Maynard Owen Williams, Russia's Orphan Races (1918)

Maynard Owen Williams (1888-1963) was a National Geographic correspondent and photographer. Self-described "camera-coolie and a roughneck", Williams was the National Geographic's first foreign correspondent, who had traveled widely and provided the journal with a steady stream of fascinating stories and vivid photographs. In the fall of 1917, as the Russian Empire came crumbling down, Williams traveled across its southern regions, crossed the Caucasus and visited Georgia on his way to Central Asia. His later wrote a lengthy report on his experiences, which was published in October 1918 issue of the National geographic (Vol. XXXIV, No.4).

RUSSIA'S ORPHAN RACES

Picturesque peoples Who Cluster on the Southeastern borderland of the Vast Slav Dominions

A few miles south of the snow ridge of the Caucasus, there is a wretched little village whose fame should be world-wide. Mtzkhet has claims to antiquity that make New England towns appear as embryos, for its citizens assert that it was founded by one of Noah's sons, who strolled over from Mount Ararat one day after the waters had subsided and chose this site because of its excellent drainage.

Beneath its terraced homes two rivers unite: the clear, cold Aragwa, hastening from its birthplace in the eternal snows of the Caucasus to the hot depression of the Caspian, and the Kura, sullied and dirty, swinging in from the west to make its way down the Tiflis depression and across the barren Transcaucasian steppe, between the mountains of Daghestan and the highlands of Armenia.

Damascus has a verdant freshness about it that is as deceptive as grease paint, but Mtzkhet stands out from green fields and pastures new like a weathered, sharp-bowed fishing smack in an emerald sea. On a rock cliff opposite this quiet city with the cat-fight name the kings of Georgia erected their first castle, but it was in Mtzkhet itself that Georgia was born. 

The Georgians admit their descent from the Accadians and Sumerians, but there is nothing in their appearance or personality to indicate their descent from anything. They seem to have ascended from the plane of other men. Militant of appearance, handsome of countenance, chivalrous, and unfamiliar with hard toil, these lovers of wine, women, and song are as princely in bearing as the unwashed Bedouin before his desert tent. Part of them are mountaineers - the most picturesque brigands that ever carried an arsenal at their belts. The rest are agricultural people, whose contact with the soil does not prevent them from holding their chests up like soldiers in uniform.

The Georgian women conquered the Turkish rulers by the palace route, but the Georgian men are handsomer than their wives, and in Georgia the male wears the fine plumage. But he treats his wife and daughters well and never allows them to act as servants.

There is so much strength in the Georgian face that the women lose their greatest charm by the time they mature. The classic nose is too noble to be pretty, the straight, large mouth shows determination rather than a Cupid's bow, and the fine eyes soon dominate a face that is manly in its beauty. In the Tiflis Red Cross cafes one may see scores of Georgian women with short, curled hair who could pose as Belvedere Apollos, but never a Venus.

St. Nina established a Christian church in Mtzkhet about 347 A. D., which was for many years a center for Christian culture. The Georgians assert that they were Christians before the Armenians, and vice versa; yet the princely but spendthrift Georgians and the oppressed but wealthy Armenians have been so much mixed throughout their history that there are today persons who call themselves Georgians and who speak Georgian, but who attend the Armenian church, while Armenians speaking Armenian are often found in Georgian churches.

The Georgians are good hosts and the Armenians are shrewd business men. That is why the Golovinski Prospekt in Tiflis, one of the proudest avenues in the world, is owned by Armenians and brightened by the presence of the Georgians, the handsomest young people one can find in Asia.

On October 14, 1917, I attended the investiture of the Georgian Katholikos[-Patriarch Kirion II] at Mtzkhet, the first in one hundred years. This was the first step this militant people, who had chafed under the burden of Tsardom, made toward independence. The affair at Mtzkhet marked their religious autonomy and freedom from the Russian Church. On May 26, 1918, after the Turks took the Batum and Kars districts, thus leaving only historic Georgia to the Transcaucasian Republic, the Georgian Diet declared their independence, thus virtually ending the Transcaucasian Republic, in which Tatars had had four representatives to Georgia's three.

Whether Georgia can hold out against the Turks and Germans remains to be seen, but of one thing we may be sure, Georgia will never tamely submit to oppression. She flirted with Germany's Pan-Turanian schemes and as late as June 19, 1918, was forced to send delegates to Constantinople to confer with the Central Powers; but Georgia has never relished the idea of subservience and she may hold out till relief can reach her.

Every train entering Mtzkhet on October 14, 1917, was packed to the doors. Crowds of young men from Tiflis rode on the roofs in order to see the colorful drama of the rebirth of a proud nation. It was not until the procession between the tiny station and the stately church was formed that order appeared in the kaleidoscopic scene. At the head of the line was a handsome Georgian, bearing aloft a blue silk banner inscribed in silver with Georgian characters and surmounted by a silver disc which bore the picture of some great saint. He was dressed in soft black boots, a dark-brown tcherkeska,.with its narrow waist and flowing skirts and cartridge cases across the breast, and wore the small Georgian skull cap; but as necessary as his dress were the sword and dagger and, strange anachronism, an automatic pistol in a brand-new russet case at his hip. Death-dealing weapons are still articles of ordinary dress in Georgia.

The color-bearer was flanked by two swordsmen in wine-colored plush doublets edged in soft fur, scarlet trousers, soft white-leather boots with gold tassels, and anklets of soft white leather with narrow stripes of red leather trimming.

Behind them came thirty or more male singers, gaily dressed and followed by a band of young women wearing Marguerite braids which reached below the knees. Over their close-fitting bodices of figured silk in soft tints of gray and blue they wore flowing velvet cloaks of delicate blue edged in fur. Their skirts, of queenly length, were paneled in the same soft tinted material as composed their bodices and their soft boots were hidden except for the shapely toes.

Then came a huge motor-car, crawling along with all the dignity due its chief occupant, the Katholikos-to-be. Forming a daisy chain about this ecclesiastical chariot were forty or more young Georgian girls, their smooth cheeks flushed beyond their usual fine color by the excitement. Most were dressed in simple white, against which their raven hair and rosy cheeks showed lively contrast, but a few wore tailored suits and small hats in the latest European style.

Behind these lovely ladies came gaunt Khevsurs, wearing chain coats of mail and chain helmets. Their straight swords were double-edged and each carried a small shield decorated with applique figures. Their small, wiry horses sniffed restively at the fumes of the motor-cars, resenting more than did their ruddy-haired masters this anachronism of eight centuries gap.

