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.