John Oliver Wardrop

“ It must not be supposed that the Georgian people are forgetful of what Russia has done for them in protecting them against Persia and Turkey; they have no hatred for their Slav fellow-subjects, indeed, it is hard to imagine how any one could dislike such an amiable individual as the average Russian, not being an official; but on the other hand, it must be remembered that this military aid is the only benefit Georgia has ever received. ”

“ It is sincerely to be hoped that the present good feeling between the Georgian and Russian peoples may continue. If they were kindly treated, and trusted with some measure of local government, I am sure that the Christian peoples of the Caucasus would never cause the Tsar’s ministers any trouble; but if an attempt be made to crush the national spirit, the descendants of the men who fought under Irakli will, at least, show despots how men can die. ”

“ In the eleventh and twelfth centuries of our era the relations between Georgia and Greece were of the most intimate character. The young nobles of the court of King David the Renewer and his immediate successors frequented the schools of Athens, and brought back with them Platonic and Aristotelian teachings which exerted a very powerful influence on the intellectual and social life of that period, and prepared the way for the golden age of Georgian literature, which dawned on the accession of Queen Tamara. ”

“ Shah Nadir usurped the crown of Persia in 1736, and freed Kartli and Kakheti from the Turkish yoke. A little before his accession, in 1732, Russia had renounced in favour of Persia all right to the land between the Terek and the Kura. Nadir ingratiated himself with the Georgian nobility, and always gave them the post of honour in the victorious campaigns for which his reign is famous. Almost all the great warriors of the land accompanied him on his Indian march of conquest, and his especial favourite was Irakli, the son of Teimuraz, King of Kartli and Kakheti. ”

“ On the opposite side of the ravine, to the left, stood a very extensive fortification with ruined towers, a stronghold of some importance during the war with Shamil; behind this could be seen the Armenian church and the outskirts of the town. Straight in front lay the grand Caucasian mountains, rising like a wait from the plain, their glittering snow-clad tops dividing the dark forests on their flanks from the deep blue of the summer sky. In the midst of the plain flowed the silvery Alazana, in its winding course dividing the cultivated land on this side from the virgin forest [79] beyond. ”

“ At the present time a few Russian capitalists are endeavouring to get a footing beyond the Caucasus, but they experience some difficulty in doing so, for the Georgians prefer to avail themselves of the services of European investors; among others, the Rothschilds have not been slow to see that Transcaucasian wines, ores and oils are worth attention.
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. ”

“ Passing through glens of wondrous beauty, adorned with picturesque ruins of ancient strongholds, we at length arrive at the mountain of Suram, 3027 feet above Black Sea level, the watershed which separates the valley of the Kura, with its hot summers and cold winters, from the more temperate region drained by the Rion. The railway climbs very rapidly to the [7] summit of the pass, but it comes down still more rapidly; there is a slope of one in twenty for a distance of a thousand feet; at the bottom is the town of Suram with its fine old castle. ”

“ In the old, half ruined monastery of Ananur, in an ancient cell which used to stand in the corner of the monks’ orchard, one might have seen a man dressed in a rough sheepskin cloak, sitting with his face turned to the wall. That man, once the thunderbolt of all Transcaucasia, was the king of Georgia, Irakli II. Near him stood an old Armenian servant. ”

“ Their country is among the wildest in the whole range, and their villages are perched high up among the rocks, like eagles’ nests. The Khevsurs live chiefly on the scanty products of agriculture; the Pshavs and Tushes are pastoral peoples, in winter they drive their flocks down into Kakheti, and when the snow among the mountains begins to melt they return to their native valleys. All these tribes are wild and brave to the highest degree; from the earliest times they have formed part of the Georgian kingdom, and have distinguished themselves in many a battle against the infidel. ”

“ His people never had a better ruler. He strove for their welfare like a father, and for forty years kept his empire together; but old age has weakened him, and has brought everything to ruin. In order to prevent quarrels after his death, he determined to divide his kingdom among his children while he still lived, but his hopes in them were deceived. He who was chief eunuch of Tamas Khuli Khan when Irakli was a leader of the Persian army, now marched against him in his feeble old age. ”

“ The distance to Gudaur is only fourteen and a half versts, but nearly the whole ascent has to be done at walking pace; slowly we rose up the hillside, gazing silently now up at the glistening chain above us, now down into the gloomy valley behind us, where a fleecy waterfall shone in the starlight; we saw no wayfarers all the time, and no sound came to break the stillness of the summer night. ”