The Khevsurs wear the cross on their clothing and are the champion religionists of the world, for they observe the Christian Sabbath, the Jewish Saturday, and the Mohammedan Friday, and their religion is a strange mixture of all three beliefs with paganism. An early French traveler started the story that they were descendants of some Frankish Crusaders who fell in love with Georgian womanhood and forgot the Holy Grail in the midst of Georgian loveliness; but a matter-of-fact and very erudite Georgian scholar in Tiflis spoiled that story.

Inside the church, erected on the spot where the unseamed vesture of the Christ was found, after "having been brought hither from Golgotha by a Jew, there lie buried many of the proud but ill-fated line of Georgian kings, the last of whom, George XIII, ceded his territory to Russia in 1801 and died that year, broken-hearted, a true ruler, who could not conquer and therefore faced the only alternative—death.

Sixteen centuries have passed since the first Christian church was erected on that site: yet in the necropolis beyond there are remains of broad-headed men of the Iron Age, compared with whom Heraclius, Queen Tamara, the Guramides, and the Pharnavasians are unromantic moderns. They could tell of times before Prometheus was bound to the heights of Kasbek and Jason came hither in search of the Golden Fleece. Mtzkhet is ancient, but it is only a way station on the great highway of history across the mountain barrier which bridges the land-masses of Europe and Asia.

Joseph Philippe Ferrier, Caravan Journeys and Wanderings in Persia, Afghanistan... (1856)

This is a follow up to my earlier post on the small village of Abbasabad (coordinates - 36.360796, 56.387723) that was populated by the descendants of the Georgians resettled by Shah Abbas of Iran in the 1610s. The earlier post was based on the travelogue of James Baillie Fraser (1783 – 1856), a Scottish travel writer and artist who had travelled in Iran in 1821. 

The new excerpt is from the travelogue of Joseph Philippe Ferrier, a French soldier in the Persian service. An ambitious and talented man, Ferrier had spent many years (1839-42, 1846-50) in Iran and was a keen observer of local society and culture. He had maintained a journal on his experiences in Iran and, in 1856, Captain William Jesse obtained original unpublished manuscript and translated it into English. It was published under the title of "Caravan Journeys and Wanderings in Persia, Afghanistan, Turkistan, and Beloochistan" (London: John Murray, 1856).

Abbasabad, May 17th— five parasangs* —six hours and a half - the first parasang through a plain, the remainder by a sandy road winding through some low hills. As the locality was said to be dangerous, we were off early, lighted by the moon till sunrise. When a Persian sets out upon a journey he says, “God is merciful ;” and if he is taken prisoner by a Turcoman he exclaims, “It was my fate.” But this time the pilgrims got off with the fright, and we arrived in safety at Abbasabad.

This village stands on an eminence, and consists of forty-five houses surrounded by a mud wall. We found the inhabitants in a state of consternation, for the Turcomans had attacked them on the previous evening, and carried off two men and six women. Shah Abbas the Great, anxious to make the road to Meshed safe, and have the country near it cultivated, built at every five parasangs a caravanserai-shah, or a village, in which he settled one hundred and forty-three families accustomed to the military service: there are now only thirty-two. Abbasabad was one of these villages.

The inhabitants were originally Georgians and Christians, but, with few exceptions, became subsequently Mahomedans [Muslims], and only eight or ten preserve their ancient faith: as they have constantly intermarried, they still retain the Georgian type. They pay no taxes, and the Shah continues to allow them annually a hundred tomauns, which Shah Abbas granted to them in perpetuity. Travellers are obliged to pay for everything they may provide, even though furnished with a firman. But they are, nevertheless, in a miserable plight, and refrain from improving their condition, because they are afraid of being taxed to such an extent as to neutralise any benefits that might arise from their exertions; and though they could bring their land into cultivation by turning a good stream, they prefer living from hand to mouth, and buying their provisions at Shah-rood or Subzavar, and selling them at a large profit to the passing caravans. 

Another village of Georgians was founded by Shah Abbas, an hour’s distance north-east, but the inhabitants have been all carried into slavery by the Turcomans.



* Parasang was a historical Iranian unit of itinerant distance. Its length varied according to terrain and speed of travel but in the 19th century, one parasang was equal to about 3 British miles.

Sir Justin Sheil, Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia (1856)

Sir Justin Sheil (1803–1871) was a British general and diplomat, who had spent much of his career in the service of the British East India Company. Born in Britain in 1803, he was educated at Stonyhurst and joined the 3rd Bengal Infantry in 1820. He spent the next thirteen years in India before being sent to represent the Company interests in Persia. In 1836 he was appointed secretary to the British legation in Persia, and in 1844 he succeeded Sir John McNeill as envoy and minister at the shah's court. He held this until his retirement in 1854. While in Persia (as well as traveling through Russia and the Ottoman Empire), Sheil kept a detailed journal that his wife later edited and published under the title of "Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia" (London: John Murray, 1856).

Tiflis is another Vladikafkaz (key) on the southern side of the Caucasus. We were glad to arrive at this capital of the Transcaucasian provinces, which is close to the foot of the mountains, and situated on both sides of the river Kur. Some sixty years ago it was sacked by the Shah of Persia, Agha Mahommed Khan, the founder of the dynasty of Kajar, who carried a large portion of the inhabitants, Georgians and Armenians, into slavery. I saw at Tehran a few of these unhappy captives, who all had been forced to embrace Mahommedanism [Islam], and many of whom had risen to the highest stations; just as the Circassian slaves in Constantinople became pashas, seraskiers, capitan-pashas, &c. 

Tiflis has entirely recovered from this shock. It is now a most thriving, active, and bustling city, and will doubtless, when the day arrives for the development of free trade in the dominions of the Czar, become a rich emporium of commerce, situated as it is midway between the Black Sea and Caspian, and on the high road between Russia, Persia, and Asia Minor. The official part of the town is full of imposing buildings, and the native portion is equally well stored with busy shops,crowded by the motley population. Prince Woronzow's fostering care has not allowed this important part of the territory under his jurisdiction to remain without its share of his patronage. In spite of the pre-occupation of a war, not always successful, with the mountaineers, he is said to have planned many valuable institutions, to which are to be added a large and handsomely built theatre for the performance of operas, not completed at the time of our visit, besides a small theatre, for Russian comedies and farces. All these improvements evince his anxiety to promote civilization among the Georgians and Armenians. The Military Governor of Tiflis was an Armenian of Georgia, General Baibetoff [Vasili Bebutov]; a man of experience, who had distinguished himself in the campaigns of Turkey and Persia in former years. It sounded strange to find an Armenian occupying this high post, but Russia is more cosmopolite than England. A stranger of the gate is readily admitted within the temple; but it will require a change in English ideas before we find a Canadian or Maltese Governor of India, or the Cape of Good Hope. Is this facility the result of enlightenment, or does it proceed from the dearth of native talent?

