hold back effectively. The views had now become superlative. Behind and to the right, at a moderate distance, extended a chain of lofty mountains called 'The Seven Brothers,' and attaining a height of 14,000 feet. Though no glaciers or considerable white expanse dominated the picture, a sufficiency of snow, forming bright lines on vast and dark spaces, increased the very varied effects of the mountainous contours. On the more immediate right could be seen the bottom of a deep valley, and several thousand feet beneath us a rushing silvery stream, the Aragva, which takes its origin in the tremendous range above mentioned, and proceeding on its course almost to Tiflis, prepares, as it were, a path for the traveler. In the afternoon I would make the wonderful descent to Mleti, and so join the Aragva.

The summit of the Krestovy, or 'Cross' Pass, with its verdant pastures, having been left behind, Gudaur, the post station, was soon reached. One of the three highest inhabited places in the Caucasus, it shines forth perhaps the most lovely, and the outlook across the deep valley is truly majestic. Gudaur has a legend. Here the mountain spirit Goud, falling in love with Nina, a beautiful child of Ossety, and worshipping her, protected her father and made him prosper. But Nina had plighted her troth to Sasyko, a handsome youth skillful with his gun. Now, when winter came, Goud could not see

Nina as often as before. So, tortured by jealousy, he sent an avalanche over the hut where the lovers sat blissfully together. At first they laughed and were content, but as time wore on they became tormented by hunger. Alas! during the madness of a fearful moment, Sasyko fastened his teeth in Nina's flesh; then Goud laughed so loud that huge stones fell to the bottom of the valley, and have stayed there ever since.

Opposite the posting-house at Gudaur is a tiny shrine to St. George (and the Dragon), and while I gazed on it a diminutive urchin walked off with my staff, which was soon recovered by the postmaster, who described, as if amused, the enterprise of 'ochen molodoy maltcheek' (' the very young boy '). A trifling incident, it served to remind me that in this remote and sparsely inhabited region I had met with very honest treatment, and been altogether unmolested by beggars.

The Tsar's ukaz against intoxicants is not applied strictly in these southern districts, and at Gudaur I tasted the wine of Khakhetia. Neither dark nor light, it was palatable, though lacking edge. I must acknowledge that the word 'veeno,' uttered by an attendant youth, fell pleasantly upon the ear of one who, wishing to lunch, had tasted no fermented drink for two or three months. The concession may have been because the district is a wine-growing one; or perhaps Transcaucasia enjoys a form of government less strict than that of Russia in general.

While I was recalling that the Caucasus has been considered by geographers the natural division between Europe and Asia, my reflections were interrupted by a strange sight. Up the ascent came slowly a cart piled high with faggots of wood. On them, and at full length, reclined a youth, while in front of two bullocks, and straining steadily, two women, by means of straps adjusted over the shoulders, aided the beasts in their task.

For some reason or other my casual efforts to observe bird life in Russia had little success, but I noticed at Gudaur a pretty bird whose kind I had seen in several parts of the land. It is crested, rather smaller than a magpie, and coloured fawn and black.

The 'yemshchik' who drove me down the eighteen zigzags to Mleti possessed a pleasant manner and handsome features, and was a superior specimen of humanity. Wearing on his head a well-formed black 'shapka' and around his body a heavy cloak, which at a little distance might have suggested a Roman toga, he formed an engaging charioteer, ready to show me where, at a dangerous spot, an automobile with its single occupant had recently gone to destruction. Farther on, I noticed a remarkable formation of cliff. Beside the road and over a space of something like two hundred yards, reddish hexagonal lava columns rise perhaps fifty feet.

However thoroughly, owing to the frequent reversal of our direction, the view might change, it always contained elements of sublimity. Dark peaks, decked with snowy lines, towered to the north; across and beyond dizzy depths beneath us stood forth great, if less terrible, heights of varying form; but gradually and steadily the several thousand feet separating us from the Aragva became fewer, till at last the river disclosed itself at the bottom of a chasm, beyond which stood, poised on the mountain-side, a hamlet with two square towers. A mile or two onwards, sentinels guarding a bridge permitted us to proceed, and then, passing a little church, the 'perekladnaya' drew up at the Stanzia of Mleti, opposite the entrance to which a large notice courageously stated that here was a first-class restaurant.