“ When you explain that Georgia is now a part of the Russian Empire, you hear stereotyped remarks about police and passports. The intending visitor need have no anxiety on this score; even in Moscow a foreigner is seldom or never put to any inconvenience, in the Caucasus he almost forgets that he has such a thing as a passport.
There is no reason why Georgia should not become as popular a resort as Norway or Switzerland. It is not so far away as people imagine—you can go from London to Tiflis, overland, in a week ”

“ All along the road, wherever there is a coign of vantage one sees it topped by the ruins of a four-sided tapering tower, standing in the corner of a square enclosure; every foot of ground has its history of bloodshed and bravery, a history now long forgotten, save for the dim traditions of the peasantry.
The stage between Ananur and Pasanaur (21 versts) , is the longest on the whole road, and, although it presents no engineering difficulties such as those which were met with farther to the northward, it is, nevertheless, a toilsome journey for the horses, as it rises about 1300 feet. ”

“ Even the last war between Russia and Turkey was not accompanied by any visible commotion among the peoples of the Caucasus.
There is as yet no history of Georgia in the sense in which we now understand the word. Those works which are dignified with the name are merely more or less trustworthy collections of materials, which in their present form produce only a feeling of bewilderment in the reader. We trust that a man worthy of the task will seriously take the annals of his nation in hand, and present them to the world in an intelligible form ”

“ On the other side of the Kura we see Mushtaid; a little farther on is the pretty German colony of Alexandersdorf, with its poplar avenues, neat houses, and modest little white church. All the German colonies in the Caucasus seem to be exactly alike, and they do not in any respect differ from German villages in the fatherland; the colonists altogether ignore the people of the country in which they have settled, and, although they make a comfortable livelihood, their isolated condition and the absence of all European influence must make their lives very narrow and joyless. ”

“ This is not the only case in which Georgia has turned her back on Asia and opened her arms to Europe—Parisian fashions, German rationalism, English sport and other products of our civilization are beginning to have an influence; however, it is a consolation to remember that the women, in every country the more Conservative and, at the same time, more patriotic half of the community, may be counted upon to restrain their husbands and sons from a too hasty advance in the slippery paths of modern progress. ”

“ For the next 200 years we read of nothing but battles, sieges, raids, and in 1445 King Alexander completely destroyed the unity of the kingdom by dividing it among his three sons. He gave Kartli to Vakhtang, Imereti to Dimitri, Kakheti to Giorgi. In course of time Mingreli, Guri, Apkhazi, Svaneti, all revolted, and the land became the prey of Turks and Persians alternately, although even in its distracted condition, its people never lost their bravery, and were always respected by their enemies. ”

“ She had no children by her first husband, so the nobles of the kingdom pressed her to marry again, in order that she might have an heir. Her beauty and her fame brought her suitors from the most distant lands. Mahometans renounced their religion for her, and there were many that died for love of her. She chose Prince David Soslan, an Osset, who, by his bravery and devotion, proved himself worthy to possess such a pearl among women, and she bore him a son, called Giorgi Lasha, in 1194, and a daughter, Rusudan, in 1195. ”

“ The possibility of Armenians, Georgians and Lesghians consenting to combine into one homogeneous state is not to be thought of; but there is no reason why the descendants [168] of the three sons of Targamos, great-great-grandson of Noah, should not, if they were free, form a defensive alliance for the protection of common interests; the Lesghians have, in past times, done good service against both Persians and Turks. In any case, Georgia has a frontier which she is quite able to defend, and she could always count upon the assistance of the mountaineers on the northern side of the Caucasus. ”

“ Mushtaid, the town garden, owes nearly all its [32] charms to nature, the walks and open spaces are neatly kept, but nearly the whole area is a forest in the recesses of which we may lie undisturbed for hours, looking down on the turbid waters of Kura and listening to the rustling of the leaves above and around. Every evening its avenues are crowded with carriages and horsemen; beautiful faces, tasteful toilettes, gay uniforms all combine to form a charming picture. ”

“ This was a prudent measure; but, after all, it does not matter so very much whether Georgian soldiers mutiny in Georgia or Poland, Poles in Poland or Georgia, the essential point at which diplomats hostile to Russia would aim is, of course, to bring about perfectly simultaneous action on the part of all the enemies of that power, both at home and abroad. It is superfluous to add that the Georgian troops are the flower of the Russian army; every schoolboy can ride and shoot like a trained man ”