If I were to form my opinion from the Georgian ladies visible in the street, which, except one evening that we went to the theatre, was the only place I had an opportunity of beholding them, I should be forced to declare that their beauty has obtained a greater reputation than it deserves. They certainly are fair, with high complexions, natural or artificial, and regular features, all of which perhaps entitle the owners to the meed of beauty; still the entire absence of animation or expression deprives the countenance of attraction. They look well, however, in their pretty dresses while young. The Armenians, when out of doors, wrap themselves up in white veils, or rather cloaks, which have a graceful effect.

At Tiflis we were lodged, as usual, at the house of an Armenian merchant. He was a man of much reputed wealth. His house was furnished with great richness, and at a cost that may be imagined when it is considered that the whole of the furniture was brought from St. Petersburg. It was much too expensive to be profaned by use, being exclusively reserved either for compulsory guests, like ourselves, or marriage and other feasts. The part of the habitation occupied by our host and his family was very humble, and far from clean.

Next to its conquerors [Russians], the Georgians are the master caste of this country. It is said that between the Georgians and the Armenians, who are found here in great numbers, there is a wonderful contrast in character and manners. The Georgian is bold, turbulent, reckless, extravagant; the Armenian is mean, cringing, timid, always intent on gain, and, unlike a Georgian, in keeping what he gains. The same characteristics mark him in Persia and Turkey, and I am told everywhere else; for, like the gipsy, he is a wanderer on the face of the earth, and is to be found in every part of Asia. He is consequently an abundant and pleasant harvest to all needy pashas, khans, hakims, and minor functionaries of misrule, easily reaped, gathered, and gleaned.

It is as unsurpassable topers [drinkers], as well as for their military qualities, which have always been acknowledged, that the Georgians have acquired notoriety. At their frequent drinking parties it is said they will pass several days and nights, almost without intermission, in quaffing the productions of the vineyards of Kakheti, a district in the mountains east of Tiflis. This wine is by no means of bad quality; it is of a deep red colour, so deep that one fancies it has been tinged with some dye to produce so intense a hue. They are said to consume incredible quantities of wine on these occasions, and in a fashion that would put to shame the drinking triumphs of Ireland, recorded by Sir Jonah Barrington, in days of old, when intoxication was the standard of spirit. The drinking-vessel is a cow's horn, of considerable length, and the point of honour is to drain it at a draught. The brethren and convivial rivals of the Georgians in the neighbouring provinces of Imeretia and Mingrelia, instead of a horn, use a delicately-hollowed globe of walnut tree, with a long narrow tube at the orifice. It holds fully a pint, and like its companion, the horn, the contents are consumed at a single gulp. How these globes are hollowed is as great a marvel as the construction of the ingenious Chinese puzzle of ball within ball.

[...]

Traveling in Georgia is neither luxurious nor commodious, still it immensely surpasses all our experience of Southern Russia, particularly in the Mahommedan [Muslim] portion of the province. If horses were scarce at the post-houses, chickens and lambs, yoghourt and kymak, those savoury preparations from milk so cherished all over Asia, were abundant. The invasive hordes of the post-houses, too, we heard, were less numerous, ferocious, and bloodthirsty, but we pressed on without stop or stay through a pretty country with groves of oak-trees scattered about, which afforded food for enormous droves of swine, in whose flesh the Georgians take special delight. When we arrived at the high mountains near the lake Gookcha, we left our carriage and walked up the pass. On reaching the summit of this high range, which forms the limit of Georgia proper, we had a noble prospect. On the left, at our feet, lay the beautiful lake of Sevan, the first sheet of water we had seen on this journey; before us were spread Armenia and the plains of Erivan, expanding far to the south; while on the right, dark, towering, and frowning, lay the Karadagh, the Black Mountains, beyond Kars, stretching towards the Black Sea. At this interesting spot the postmaster had hospitably resolved not to confine our gratification to the pleasure of sight, and had prepared for us a most notable breakfast; at which we reveled on strawberry jam, made fresh from the fruit on the mountains, and the far-famed salmon trout, just out of the lake. Long after dark, at the conclusion of a toilsome journey over a detestable road, we reached Erivan....

[After visiting Armenia and spending time in Persia, Sheil and his wife travelled through eastern Ottoman Empire on his way to Istanbul. Along the way he encountered the Laz people]

The Turk of Trebizond is a very different person from the genuine Osmanli. The distinction is so visible and so great, as to create a strong belief of his being a Greek in disguise—the descendant, in short, of the old Greek population. Though affecting to be real Osmanlis, that is, the offspring of the Turkish invaders, collected together by the house of Osman, they are by the latter called Laz, that being the name of the population between Trebizond, Batoon, and Gooriel. I am informed that the Laz are probably allied in race with the Mingrelians and Imeretians, to whom they are said to bear a resemblance in dialect. 

Among the real Turks their reputation is low, to be called a Laz being held as a term of reproach equivalent to an imputation of a want of faith, honour, or religion. A Laz, as a Turkish proverb says, will at any time " kill a man for an onion." There cannot be a greater contrast than that between the "Trebizanli" Laz, or Greek, and the lazy fanatic Turk of Erzeroom, laden with conceit and ignorance. The native of Trebizond is said to be full of activity and energy; he is cheerful and lively; unlike everything Turkish, he puts his gun on his shoulder and trudges over the mountains in quest of game. Still more curious and un-Turkish, you meet him on Friday with a party of his comrades, sauntering amid the beautiful environs of his native city, accompanied by a fiddler and singer, with whom he does not disdain to join in chorus. It is suspected that on these occasions the merrymakers are supported by something which gives inspiration to the fiddle and song.

Sarah Cornell, Cornell's Grammar-school Geography (1878)

What an average American pupil would have read about Georgia in his/her geography textbook:

Barbara MacGahan, "Sons and Daughters of Feudal Sires" (1896)

Barbara MacGahan (1852-1904) was a Russo-American novelist. Born into a well-to-do Russian family (daughter of Nicolas Elagin) near Tula, she finished Tula Female Seminary in 1866 and, in the words of her 19th century biographer, "led a worldly and luxurious life." In 1871, while visiting the Crimea, she met Januarius MacGahan, an American reporter for the New York Herald. The two fell in love and married two years later. Barbara followed her husband on his numerous assignments, including during the Carlist Wars (1874-1876) in Spain and Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 where she helped her husband in writing, translating and telegraphing dispatches. Eventually Barbara began publishing her own work as well and her articles appeared in Russia and American press throughout the last two decades of the 19th century. In 1880, the Russian liberal newspaper "Golos" sent her as a special correspondent to the Unites States. After "Golos" was suppressed by the conservative government of Emperor Alexander III, Barbara continued her journalistic career and contributed articles to numerous Western periodicals, including the New York Times and the New York Tribune, and wrote fiction under the pseudonym “Pavel Kashirin."  She eventually settled in the United States where she died in 1904. 