This station provided me with a gratuitous entertainment, as in the garden a tethered small brown bear now and again climbed the trunk of a tree. The creature, captured when a month old, as a Russian officer informed me, had now reached four times that age. The arrival of a tin containing crusts of bread floating in milk arrested angry growls, and prompted a dexterous use of the back of the paw as plate. I was soon relieved to find at my disposal a tolerably comfortable room, whose door could be securely fastened.  ‘Twas not amiss, as a party of travellers having arrived late, a loud voiced lady, accompanied by a gentleman, made very determined efforts to obtain any available accommodation. After a good night's rest, wishing to approach some small hamlets with ancient towers, I retraced my steps along the route of the previous day. While so doing I was overtaken by a splendid figure: a mounted Cossack with his rifle slung across his back. Having passed me, he doubtless descended by a mountain path and crossed the gorge of the Aragva, for I saw him returning on the other side of the stream, and keeping me, as I thought, in view.

Returning to the station, I found that the word 'seytchas,' signifying 'immediately,' has special elasticity in the minds of those attending to the wants of posting travelers. Two four-horsed and hooded phaetons had to be dispatched first. Next drove off a heavily laden tarantass, not lacking the inevitable bonnet-boxes. But when the last had been seen of its several occupants, including a uniformed student and a genial black-cassocked priest with hair caught up in a knot, who from his seat by the driver exhibited talent on a bugle, I once more entered my boat-shaped conveyance and proceeded. The road suddenly entered pretty, wooded scenes, with lateral gorges exhibiting forest or pasture, and conveying small affluents to the Aragva. One now saw, not ordinary bullocks but black buffaloes with shaggy heads, compressed striated horns, and great humps on their backs. Fields of oats appeared, at first green, but golden as the day wore on, and the climate grew rapidly warmer. Hamlets, dotted about more numerously, but, as before, perched high, consisted of primitive houses, having heavy stones which weighted down flat roofs, whose rafters projected far forward, and so ensured grateful shade.

Thus in a very few hours the scenery and surroundings had completely changed. Instead of either awe-inspiring, wild and frowning, or magnificent and snow-capped mountains, now a long valley bounded by lofty tree-covered hills delighted my eyes. The driver, if less agreeable than had been his predecessors, was shrewd. On a previous occasion, during the steep ascent to the Krestovy Pass, I had allowed a soldier to obtain some sort of foothold behind the 'perekladnaya '; and now, against the yemshchlk's wish, I permitted, under the glamour of beautiful surroundings, a farmer-like individual, armed as usual with a kinjaal [dagger], to plead successfully for a lift. Unfortunately, he brought with him a sack containing very hard goods, which proved inconvenient on the narrow floor. Moreover, the general atmosphere, though not lawless, seemed less secure as the Georgian capital was approached, and suggested wariness.

Albert Henry Stopford, The Russian Diary of an Englishman (1916)

An art dealer, freelance writer, British intelligence agent, an intimate to the Russian imperial family... By all accounts, Sir Albert Henry Stopford (1860 - 1939) had a remarkable life. Born into an affluent family of an Irish peer, he grew up in the high society of Britain and travelled widely in Europe. While studying at Oxford, he befriended the sons of the Russian elite, including Princes Felix Yusupov and Serge Obolensky.

In 1915, Stopford travelled to Russia where he remained for the next two years witnessing political and social crisis that engulfed the empire. Despite the turmoil he still managed to travel to various parts of the Russian empire, including Georgia which he briefly visited in the spring of 1916. During the tumultuous events in 1917, Stopford  risked his life rescuing Romanov jewels (including the Vladimir tiara that is now in possession of Queen Elisabeth II of Britain) from the Vladimir Palace in St. Petersburg. He later anonymously published his diary and letters, "The Russian Diary of an Englishman" (London: Heinemann, 1919).

1916

Friday, 17 March [entry in a diary]

After visits to the Grand Duchess and the Embassy, left Petrograd in the evening for Tiflis. Found Terestchenko in the train: we talked in my cabin from 4 to 5. Between Baku and Tiflis saw pelicans and storks fishing in the marshes and camels working in the fields. Arrived at Tiflis 3 p.m.

Wednesday, April 5 [entry in a diary]

Tiflis. General Callwell at luncheon at my Wednesday, hotel—just back from the frontier and Batum. He came to decorate the Russian General who had taken Erzrum, but—the roads being almost impassable—the latter had to come to the frontier to receive his English order.

