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.