In 1896, MacGahan published a lengthy essay on Georgia in The American Magazine, one of the most popular American periodicals. Part III of the essay was devoted to a Georgian feast.

I had been told that old Princess M. adheres very strictly to the old-time ways of the Georgian nobility, and that all her women guests are expected to appear at her parties in the national Georgian costume, with the regulation head gear studded with pearls and precious stones, a white vail pinned to it and floating behind. Still my old-time school friend, a woman physician, who had offered to introduce me, without any previous presentation, into the house of Prince M. on a certain festive occasion, when the lezginka was sure to be danced in their spacious hall, did not approve of my suggestion to assume the national dress of the Georgian women, so as to be more in keeping with the surroundings.

“No matter how you adorn yourself,” was the edict of that honest friend of mine, “you will never look like a Georgian ; you have not got the Georgian eyes”—as, alas! I had not—“and your western manners will proclaim you a fraud in any native costume. Go simply as you are, in your traveling garb, and you will be made welcome at the princess's house. They are not very ceremonious there, and are used to defer to my judgment in a good many ways; this is one of the perquisites of my trade, you know. The power of my drugs is sufficiently well known to insure deference to me in such as have to trust their lives into my hands on occasions,” concluded the cynic with a hearty laugh.

And thus it was that I appeared in the spacious hall of the summer residence occupied by Prince M at the watering place where his mother was undergoing a cure; the prince, like most of his countrymen, being extremely deferential toward his parents. It was a lofty room, at least fifty feet square, with an upper gallery stretching along one of the walls some fifteen feet above the floor and not much below the ceiling, that was inlaid with pearl and studded with small bits of mirror and gilded stars. 

The feast was at its height, and no one was apt to pay any attention to my travel-beaten outfit that had served me in good stead on many a rough horseback excursion in the precipitous mountains, and had quite recently been through a typhoon, followed up by a rainstorm. My companion had declared that assist at the entire dinner she would not: “Life is too short to throw away three or four hours, sitting at a table piled up with plain food, devoid of any of the refinements of gastronomy,” as she remarked to me. Thus, pleading a previous engagement, we reached the festive board toward evening, not more than half an hour before the final toast, “To the Holy Virgin,” was proclaimed and drunk. 

The occasion of the gathering being some family celebration, the entire clan of the Princes M. seemed to be in attendance, although I was assured that were the tomasha [feast] held on the country estate of Prince M., the assemblage of relatives would have proved much more numerous. As it was, over forty guests appeared here, seated at the long main table, and as many more at the supplementary tables; while at each wine was flowing freely, empty bottles being now and then tossed by the feasters backward, over their shoulders, toward the servants, who caught the bottles on the fly, refilled them forthwith with wine and brought them back to the table. 

People of all ages and conditions were seated side by side at the festive board. The family of the Princes M. being a very numerous one, there were soldiers, landed proprietors, priests, and professional men among the number—of course, the military element predominating, while most all of the men present wore the long national coat, called tcherkesska [chokha], adorned with rows of powder and cartridge cases across the chest, and a formidable array of pistols and daggers stuck behind the belt. 

Quietly as we came in, we did not escape the watchful eye of the master of ceremonies—a distant cousin of the host-seats were squeezed in for us at the main table, even at this last stage of the dinner, and I found myself side by side with an elderly Prince M., who, as luck would have it, turned out to be an intimate friend of a former teacher of mine. In those parts, acquaintances are quickly formed among people who know something of the outside world; my table neighbor turned out to be partially of Mingrelian stock – naturally quick-witted and ready at repartee— and speaking good Russian and better French, he forth with constituted himself my chaperon and expounder of the ways and customs of his countrymen, as exemplified now before our eyes. It turned out that he had just returned from an important family council held in a settlement about a hundred vers t s to the north, containing several hundred inhabitants, all of which, with the exception of bodyservants, were Princes M., related to each other in some degree. The narrator did not claim, to be sure, that peace and contentment reigned uninterruptedly in the extensive “Noblemen's Nest”; still, on public occasions, such as the election of local marshals of nobility, all the male members of the big family gather in great conclave, mostly in the open air, and hold a long pow-wow, trying to reach some agreement. It is not rare that a decision is reached only at the cost of a good deal of dagger play among hot-headed cousins; still, when an understanding has been arrived at in the conclave, it is most faithfully carried out by all as a unit. Again, whenever any one member of the M. gets into trouble involving the good name of the family at large, all ally themselves together in order to extricate him; likewise a feud of a Prince M. against some other family of Caucasian noblemen is instantly espoused by all, just as would be the case among the mountaineers of the Southern States; feuds are apt to descend by inheritance from generation to generation, the slightest offense or even a fancied slight being avenged at the point of the dagger. 

Now, though regular wars are at an end in the Caucasus, these feuds are flourishing still, conducing to constant blood-letting—so necessary, it seems, to the constitution of those fiery mountaineers. My chance table companion was not the first, though, to enlighten me concerning the Georgian nobility customs and pastimes. I was warned yet by my Russian friend in Tiflis that with Georgians every pretext is seized to have a tomasha, whether taking the form of a family festival or a downright spree for men alone. When a Georgian nobleman goes to visit among other landed proprietors, he sets out au grand complet. All the members of the family, maids, jesters and favorite attendants, migrate for several days or even a whole week to the estate of the hospitable nobleman that is holding the festival.

When assembled, entire days and part of each night are passed in eating, drinking, dancing and making merry in every way. Tired of eating, they tell stories and sing songs in monotonous cadences that have little to recommend them to unaccustomed ears. Again, they watch the pranks and practical jokes played on each other by dwarfs and jesters, that are still kept by every family of local eminence, just as are kept attendants from entirely impoverished nobles, who are still “too proud” to work for a living. 

The fare, as we found it at Prince M ’s festive board, was of the simplest; this being, as I was assured, the rule among the Georgian landed proprietors not affected yet by the requirements of fashionable life prevalent in large cities. The table before us was loaded with great dishes heaped high with boiled, pickled and roasted meats. Ordinary plates were set before us, as in front of the majority of the guests.