Friday, 7 April [entry in a diary]

Tiflis. Visited the old churches and Armenian bazaar. In the afternoon saw the new moon and the first swallows.

Sunday, 9 April [an excerpt from a letter]

Tiflis. I must own to you that Tiflis has been a disappointment after all I had been told about it. The hotel life here is delightful—some twenty Georgian officers, en congé or en convalescence, all live or eat in the hotel. Amongst them is the great Tolstoy's youngest son—great fun! They remind me of the Sicilians, and run in and out from their meals all the time. They all have improbable waists, and are hung with poignards [daggers] and swords. They are trying to get up a Georgian cavalry regiment, but the question of horses and saddles is difficult. If they do, I shall join them as invité on June 15 and do the summer campaign with them: they say I could be of use in many ways. All Georgians are born warriors.

I went to see Prince Napoleon Murat yesterday. He was frost-bitten in the knees in Galicia, and about a month ago he fell down just as he was getting better, and has been in bed for a month, but now he is picking up again. I told him all I could about France: the tears came to his eyes. He is adored here. He was pleased to hear that the Emperor had spoken of him.

I wish Trebizond could be taken while I am here, but the Turks are very strong there and have been reinforcing since the fall of Erzerum. The food is excellent in the hotel—rice with nearly everything and black cherry jam; almond and pistachio tartlets, also wine; so I am all right.

Tuesday,  11 April  [entry in a diary] 

Would have liked to motor over the Caucasian Mountains and take the train at Vladikavkas, but the road is not yet opened and no automobile has come over from there, so took seats in train for Petrograd.

Wednesday, 12 April  [entry in a diary]

The hotel courier, George—whose family had been massacred by the Turks near Erzerum— rushed in and said a motor-car had arrived from Vladikavkas and he had engaged it for me for to-morrow morning.

Thursday, 13 April [entry in a diary].

Left hotel in automobile exactly 6.45 a.m. Reached summit 1.20 p.m. (127 versts). Excellent road cut through deeps now on the top. Arrived at Vladikavkas at 4.

Friday, 14 April [entry in a diary]

Vladikavkas. Joined the train at 5 a.m. which had left Tiflis 38 hours before. Glorious morning; saw the sun rise over the mountains.

Sunday, April 16 [entry in a diary]

Petrograd. Arrived midday.

Tuesday, 18 April [excerpt from a letter]

I came away from Tiflis by the military road across the Caucasus Mountains, 8000 feet high. The road was better than might have been expected, as I was in the first automobile to cross this year. One comes down on the north side through a narrow defile with a dashing torrent. The chauffeur was not very attentive to his car, and preferred looking over the precipices to looking at the turnings in front of him. I had at last to threaten him with personal violence. I had paid for the journey before leaving.

As we flew down this narrow defile there rose suddenly in the middle of it a great detached rock or small hill with a ruined castle on it. It was there that "Thamara" in the Russian ballet lured her victims. Furtively the chauffeur pointed at it with one hand, but did not dare to turn round to say anything, so I leant forward and said, "Schto takoe" ("What is it ?"), and he only said, "Thamara." I looked up quickly, and through a window could picture the voluptuous almond eyes of Karsavina as "Thamara" looking for another victim, and beneath the rocks the bleached bones and nose of dear Mr. Bolm.

There I was, at the foot of the very castle we had so often—sitting in your box at Covent Garden —admired the interior of, and through its window gazed on the view of the defile. I fancied I saw one of her cushions at the window as I flew down the road seeking safety for my virtue and my bones, I think "Thamara" must have lived on trout and mutton—as there is nothing else in the country —and of course on rice, like every good Georgian. After the war I shall propose to you to come out and see the castle and Mr. Bolm's skeleton.

When the Russians got to Erzerum there was not one Christian alive, save six girls in the American Consulate. The guide of the Tiflis Hotel was a Christian Turk, not Armenian, and his town was a little to the south of Erzrum. There all the Christians were also massacred—840, including his old grandmother.

Tell his lordship I saw in the Caucasus herons, storks, pelicans, white eagles with black tips to their wings, many kestrels and buzzards, flamingos, yellow water-wagtails and dark red woodpeckers, magpies and jays, heaps of ducks, I think sheldrakes (but not near enough for me to distinguish), and one kingfisher. All the fruit-trees were in blossom in the valleys at Tiflis—peaches, apricots, plums, and cherries.