“ Pasanaur (which in old Persian means “Holy Hill”) is situated in a very narrow part of the valley, amid thick woods. The station is a pretty one, and, like that at Ananur, so comfortable that the traveller who has to spend a night there need not be pitied. The only building of interest in the village is a modern church in the Russian style of architecture, which looks as if it had been painted with laundry blue; for ugliness it can compare with any church in Muscovy. ”

“ The sympathy with which the Armenian national movement has been regarded in Western Europe encourages the Georgians to hope that a like feeling will be manifested towards them when the time is ripe for action. It is especially upon England that their hopes are fixed, for they are well aware of the fact that the existence of a strong, independent state between the Black Sea and the Caspian would be an enormous advantage to our country. ”

“ SIGNAKH TO TELAV, AND THENCE TO TIFLIS.
My stay in Kakheti was so pleasant that I found it very hard to leave. My good friends there insisted that I should marry a Georgian lady and settle down as a country squire, to grow wine and drink it among them for the remainder of my natural life; when I finally decided upon the day for my departure they pressed me to stay, at least, until the vintage-time, but I still had much ground to go over, and I had made up my mind to return to England before winter set in. ”

“ In 1212, wearied by her continual campaigns, and sorrow-stricken at the death of her husband and her greatest general, Tamara died, and left the throne to her son, Giorgi Lasha, at that time eighteen years of age. The young king was no sooner crowned than Ganja revolted, and this was soon followed by a still greater calamity, the invasion of Genghis Khan. Giorgi led 90,000 troops against the Mongols, but was defeated. In the meantime the Shah of Persia had asked for the hand of the beautiful Rusudan, and the Shah of Shirvan made a like demand. ”

“ Mikhailovka is fairly prosperous compared with other Russian colonies in Transcaucasia, but to a European it does not seem an Arcadia; it is one wide, straggling street of poor, dirty-looking farmhouses. The colonists have to struggle with fever and ague, not to speak of Lesghians, and [96] altogether do not seem to enjoy their life very much. Mikhailovka is the point at which the military road from Signakh turns to the eastward, and about five miles farther on arrives at Lagodekh, the staff head-quarters of an army corps, into which we rode about an hour before noon. ”

“ The traveller who happens to pass that way when the lessons for the day are over (and he might do worse if he likes to see pretty young faces) , will be surprised, unless he has been in Russia, to see that all the children are dressed alike, regardless of age, complexion, and taste; he will be still more surprised when he hears that if one of these uniforms is seen out after 5 p.m., the fair wearer is severely punished, it being the opinion of the Tsar’s Minister of Education that school-girls, and school-boys too, should after that hour be at home preparing their tasks for next day. ”

“ We now follow the course of the Kura all the way to Tiflis, passing Mikhailovo (whence a road runs to Borzhom, the most fashionable summer-resort in Trans-Caucasia) and Gori, a good-sized town, near which is the rock city of Uphlis Tsikhe. It is half past nine at night before Mtzkhet, the ancient capital of Georgia, is reached, and at a quarter past ten we enter Tiflis, ten hours from Kutaïs, and fourteen hours from Batum. Our journey is not yet ended, however, for it takes half an hour to drive from the station to the fashionable quarter of the town where the hotels are situated. ”

“ Service is held in the church three times a year. The interior has been spoiled by that fiend the “restorer.” From the church you look over a wide, uninhabited valley to the giant mountain, and on turning round you see the river Terek, on the banks of which are the station and village; on either hand stretch dark cavernous-looking valleys. Beyond the Terek is the home of the Ingushes, a people who frequently carry off the cattle of their more settled neighbours, and give the small garrison of Kazbek some amusement in hunting them down. ”

“ The effect which Tiflis produces on the mind of the stranger is perfectly unique; its position, its surroundings, the varied nature of its street-life, the gaiety and simplicity of its social life, all combine to form a most powerful and most pleasurable impression. ”

“ Besides the essential part of his work, the effect of which on the minds of men will always be the same, there is an accessory part, a tone, an atmosphere, which more particularly belongs to the early part of a period of transition from feudalism to freedom, from faith to rationalism, from the activity of war to the activity of peace; ten or a dozen generations have lived in England since this stage in our history was reached; in Georgia there still live men who were born in the age of chivalry and adventure. ”