Still even at this feast, at a rich nobleman's house, I had the good luck to observe a curious way of eating that I had never seen before, although I have many times heard it described. Even as we were strolling about the bazaars of Kutais and Tiflis, we had noticed what seemed to us large pancakes hanging in rows on strings at the bakeries. On one or two occasions, in making a purchase at the bakery, we received it wrapped up in one of such pancakes, called “lovashee” [lavash] which are baked in different sizes, mostly larger than a dinner plate, quite round, very thin and flexible. It seems that Georgians use the lovashee very much as we do wrapping paper or napkins; but they finish them up by eating them in the guise of bread to go with their salty cheese, “kvele,” or their wine. Here, at the princely table, a few of the guests had lovashee spread out before them and doing service for dinner plates; and I saw that it was with them that those guests wiped their mouths and fingers. However, on this occasion I did not see anyone eat the lovashee after using them. Here the guests used as bread a kind of thick-boiled millet gruel called “gomee.” Tasting of this gruel I found it pretty good, though wholly unsalted; but the rest of the company ate of it with every morsel of other food, just as bread is taken elsewhere. Of ordinary bread we found none in use on the tables of the Georgians; but of special preparations of flour, water and cheese there was quite a variety called “hodja-puri,” [khachapuri] “chadee,” [mchadi?] and others. 

The next staple articles of the Georgian menu, after meats, are cheese and the wine. I am really inclined to think that there exist no other social gatherings the world over at which quite as much wine would be drunk as at a Georgian tomasha. The wine—all of local vintage—is kept in the hugest clay pitchers that could be found anywhere. When laid on their side—as they remain in the ground in which they are sometimes buried—the opposite side of such a pitcher, that they call “kvevre,” is apt to reach to the shoulders of a grown man. Any one of those pitchers would easily answer for a big barrel—such in which wine is kept in wholesale wine cellars. Strange to say, with all this great display of food and the enormous amount of wine drunk at them, such Georgian feasts do not lead to gluttony, neither to drunkenness; they are really producing good cheer and harmless enjoyment— unless, indeed, a quarrel arise at table, on which occasion the fiery Georgian is quick to have recourse to his dagger, nothwithstanding the presence of ladies. In fact, the dagger in Georgia is as often as not used in place of the hot, wordy rejoinder that might have escaped a guest at some social gathering in another part of the world. 

And yet how strict the ceremonial adhered to at a festive gathering of a Georgian clan. There is always some pompous person to be found there—invariably selected from among the impecunious relatives of the family—to serve in the capacity of butler and master of ceremonies. That personage has at his fingers' end the pedigree and every grade of inter-relationship—if such a word may be coined for the occasion—of all the guests present. It is his business to find seats for all, taking good care that each one be in the very place where he belongs, according to the laws of precedence—i.e., according to rank, to age, or to the closeness of the person's relationship with the master of the house, the greatest honors being paid to the elder members of the family. As to the host—it is he who is toastmaker on such a gala occasion as I describe. And what a task this is may be imagined, when, on occasions, there happen to be thirty or forty persons seated at the table, and not only every man, woman and child present has to have his or her health drunk by the company (likewise according to the individual’s rank), but when politeness requires that the health of all the important absent members of the host's and the guests’ families should be proclaimed and drunk. It goes without the saying, that, having such a heavy responsibility on his shoulders, the master of the house is obliged to keep his own head entirely clear, for fear of giving offense to somebody, the least slight on the pride of a guest being speedily taken up by all the relatives of the offended party, and frequently leading to year-long feuds. 

Ever mindful as are the Georgians of the great historical mission carried on by their ancestors in their quality of defenders of the Christian faith, the very last of the toasts at a feast is invariably proclaimed “For the Holy Virgin.” And, what is still more, after hours of feasting—be it noted in honor of the Georgians—it is extremely rare that anyone should prove so feeble as not to be able to drain his cup, even at this last toast, with the greatest gusto.

Henry Norman, All the Russias (1903)

Sir Henry Norman (1858 – 1939) was a prominent British journalist and Member of the Parliament. Born into a well-to-do family, he was received education in France and at Harvard University, before starting a career in journalism. He worked for several major publications, including the New York Times, and earned a name for his reporting on the Dreyfuss Affair in the 1890s. After retiring from journalism, he became a Liberal Member of the British Parliament in 1900 and served for the next twenty-three years. He travelled widely, visiting Canada, the United States, Japan, China, Siam, Malaya and Central Asia. He spent some fifteen years studying Russian history and society and frequently visited Russia, traversing the Russian empire from east to west. In 1903 he published his travelogue "All the Russias: Travels and Studies in Contemporary European Russia" that included his impressions of Georgia.

The German philologist, Professor Brugsch, has calculated that seventy languages are spoken in Tiflis. That simple statement, pondered long enough, might almost suffice to describe the city. It is the modern Babel, the meeting-place of Europe and Asia, the crossroads of the great routes north and south, and east and west, the focus of a score of keenly trading peoples, the conglomerate deposit of two thousand years of busy history. Over this complication Russia rules easily and well. It is an excellent example of how she carries civilisation to Eastern peoples.

Externally, half of Tiflis is a little Paris, or a prettier Bucharest. A mass of tin roofs, painted in pale green and Indian red, makes a pleasant colour impression as you approach the city from the mountains, but to see it in its real and remarkable picturesqueness, as shown in my illustration, it must be viewed from the remains of the old fortress, or the Botanical Garden beside it, at the other end of the town. It lies at the bottom of a brown, treeless valley, between steep hills, on either side of the river Kura. This may not sound very attractive, but there is an abruptness about the contours and a serpentine twist about the river that make it one of the most strikingly placed towns I know. In summer, as might be guessed from its position and from the additional fact that it has a phenomenally small rainfall, Tiflis is stifling and intolerably hot, but in winter the same conditions render it a delightful residence, perfectly sheltered from the cold winds that sweep from the mountains and the plain to the southeast, and by its dry atmosphere admirably suited to people with weak lungs.

It is a place of great importance to modern Russia. It forms, to begin with, the end of the military road across the Caucasus, which, though the railway now goes round the eastern coast to Baku, is still the quickest way to Europe, and all the mails come over it by fast coach. It is midway between Baku and Batum; that is, between the Caspian and the Black Sea, be- Tiflis. tween Europe and Asia when you go east and west, as well as when you go north and south. The railway is now open to Kars, that frontier fortress which, not long ago the Russian objective, will some day be her base for an advance into Armenia and far beyond. Tiflis, in fact, is thinking of the future, as you are reminded when you go to the topographical department of the General Staff to buy the magnificent maps they sell, and see a dozen officers working busily over their drawing-boards.