Bertha von Suttner, Memoirs (1876-1885) - Part 3

Baroness Bertha Felicitas Sophie Freifrau von Suttner, née Gräfin Kinsky von Wchinitz und Tettau (1843-1914) was an Austrian writer, activist and pacifist. In 1905 she was the first woman (and only the 7th laureate) to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. 

Born into a noble but impoverished family in Prague, she excelled in education, mastering several languages and becoming a talented piano player. In 1870s, she began to work as a governess to the wealthy Suttner family but soon became engaged to the Suttners' youngest son Arthur Gundaccar Freiherr von Suttner but his family bitterly opposed the marriage and forced the couple to leave.  In 1876, Bertha and Arthur left Austria and moved, at the invitation of Princess Ekaterine Dadiani of Mingrelia, to Georgia, where they remained for eight years. Despite acute financial problems, the couple enjoyed their stay in Georgia and earned their living by writing novels and translations. In the 1880s, the Suttner family reconciled with the couple, allowing it to return to Austria where they settled at the Harmannsdorf Castle. Bertha became actively involved in peace and conflict issues and wrote extensively on pacifism. In 1889 she wrote  Die Waffen nieder! ["Lay Down Your Arms!"], which turned her into one of the leading figures of the pacifist movement. She continued to publish and gain international repute that resulted in her receiving the Nobel Peace prize in 1905. She died of cancer in June 1914, just one week short of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand that unleashed the World War I.

In 1910 Bertha von Suttner authorized the publication of the English edition of her memoirs, in which she devoted the entire part IV (chapters 17 through 21) to her stay in Georgia. 

In part 1, Bertha von Suttner described how, after eloping with her husband, she travelled to Georgia where he was welcomed by the Dadiani family in Kutaisi. Part 2 focused on the couple's life in  Kutaisi and events of the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877-1878.

In the summer of 1878 we were again guests at the Mingrelian summer residence. The two sons for whom the Dedopali had trembled had now come to Gordi also, decorated with various orders; likewise Prince Niko's wife Mary. And, in addition to these, Achille Murat with his wife and their two boys. It afforded me great pleasure to see my friend Salome once more, and we had again a delightful time in this dear and merry circle. Count Rosmorduc contributed not a little to the entertainment. This old Frenchman had the gift of relating endless anecdotes from his life, exciting, witty, and touching, and of never repeating himself.

We still found that nothing came of the position for My Own [Bertha’s husband]. There was all the more of making plans and building castles in Spain. Businesses were to be taken over, colonists to be imported, a trade in wood to be started. Niko and Rosmorduc were especially inventive of such projects, in which my husband was always to have lucrative functions. Various things were actually entered upon: negotiations were begun, extended correspondence was carried on, but in the end nothing came of it.

So winter approached again, the colony at Gordi separated, and this time we decided to try our fortune at Tiflis; it was there that we could avail ourselves of the best recommendations. Here was the home of Princess Tamara, the widow of Heraclius of Georgia. He had died after a long illness, during which he is said to have been unendurably capricious, and his beautiful young widow had the most important house in Tiflis next to the grand-duke-governor's. There we were received with the greatest kindness.

Tiflis is a city half Oriental, half West-European. In the European quarter the same sort of life prevails as in our great cities: European toilets, European manners, French cooks, English governesses, jours, soirees, conversation in Russian and French. Princess Tamara had her own palais, furnished with exquisite taste, and in her salons met the cream of the local society, consisting of dignitaries of the grand-ducal court, — the grand duke himself often used to come there, — of various governors and generals, and the great people of the city. Tamara's younger sister, as beautiful as she herself, had married a general and also lived in Tiflis.

Our social position there was something quite peculiar. We had to be earning something, so that we might live, — hence in the forenoons I went to several houses giving music lessons, for which I was well paid; my husband had a place under a French wallpaper manufacturer and builder, as bookkeeper and especially as designer of new patterns. For this service he received a salary of one hundred and fifty rubles a month, and moreover we had board and lodging in the pretty private house of the manufacturer, Monsieur Bernex of Marseilles. The bell for work rang at five o'clock in the morning. Then My Own, My Own who at home had been so spoiled and in truth shamefully lazy, had to get up. He did it right gayly; then he went to the press-room to oversee the workmen. At eight o'clock he sat down with the owner and the bosses to the early breakfast, consisting of a pail of weak coffee with milk, and black bread — it tasted good to him! — then he had to go to the office and figure and design till one. Meantime I had given a few lessons, and we all ate dinner together at the Bernex table. In the afternoon My Own had to go on business errands, to customers, to the customhouse, to the railway station, all long distances; he did it with pleasure. But after six o'clock in the evening we were free, put on full dress, and almost every evening dined en ville, now with the Princess of Georgia, now with her sister, and with all the great families of the city. Our romance was generally known, also our close relations with the Dadiani family; and in society we were not treated as the factory employee and the music teacher, but as a sort of aristocratic emigrants, not only on a footing of equality but with that peculiar courtesy which is usually shown to illustrious foreigners. We could not help laughing about it.