And Russia has developed her Caucasian capital in a manner worthy of its importance. In the modern town the streets are wide and paved and lighted by electricity, the shops are large and handsome, there is a public garden with winding walks and fine trees, excellent tramways run in all directions, and the public carriages, leather-upholstered and rubber-tyred, are far superior to those of St. Petersburg or Moscow—in fact, the best I have seen anywhere. The official buildings are numerous and imposing—Russia always takes care of this. The cathedral is a magnificent edifice, the Governor-General's palace dignified without and splendid within, there is a new and elaborate operahouse, and of course a number of military buildings. The museum is extremely interesting for its collections of all the animals and birds of the Caucasus, all the geological products, and a fascinating series of figures and domestic implements illustrating the ethnology of all the local races. While I was there an agricultural exhibition was held, and the quality and variety of products shown were astonishing. Some of the vegetables were so remarkable that I wrote and asked for seeds, which were sent promptly by official post and are now germinating under the surprised eyes of a Hampshire gardener. In matters like this, let me remark once for all, the Russian authorities are courtesy itself to foreigners who approach them courteously and are genuinely interested in what they are doing. 

Finally, the Hotel de Londres is the first really civilised and comfortable hotel I have found in Russia—and this is in Asia! I dwell upon these matters because the striking fact about Tiflis is that Russian rule has made a handsome, clean, safe, civilized, and merry little town out of a jumble of dirty, jarring Eastern races, outside her European frontier, and far from anywhere. But one does not go to Asia to see Europe, and Rostom, the guide, in Circassian costume, with long poniard and war-medal, haunts the hall of the hotel. To test the German philologist, I ask him how many languages he speaks. He does not remember, but proceeds to count them upon his fingers. Russian, Mingrelian—his native tongue—Georgian, Armenian, Persian, Lesghian, Gruznian—I can't remember them, and I don't know how to spell them, but it is an extraordinary list. And he needs them all in an hour's stroll through the bazaar.

[...]

If one half of Tiflis is like Europe, the other half is purely Oriental. Narrow, steep, ill-paved streets; mysterious houses hiding the life within behind closed doors and shuttered windows; the merchant sitting among his wares—the silversmiths in one street, the arms-makers in another, the shoemakers, the carpet-dealers, the fruit-sellers, the perfume-venders, each trade in its own quarter. And what things to buy, if one has money and time—the two equally essential components of an Eastern bargain! Through this low door-way and behind this commonplace shop is a dark warehouse piled high with carpets in mountainous profusion. Here is every fraud ready for the unwary or unknowing purchaser, but here, also, if your eye is sharp and your tongue smooth and your experience trustworthy and your time and patience without limits, is a brocade from the palace of one of the old Khans of Nukha, vassals of Persia in time gone by; this is a silken carpet from Isfahan, in the golden days of Shah Abbas, two hundred years old, priceless; that rug was woven by Tekke girls in the tent of nomad Turkomans, a pattern never copied but preserved in memory from the times of Tamerlane; this drugget issued long ago from the loom of Kurdish women of Erivan; the roll of rainbow-coloured silk came slowly to light, like a dragon-fly above a reeking pond, in a mud hovel of the torture-town of Bokhara, fieriest hot-bed of Mussulman fanaticism. The merchant will show you, too, turquoises —handfuls of them, all small or of the worthless greenish hue. Many times you ask him if he has not bigger turquoises and he shakes his head. At the back of his iron strong-box, wrapped in a dozen crumpled papers, he has a great one, of that marvellous and indescribable blue which nature has produced only in this stone. Will much persuasion wheedle it into sight for a moment, or much money secure its possession forever? Maybe, but I have my doubts, and they are based upon the unchanging truth that at last,between East and West, pride of race is stronger than greed of gold. To console you, however, for the unattainable azure, you may find and carry off a blue scimetar from Daghestan, a wrought-iron staff surmounted by an ox-head with which some old Persian officer has led his men to battle, a Georgian pistol inlaid with silver niello work, and a choice bit of gold-encrusted ivory from Kazi-Kumyk. 

But Tiflis, this "precipitate of history," these cross-roads between Europe and Asia, excites your wonder and enchains your recollection chiefly for its human conglomerate. Most of the speakers of its many tongues have their distinctive costume, and indeed their own well - marked faces. There is no mistaking the Tatars with their hats in the shape of a truncated cone, the aquiline-featured Lesghians, the swarthy Persians with their long-pointed hats of astrakhan fur, the Armenians with their flat caps, the Turkomans in huge shaggy hats of sheepskin, the Wiirtembergers of the German colony in the old Swabian costume, and most marked of all, the Georgians in the tcherkess, with the khazir, the row of cartridge cases, across the breast. The native gentleman, an officer of high rank and long service in war, who strides into the hotel dining-room in his uniform of chestnut and Indian red, jingling with small-arms and hung with medals even as a Zulu is strung with cowries, is certainly one of the most striking figures I have ever seen. In fact, I do not remember to have been in the society of so many distinguished-looking people in my life before; a group of princes of the blood, ambassadors, and commanders-in-chief would have everything to learn from them in the matter of deportment [behavior/manners]  No matter who they may be—the Smiths and Joneses, possibly, of Georgia and Daghestan—their manners and their clothes hit off the choicest expressions of dignity and distinction. That full-skirted woollen coat, flying round the fine riding-boots, and hiding trousers of carmine silk; that tight-fitting body-part, open at the breast to show a shirt of richest cream-colour, hooked smartly over the ribs and narrowly girdled at the waist by a belt of chased metal, worn very tight, from which hang silver-worked poniard, sabre, pistol-holster and other strange fittings, combine to form a costume of infinite spirit, to which the row of cartridges, sewn on a cunning slant on each side of the breast, are a splendid finish, even though the cartridges are but dummy bits of wood, with gold or silver heads. Added to all this, the port of the head in its black sheepskin hat, and the whole martial bearing, make every man a field-marshal and the hero of a hundred fights—to look at.

Are the women of Georgia as beautiful as we have always been told? When they become matrons, which is at an early age, they are too stout and broad in the beam for beauty, but in their youth, I should judge from glimpses at windows and passing faces, there may well be extraordinary loveliness among them— the loveliness of perfectly chiseled features true to the racial type, large calm dark eyes, firm, full mouth, alabaster skin, indigo-black hair—the precise antithesis of the piquancy of irregular features and nervous temperament which generally passes for beauty among ourselves. These are women, you feel, whose lips would whisper passionate love or, if times allowed, sing high the song that sends their men to battle—whose fingers would grasp the dagger or fall lightly across the strings of the lute, with equal aptness. Dagger and war-song, however, are out of date in the Caucasus to-day.

[...]

Before the Russo-Turkish War [of 1877-1878] the Georgians stood high in Russian favour; they held important public offices, and the social relations between them and Russian officials were cordial. During the war doubts arose as to their loyalty, and the Armenians took advantage of this to push their own interests. Their well-known trading and financial gifts were of much use to the Russians and very profitable to themselves. But the Armenians have shared the fate of the Georgians, for the Armenian troubles in Turkey [in 1894-1896] bred a certain amount of real political agitation, and evoked fears of a great deal more, with the not unnatural result that the Russian authorities now cry a plague on both their houses, and exclude Georgians and Armenians alike from office and influence. 