I kept up my literary labors as far as my time permitted. I wrote novels, — Doras Bekenntnisse, Ketten und Verkettungen, — and carried about with me the scheme of a larger work, Inventarium einer Seele. My husband got very little opportunity for writing, for now his employer had set him to work also at designing architectural plans. And he did it. How he made a success of it I do not understand to this day; but it is a fact that several houses and castles in the vicinity of Tiflis were built from his plans. As he played the piano without having taken music lessons, so he made architectural designs without having studied architecture. He had already picked up enough of the Georgian language to be able to get along with the native workmen and contractors. In the meantime I was perfecting myself in Russian, which I had already begun to study in Vienna with a view to the prospect of residing in Zugdidi as the Dedopali had planned for me. That castle, by the way, was not even then finished; nor was it finished during the lifetime of its mistress.

During our sojourn in Tiflis I underwent an illness, the only one in my whole life. The period of this illness is among my sweetest, dearest recollections. I could not eat: my stomach refused everything that I took. I could not walk: if I tried to take a few steps, I fell down. Certainly that does not sound as if one were bringing up sweet, dear recollections; and yet God knows it was a happy time. I was in a state of half-stupefied faintness, lying down gave me a comfortable sense of rest, and My Own's care and assiduity and tenderness cradled me into a deep quiet consciousness of bliss. This lasted about six weeks; then I was well again, and we two were a good bit more in love with each other than ever.

Theodore Dreiser, Russian Diary (1927-1928)

Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser (1871 – 1945) was one of the great American writers of the 20th century. Novelist and journalist of the naturalist school, he best remembered for his novels Sister Carrie (1900) and An American Tragedy (1925). In 1927, Dreiser was invited to Moscow for a week-long observance of the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution. He then asked, and was granted, permission to make an extended tour of the country and spent over a year traveling across the Soviet Union. Throughout his tour Dreiser maintained an interesting diary (first published by University opf Pennsylvania Press in 1996) that has an interesting section on Georgia which he had visited in December 1927-January 1928. 

29-30 December

On the road to Tiflis the railroad followed the Caspian Sea to the south a few miles. On the other side of the tracks was a brown waste, with low brown hills near at hand. All along were herds of sheep and herdsmen's villages of dugouts. 'I'm afraid there's no Lenin corner here', said RK [Ruth Kennell, Dreiser's secretary]. Now we were coming to wider and more desolate stretches, camels were grazing, or caravans were moving across the plains, with faded striped coverings, and packs on their backs. Now we had left the sea behind and the railroad veered slightly to the north in the direction of Tiflis, through level grazing country, and villages somewhat less primitive—new clay houses with thatched roofs, a red tiled roofed building in the center which might be the local Soviet! Against a background of clay houses a woman's figure stood motionless, watching the train—a gray veil enveloped her form and face so that she might have been a symbolic figure on a stage. Further on, a woman in bright red garments is walking carrying a tall earthen jug. The houses were built on high poles. Near the track a caravan of oxen drawing wagons moved along. One caught a flying glimpse of a tractor in the field. The aspect of the country gradually became more prosperous and civilized. There was much new building in the towns, a new bridge across the river and a new railroad track under construction.

We arrived in Tiflis, the capital of Georgia, at 11 p.m. This station struck one also as a bit wild. Our porter had no number and raced like mad out into the street. The air was certainly not balmy, but there was no snow, at any rate. Conveyances were at a premium at this hour. Our porter found a wretched old automobile, the fat driver started the engine and we had to bargain with him above the deafening clatter. He asked five roubles to the Hotel Orient. We had to accept and rattled along the streets to the hotel. When it came to paying him he asked 7, saying that he charged two roubles for the baggage. We refused to pay it. He bellowed, although the engine was not going. We referred the case to the hotel man, and finally he accepted the fee five roubles. The hotel was quite attractive looking, with a charming Turkish hall, but our rooms were not very good. However, this proved to be at least a 2-­sheet hotel.

31 December

The window of my room looked out on the main street. In the morning, I was astonished at the beautiful view. Directly across the stood a great stone church, in cream and brown, the brown stone running like stripes around the walls. It had a large central dome and four smaller domes, the whole a perfect and compact symmetrical structure looming up against a background of mountains gardens and streets lined with tall cypress trees. On top of the mountain stood a white building and there was a railway running straight up to it. Automobiles were spinning by, the street swarmed with well dressed people; Tiflis seemed to be a modern and prosperous city. Wet snow was falling, and when we went out we found the streets slushy, the air damp and chill. 

We went to the post office, and found only a package of Soviet charts from Serge. When we returned to the hotel, Davi was waiting with a program from the local Soviet. The museums were near at hand—a collection of old Georgian paintings, copies of mural decorations in churches, etc. and some new pictures, then a natural history museum with beautiful settings of wild animal life in Georgia and the surrounding Caucasus: wolves, wild cats, birds, flamingoes, a great tiger killed near Tiflis, wild boars, mountain goats; a collection of lovely butterflies and bugs. We walked through the mire down the main shopping streets. It was the day before a holiday and the stores were crowded. We bought a couple of pieces of Caucasian silk just before the shops closed at three o'clock.

When we returned to the hotel, I felt very miserable; evidently the damp and fog had a bad effect on my chest. We had tickets to the opera, and I got up and went. The opera house was a fine looking building inside and out. The corridors and halls were far more beautiful than the interior of the theater itself. The walls were decorated in quaint designs like the old palace in the Moscow Kremlin. The piece was a new comic opera, 'Life and Joy', written by a Georgian, and was in the Georgian language. The music was good, the costumes quite colorful, but the plot was old: a gay young fellow is given a sleeping potion and when he awakes finds himself in royal clothes and being crowned czar. He falls in love with a charming lady but finds that a frightful looking czarina goes with the throne and runs away. It was a short performance over at 10:30. 

It was interesting to watch the people, for the Georgians have very strong characteristics: an energetic, virile, capable people, the men tall, handsome and dashing (Tiflis seemed to me a city of Stalins) and the women well dressed in silk gowns and with quite an air about them, although the dark heavy features which make for masculine beauty are too hard in a woman.

Tiflis was meeting the New Year in cafes and in our hotel restaurant. When we went up to my room, the Armenian Communist whom we had met on the train to Baku came; he had been telephoning the hotel and asking for us for the last two days. Davi had blown herself on a bottle of wine; I went to bed and she and RK took the  young fellow to the other room, where they must have had a gay time as RK's head was still turning from at least two glasses of wine the next morning. 

1 January 1928

When I rose New Year's morning, the city was beautiful in the bright sunshine, and the snow covered mountains were shining in the sun light. At quite an early hour for  a native, our Armenian friend appeared to take us out. We went to the cafe Germania, a little German confectionery, again for breakfast. 

We had already given our  orders when a policeman came and told the proprietor he must close his shop because it was a holiday. However we were permitted to finish our breakfast, although  the whole police force seemed to be patrolling the shop to be sure no other customers got in, and the harrassed looking German proprietor went out several times to reassure them. 

We went into the grounds of the headquarters of the Sovnarkom (Soviet of People's Commissars of Tiflis). The garden was charming, formal beds of plants, cypress  trees, old vines climbing over the buildings, red earth on the paths. Here many soldiers from the barracks nearby were strolling. There was a pond with one lone swan in it. 

Cathedral of St. Alexander of Neva

Adjoining stood the church [Cathedral of St. Alexander of Neva] which I like so much. Our guide said it was now a Pioneer Club. In the courtyard are sport grounds, and when I remarked on the incongruity of such a use of this noble edifice, our Armenian said there had been a project to tear the church down and erect a new building on the site. I said I thought a better use would be to turn the church into a mausoleum for the country's distinguished dead. 

We had now come to the government garage and were given a car to drive about the city. We drove first to the old section of the city; above on the hills stood an ancient fortress, only a wall and tower remaining. Here was the old Tartar section, many old buildings, narrower streets, markets. We crossed one of the eight bridges which span the River Kara. The churches were numerous but added nothing to the beauty of the city, for the Georgian style of church is ugly—a rectangular dome or three domes painted silver or made of inlaid silver, severe and  plain in outline and of a dirty gray stone. 