This action, again, is naturally being followed by a recrudescence of national feeling, especially among the Georgians. The national costume,once almost abandoned, is now the fashion; the national literature is being fostered; and Georgian women talk less gossip and more politics. But all this has no serious significance. Mr. Oliver Wardrop, in his "Kingdom of Georgia" (1888), wrote: "Should Russia ever become involved in a great war, Georgia would undoubtedly declare her independence and endeavour to seize the Dariel Road; the Armenians and Lesghians would also revolt, each in their own way." My own opinion is that any enemy of Russia that counted upon this would be disappointed; the time is past for a Georgian political nationality, unless, indeed, Russia should be already so hopelessly defeated as to break up of her own weight. I doubt much whether, in spite of their good looks and their martial clothes, the Georgians possess capacity for any struggle or for the organisation which it would necessitate if successful. Sporadic risings there might be if Russia were defeated once or twice, but they would be crushed without the slightest difficulty, and the only chance of success they might have would be when Russia was too exhausted even to attempt to put them down. Moreover, I saw no reason why the Georgians should wish to revolt, for they are not oppressed in any way, they have practically all the chances that Russians themselves enjoy, they are treated very gently as regards military service, and it is perfectly certain that if for any cause Russia should cease to protect them, some other Power would have to do so, for they are now incapable of taking care of themselves or standing sword in hand, as they once did, between Europe and the pressing hordes of Asia. In a word, the little nationalities of the Caucasus present no political problem.

Ethel Snowden, A Political Pilgrim in Europe" (1921) - Part 1

Ethel Snowden (1881 – 1951) was a British socialist and human rights activist. Born Ethel Annakin, she married the prominent Labour Party politician and Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Snowden and rose up the social scale. She was involved in the Fabian Society and the Independent Labour Party, and was a vocal campaigners for women's suffrage before the First World War. In 1918-1919, she visited the Bolshevik Russia and the newly independent Georgia, and published her reminisced of both trips in separate books. After the visit to Russia, she publicly condemned Bolshevism, which her unpopular with the left within the Labour movement. On the other hand, trip to the Menshevik Georgia - Snowden was part of a delegation sent by the Second International to observe development in Georgia - left very pleasant impressions that she later recounted in her book "A Political Pilgrim in Europe" (1921).

[After recounting repression and fear among common peaople in Russia, Snowden notes that] in Georgia it was different. The experience in Batoum [Batumi] was the same everywhere. There was no compulsion to meet us. The people came because they wanted to come. They moved freely amongst us, without restraint of speech or manner, laughing, shouting, singing. The brown-eyed children climbed into our laps. They shyly played with our watches or examined our clothes. In all those merry faces turned up at us on the balcony I saw not one look of bitterness, no tightening of thin lips, no burning hate in the eyes. One jolly giant, whose curly grey-black hair waved a head's breadth above the crowd, led the cheering, which was caught up by the crowd in unmistakable sincerity. They ran by the side of our carriages, flinging red roses into them and blowing kisses to us as we gathered up the roses and pinned them to our coats as the red emblem of international solidarity.

We spent a pleasant afternoon in the Botanical Gardens [in Batumi], rich with every kind of tropical and semi-tropical fruit. The head gardener boasted with joyous pride the possession of sixty different varieties of orange. There they hung, yellow and tempting. Visions of Southern California surged up, the blue Pacific at San Diego, and the big glowing orange broken off the tree, ripe and delicious, for the daily breakfast. From the figs and grapes, the lemons and bananas of these gardens, we proceeded to the tea plantations and the bamboo woods, and saw two infant industries developing themselves, the one under the care of a skilled Japanese. Georgia's industry needs development on modern lines, with modern machinery and by modern methods. At present production is slow and old fashioned. A common sight on a Georgian landscape is a wooden plough, hand guided, drawn by eight pair of stout oxen. This is mediaeval.

In the evening we were entertained by the Batoum Municipality to a dinner on the enclosed veranda of a large public ballroom. A Georgian dinner is a thing to be remembered, and this, the first of many, lingers pleasantly in the mind. Flowers and climbing plants adorned the glass-covered veranda on the outside, palms and flowering trees decorated and scented it within. The long table accommodated two hundred guests. At one end of the room a choir sang songs, and an orchestra made merry music whilst we ate. Course followed course of the most deliciously cooked food. Enormous epergnes, filled with glowing peaches of incredible size and huge black grapes, adorned the table at frequent intervals of space. There were sparkling wines of rich vintage and various colours, exquisite in the soft light from the shaded lamps. This dinner could not have been surpassed for the completeness of its appointments by the most expensive mountain hotel in America. Torrents of summer rain and vivid flashes of lightning added to the sense of comfort and jollity within.

The speeches at a Georgian banquet are delivered between the courses. After the speeches, before the speeches, furtively during the speeches, the toasts are called. Never in the world was there anything like this mad passion for toasting one another. Every guest is toasted at least once. The health of every lady is drunk at least ten times! If the wine does not give out, absent friends and popular causes, the cook in the kitchen and the butler in the pantry supply excellent excuses for a further riot of toasting. Conversation waxes louder and more excited with every glass. Eyes begin to shine with the moving spirit of alcohol. Strange stories of gallant adventure are told aloud. Wild gestures are flung about. Out of the storm of confused tongues and frantic gesticulations, from the far end of the table comes a faint voice softly singing a slow song. Others take up the strain. In less than two minutes the entire table is singing, each person roaring his accompaniment at the very pitch of his voice. This song sounds like a Scottish psalm tune, but it is the Georgian equivalent to " He's a jolly good fellow." It is very impressive ... Perhaps twenty times in one evening this song is started and taken up by the company. Each time it is a compliment directed at some special guest, and concludes with the clinking of glasses and a roar of cheers for the honoured one, who bows his appreciation of the kindly courtesy.

A distinguished general of the ancien regime was my vis-a-vis. He delicately complimented me upon the few words those gallant Georgians would have me say, and afterwards sent to Tiflis a large basket of delicious red roses for the ladies of our party. On my right sat several young nobles in the handsome native costume. They wore long grey coats, full skirted and with belts at the waist. Underneath was a high-necked blouse, buttoned at the front. Each side of the coat was ornamented at the breast with a row of pockets for single cartridges. Ornamental cartridge-cases were fitted into these pockets. The round hats were of white astrakhan, and they wore soft leather Russian boots which came high in the leg and were seamless and unlaced. Each carried a dagger at his side, with richly chased silver handle. When the spirits of the company had risen sufficiently high, two of these young princes rose and danced a graceful Georgian dance down the whole length of the corridor and back on the other side. The guests accompanied with a monotonous clap, humming softly a suitable melody. One arm held gracefully above the head, the left hand on the hip, the feet moving intricately and delicately, the body swaying ever so slightly from the hips and seeming to float upon the polished surface of the floor, there is nothing that dance resembled so much as a sailing ship on a placid lake gently moved by a soft wind.