We began to climb the mountain road and at each higher curve the view became more wonderful. Tiflis lies in a valley and on all sides rise mountains. We climbed to a considerable height and looked down on the city. I could make out my church, there was a very large hospital, a macaroni factory of red brick, red roofed houses, gardens. Above, at a height of 1,500 m. was a colony of cottages for children who are delicate or tubercular. It is called the 'children's city'. 

Descending we stopped at a pretty central park and went into the picture gallery. Here was a fine small collection of Georgian paintings. Two large paintings of streets in Samarkand, in Asia,  pleased me. Here were the street bazaars being held in the shadow of beautiful ruined mosques whose domes and towers reminded me of the blue mosaic work of the  mosque in Leningrad. The artist was Gigo. 

We had no dinner as all restaurants were closed. Our train was to leave at 10:40 p.m. for Batum. Our Armenian friend saw us off. There was only one 'mya[g]ki  vagon' (soft car) on this train and it seemed from the crowds that about a thousand people were trying to get places. We had some arguments about our places, as  someone else claimed one of them. However, the G.P.U. man who is always on the job at stations intervened and we settled down in a four place coupe with a young Red commander who tried to be very helpful to us. This was the worst car I have traveled in yet, with the exception of the Maxim Gorki. 

2 January 1928

In the morning, a real winter scene met our eyes—a landscape simply buried in snow, and a little stream running swiftly through the snowy banks; thick snowflakes were falling. RK in the berth above had taken out our guide book and was reading the description of Batum. As we rode along the snow gradually disappeared, and a heavy fog or drizzle took its place. In another two hours no snow at all, but rain, marshes, strange foliage, crops hung on trees to preserve them from the damp, thus giving a very queer shape to trees, houses built on piles, fresh green grass. 

The custom of the country seemed to be turbans on the heads of the men. The villages were primitive looking, and the better houses were on brick piers evidently to  raise them from the marshes. In the background were low mountains. 

I asked the Red commander some questions about the army. There are 450 men in his regiment.  In battle, the commanders are at the very front; in private life they sleep and eat with the men. The eight hour day applies to soldiers also; in fact, they often work less  than eight hours. Much of the time is given over to education. Before, under the czar, the soldier was very much restricted and abused. There were signs on the boulevards and street cars, 'Soldiers and dogs not allowed'. The soldier gets a month's vacation every year and everything is free to him. With his higher officers he claimed he was socially on equal terms, but on duty of course subordinate. The officers cannot discipline the men harshly, never scold or yell at them, discipline is  attained more through instruction and training than through punishments which are now abolished. Before punishments were terribly severe. Illiteracy is being abolished  through the army. He claimed that the living conditions of the soldiers are very good and they do not complain. If a relative comes to visit a soldier, he is given a room,  and at all times relatives can come to entertainments in the camps of the army. 

Our train was already three hours late, now we heard that there had been a wreck ahead, and we had to stand still one hour at a desolate station, waiting for a train to  come back from Batum and take us on. Our train then moved on slowly for a few miles and stopped in a wild place. We got out, and as no one was allowed to pass  along the tracks where the wreck lay, we had to make a circle about, along muddy roads with heavy baggage to the train... 

What wretched looking natives! Clad in ragged clothing, with cloths tied about their heads, turban fashion, they followed us begging for a job of carrying our baggage.  We hired two of them and a girl besides. A couple of carts drawn by oxen (a very pretty girl with black curls under yellow kerchief driving) also carried some of  the baggage. After wading for about a mile through the mud, we came to our train and got on. The wreck lay all over the tracks, overturned oil cars, a freak  accident—the brakeman had slipped in the mud, his lantern had struck against an oil car and broken and the oil had caught fire. He was completely burned up. The chief conductor further back, seeing what had happened, uncoupled the other cars and saved 26 of them. The guard who related the story to us claimed that the conductor, who had black hair, had turned white with fright. The train was now traveling close to the Black Sea, black sand, tangled undergrowth along shore and mountain woods on other side of tracks. We passed the large botanical gardens outside Batum. 

We arrived in Batum about five o'clock in gray, chilly weather. It seemed a provincial town. We took an izvozchik to the pier, and learned in the waiting room of the Sovtorgflot (Soviet Trading Fleet) that we could buy tickets only at nine o'clock, steamer leaving at midnight. So Davi went into town to get some money from the bank, while we sat and waited in the buffet. There was a wretched collection of humanity sitting about the metal stove. When Davi returned we went into town, first to the telegraph office, but no telegram from Serge. Then to the restaurant nearby. A cheerless dinner which cost 4.80. RK inquired about the possibility of getting her typewriter repaired. The waiter led us about trying to find the residence of the mechanic who runs a typewriter repair shop in town. He kept saying, just a little bit further and kept leading us on and on down lonely streets, around corners, asking occasionally for information. At last we tracked him down, the mechanic agreed to repair the machine and bring it to us at the steamer. Hours more waiting in the buffet, I felt very sick, my chest was paining. Crowds stood about in the room. At 11 we went on the steamer.

3 January 1928 

At about 3 in the morning of the 3rd, our steamer of the Soviet Trading Company, 'Pestel', named after a Decembrist admiral on the Black Sea, left Batum. I was so glad to be on the last lap, but my stateroom was a shabby affair with five beds. If this were summer I would have to room with four other men! 

The women's and men's cabins are entirely separate, the former being above and altogether more comfortable. This is a one­ sheet boat, no bath, and only a blanket if requested. No water except the usual small bowl with two gallon tank attached. I resigned myself to a week of face washing. The sea was very rough. The boat rolled and pitched and the waves dashed over my porthole.

At seven in the morning we reached a small port called Poti. This was a small dreary shipping station inside an artificial harbor. Snow, rain, a cold raw wind. I think only of Constantinople and the south. 

Eggs with wretched coffee and watered condensed milk in the dining room, which was a comfortable type of ship dining room. The Baku officer whom we met on the train talked with me. He was on his way to Sochi. I made the best of the morning playing solitaire and looking out at the loading. It was a slow process. 

We did not get off before 1 p.m. By then the clouds were breaking to the north, revealing as we went west the line of mountains that edges the north shore of the Black Sea! The clouds of gulls as we go out—they flew high looking like silver specks in the golden light to the north. The sea was rough but obviously calming. I was interested by the group of sailors who are on their way to Sebastopol to attend naval school—their gayety in their heavy clothes. One of them, a tall, ungainly fellow with a typical fair Slavonic face, followed me about with his eyes, and asked RK for my books. A bookstand on the boat displayed 'Sister Carrie' and a volume of short stories called 'An Unusual History'!

In the evening we arrived at Sukhumi, but remained some distance from the shore. It looked a very attractive place in the darkness with lights shining on the water. It was cloudy with a cool breeze but the air was mild.

4 January 1928

The sea was calmer this morning and I walked on deck and watched the dolphins and sturgeons leaping out of the water as we steamed west. The sun broke through and lit the sea to the north. To the south and east it is somber and bleak. Wild ducks by the hundreds, also mud hens, and northern loons—I never saw more. It has grown warmer and still. At 12 noon we came to Gagra, considered the most beautiful of the Caucasian resorts. It has the mountains behind it and consists of many large fine buildings, most of which no doubt are sanitariums, hotels and bath houses. We did not dock and the unloading took place in small boats. I noted the second and third class passengers, as Asiatic and dreadful as ever. The huddled masses of them gave me a sense of nausea. 

Russia is permanently spoiled for me by the cold and dirt. Bukharin talked of building a paradise. But when? In fifty or a hundred years. I will seek mine while I am still alive. Further down the coast  lies the town of Adler, where the railway line which follows the sea shore to Tuapse begins. 

Today it is quite calm and sunny. We were still cruising at the base of these  great mountains, which as we neared Sochi became higher, in the background rising two or three very high snow­ covered peaks. All along the shore were scattered  houses, some of them very large and beautiful, evidently sanitariums; near Sochi are the famous sulphur baths 'Matsesta'. 

As our boat came into Sochi, it was already four o'clock and the sun was setting. Behind the front ranges of lower mountains rose the snowy summits of the higher peaks, turned rosy by the reflected glow from  the sunset, their profiles purely cut like pink cameos. One did not know on which side to look for loveliness: on the shore side the beautiful city with its fine buildings  and bath houses against the mountains and on the other the sun setting in streaks of red gold on the sea. But in a few minutes the radiance had all passed, the mountain  peaks turned a cold pure white, and at once the moon, already for some time palely visible above the mountains, began to shine on the water.