The absence of rancour, the atmosphere of friendliness, the fellowship and intimacy of it all, charmed us, and we left for the night train and Tiflis with regret at having to part so soon with these new friends.

The special train had been a royal train. It was replete with every comfort. There were bathrooms even, and an excellent kitchen. The food department was in the hands of a Russian family, a widowed mother and three children. They were a family of good birth whose fallen fortunes had been relieved in this way by the Social Democrats as a reward for saving the life of the President, always in danger from the violent extremists of both sorts. The mother was a stout, comfortable body, and the girls beautiful creatures of the Slavonic type.

We were received in the waiting room at Tiflis by the President, M. Jordania, and his suite. The floor was carpeted with rich and costly rugs. On the walls hung portraits of Karl Marx and the principal Georgian Socialists. An orderly crowd waited outside and cheered us as we left for our quarters in the residence of the departed American Commissioner.

Our first business in Tiflis was to attend the special session of Parliament called in our honour, to hear a speech of welcome from each of the eight political parties represented in that Parliament. The Georgian Parliament is elected on a franchise which gives every man and woman of twenty the vote. At the last election, which was conducted on a basis of strictest proportional representation, 102 Social Democrats were elected out of a total of 130. The nationalities represented by this 130 are six, and there are five women in the House. The secretary to the Speaker is also a woman, and a very able one. Distinctions of sex do not exist in Georgian politics or in Georgian industry. Equal pay for equal work is the ruling economic dictum. For the purposes of an election the whole country, with a population of about 4,000,000, is one constituency. As a natural corollary of this the districts have almost unlimited powers of self-government. The model is a combination of Swiss and British. There is no second Chamber. The President of the Republic is also the Prime Minister. He is elected annually, and cannot hold office for more than two consecutive years. Elections are organized and carried through by national and local Election Commissions. The twenty-one members of the national Election Commission are elected by the Members of Parliament. The insane, the criminal, deserters from the army and insolvents may not vote.

The domestic policy of the Socialist Government of Georgia is the gradual socialization of land and industry. Having guaranteed themselves as far as possible from enemies within the State by establishing themselves upon a thoroughly democratic basis, they have sought to accomplish what was expected of them by disturbing as little as might be the private interests and ordinary pursuits of the citizens. They have established a system of peasant proprietorship. This it was less difficult to do than might have been expected on account of the fact that 90 per cent. of the land had already been mortgaged by spendthrift proprietors. The law establishing the land in the hands of the peasants was finally promulgated on January 25,1919. The amount of land allowed to each peasant is strictly limited to seven acres, or thirty-five acres for a family of five. The old landlord may have his seven acres if he will cultivate it himself, or within his own family. I met landlords who submitted cheerfully to the new system and noble ladies who rejoiced in their new-found economic liberties.

But again I say, a knowledge of newer methods of production is necessary to make the rich soil yield all that it is capable of yielding, and quantities of machinery must be imported if the area of soil under cultivation is to be increased. Only 24 per cent. of the land in Georgia was cultivated as against 31.5 per cent. in Russia, 55 per cent. in France and 574 per cent. in Italy in pre-war days.

There is an excellent Co-operative Movement in Georgia which is working up a national co-operative scheme of production and distribution for the peasants. By this means it is hoped to guard the interests of the consumer, so apt to be at the mercy of the cultivators of the soil in a country of fallen exchanges, and at the same time leave the peasants free in the possession and cultivation of their land.

No attempt, so far as I could discover, has been made to destroy private industry and individual enterprise, nor even to interfere with either beyond the need for protecting the vital interests of the workers and the necessity for safeguarding the interests and liberties of the country. The shops and bazaars of Tiflis were open, not closed and their windows boarded up as in Moscow and Petrograd. The principal streets of Tiflis and Batoum were a pleasant contrast to the Nevski Prospect.

The Ministry of Labour consists of two Commissars. For its purposes Georgia is divided into four districts: Tiflis, Koutais, Sokhum and Batoum. The officials of the Ministry are chosen from candidates elected by the Trade Unions. This important department has five sections: (i) the Chamber of Tariffs, which fixes wages and salaries; this is controlled by a committee comprising ten employers, ten workpeople and one representative of the Ministry of Labour; (2) the Chamber of Reconciliation; it is not obligatory that an employer or union should appeal to this body for help in the settlement of a dispute, but once having'appealed its decision is binding upon both; (3) The Commission of Insurance, which insures workpeople against accidents of all kinds; (4) The Committee of Relief, which insures against sickness and old age, and (5) The Labour Exchange, for the supply and regulation of labour. There is a universal eight hours' day in Georgia. Overtime is permitted in certain circumstances, but must be paid for at the rate of a time and a half. Holidays are fixed by law, and those who are obliged to work in holiday time must be remunerated with a double wage. Employers who dismiss workpeople must provide compensation, a law which does not invariably work out happily for workpeople or for masters.

The price of bread in the open market at the time of our visit was 30 roubles a pound. For the workers the same bread was 5 roubles. It was possible for us to buy 3,800 roubles with an English pound.

All this interesting information was given to us during numerous and protracted interviews with members of Government departments and Trade Union officials. The most distinguished of this number was M. Jordania, the President Prime Minister. He is a man of tall and stately and even aristocratic bearing. But there is not the slightest shadow of doubt of his democratic sympathies and real belief in Socialism. He wears a well-trimmed beard, has fine dark eyes and sensitive, shapely hands. He speaks well and clearly, has a rich fund of humour and is adored by his people.

We had the pleasure of meeting the President's aged mother in her simple home at Goria. She was dressed in the native woman's dress, a stiff, black silk skirt, very full and touching the ground all round. A long-sleeved jacket covered the embroidered blouse. Over her head she wore a white veil which was attached to a black velvet circlet fixed squarely on the head. The veil fell down the back almost to the edge of the skirt. On either side of the sweet old face were old-fashioned ringlets, a part of the general costume and style of the women. This tiny old lady of lovely and hospitable spirit could not understand or appreciate a subdivision of land which robbed her loved son of a large part of his patrimony; but with gentle firmness he pointed out that the new law was for all alike, the rich as well as the poor, and that those who had more must give to those who had none.

In a quiet part of the garden is a sacred spot where a loved child lies buried. It is beautifully kept, and a garden seat facing the west is placed near the grave. We bent our heads at this sacred family shrine in a common feeling of sympathy and understanding.