Kutaisi

“ The khan of the Avars is the most powerful prince among the Lesghis. He rules over 270 villages, inhabited by a population of about 100,000 souls. In case of ed he can raise an army of 10,000 men. The kings of Georgia used to pay him an annual tribute of about 1000 l. He long maintained his independence against the Russians, and it was only in 1828 that he acknowledged himself their vassal. The other Lesghian tribes who acknowledge the supremacy of Russia are the Kazeekoomooks, whose population amounts to 20,000 souls, the Djaro-Belakanl, and the principality of the sultan of Elisooy. ”

“ Seventeen versts beyond Pishpek is Constantinovka, and seventy-one versts, Kurdai. Russian settlement is rather sparse until Kazanskaya Bogoroditsa and Linbovinskaya are reached, and these are in the urban district of Verney, the capital of the colony. There is an enormous amount of room for human beings here and, when the railway comes along and puts stations every twenty miles or so from European Russia, all the way, to Kuldja in China. ”

“ Kutais contains 10,000 inhabitants, and lies in a natural park; all round is the most luxuriant vegetation. The houses are neat and ornamental; the green painted church towers and barracks peep invitingly from between. The large river Ribon {314} separates the town from the large citadel which very picturesquely occupies a neighbouring hill.
The dresses of the people are as various as round Tiflis; the headgear of the Mingrelian peasants appears truly comic. They wear round black felt caps, in the shape of a plate, fastened by a string under the chin. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In 1227 he died, while conducting a campaign in Central Asia; and it remained for his vigorous grandson, Kublai Khan, to complete the conquest of China more than half a century afterwards. So early as 1260, Kublai was able to proclaim himself emperor at Xanadu, which means Imperial Capital, and lay about one hundred and eighty miles north of modern Peking, where, in those days known as Khan-baligh (Marco Polo's Cambaluc) , he established himself four years later; but twenty years of severe fighting had still to pass away before the empire was finally subdued. ”

“ Then the problems and experiences which I came up against in Georgia, and which are set forth in the present book, will find added significance beyond the confines of Georgia, for the whole of Russia and its border States.
The immediate future will, no doubt, be terrible for the country both north and south of the Caucasus. And even when every dictatorship, White as well as Red, is replaced by democracy, the economic organisms of those districts will, for a long time, bleed from a thousand wounds, and exist in a state of painful convalescence. ”

“ Petersburg, and it is a fashionable promenade.
To the east of this clean Russian town is the Persian quarter, as genuine as any city of Persia, with narrow, crooked streets and mud houses of only one or two stories, which were built when the Persians occupied this country. On both sides of the street are little shops, like closets, set back into the walls, not more than six or eight feet square, with no light or ventilation except that which comes through the door. Each line of business has a street or a covered arcade to itself. ”

“ At our feet lies Kutais, with head upon the hillside and foot upon the margin of the plain; the eye follows the winding river which has just escaped from Caucasus and is flowing outwards towards the opposite range; the horizon is closed by that wall of mountain, emerging solid from a tender veil of mist. The plain itself is flat as water; it is coloured with the golden hues of the ripening maize-fields and featured by a labyrinth of vague detail. ”

“ A number of other tribes or nationalities such as the Imeretians, Gourians, Mingrelians, Wanetes, Khevsoures, etc., also belong to what is called the Georgian family of nations. The greatest poet of Georgia is Prince Kazbek. Among the grand old families we find the Orbelians, who trace their ancestry back to an emperor of China, the Chavchavadzes, the Growzinskys, Bgaration-Moukranskys, Amilakvaris, Tsitsianovs, and many others, all of whom have rendered their native land incomparable services and deserve the highest praise. ”

“ He wished that the metropolitan of all Russia should be resident in Kief, where he himself was master, and have jurisdiction in Moscow. In case that could not be effected, he wanted that Western Russia should have its own metropolitan. Hence during the fourteenth century, more than once there were two metropolitans, one in Moscow, another in Kief, and sometimes a third in Galitch. We have seen that Cyprian, at first metropolitan in the West, outlived his Moscow opponents Mityai and Pimen, and united the whole Church in Russia. ”

“ Even more than by gold, the Greeks must have been attracted to Georgia because it provided so good a route, from the West to the East, to the then rich territories of Persia and Central Asia. Eastern and Western civilisation met in Georgia, and stimulated its intellectual development.
But highways to rich countries attract not only the merchant, but also the warrior, whether he be plunderer or conqueror. ”

“ At the risk of alienating the more powerful of his boyars, he held his residence in the suburb or town of his own founding, alleging a divinely inspired dream and a miraculous interposition as directing him to this spot. He essayed to develop a new Kief out of his city, Vladimir on the Kliasma, by crowding it with monasteries, erecting a golden gate, and a Church of the Tithe, decorated by Byzantine and western artists. Recognizing the priesthood as a strong force in the civilization of a nation, he conferred wealth and honors upon it, and propitiated its favor. ”

“ Then came Kalaki, which like Bakurtsikhe, is full of members of the Vachnadze family, and Gurdjani, one of the villages belonging to the Andronikovs. The Andronikovs are descended from a Byzantine [101] prince who fled to Georgia during the reign of Queen Tamara; they have always been distinguished for bravery and munificence, the two virtues which are most appreciated in this country; in the present century they have produced a general worthy to rank with any who have ever served the Tsars. ”

“ We find in Georgia two sharply separated kinds of the Proletariat, an oriental and a modern. In the Georgian proletariat we perceive distinctly that here we stand on the boundaries of two very different worlds.
The oriental proletariat deserves in reality the name of a vagabond proletariat. It lives from hand to mouth in the greatest poverty, but by no means only from begging and stealing. The number of beggars is great. Yet among the oriental type of the proletariat there are many who live from the labour of their hands. ”

“ The school accommodation is lamentably inadequate; in the government of Tiflis there are only about 280 children at school for [17] every 10,000 of the population, in the government of Kutaïs only 250.
Returning to Golovinskii Prospekt, we pass on the right the Staff Headquarters of the army of the Caucasus, the best restaurant in the city, some good shops, and then arrive at the Aleksandrovskii Garden, which slopes down to the river bank; its shady walks are thronged every evening when a military band performs. Near its extreme corner, and almost on the waterside, is the Russian theatre ”

“ In a like manner the inhabitants of each village and settlement were brought to Christianity, and Vladimir ordered churches to be built on the places where idols had been. After Kief, the turn came for the tribes east and [18] west, as well as north. In Novgorod, where the old beliefs had their stronghold, the opposition was greatest, and when the first church was built the people tore it down straightway, but a skilful mingling of persuasion and force, together with the adhesion of the more important citizens, carried the day, and all Russia in time became Christian. ”

“ Venetian, could picture to himself the multitude of trading vessels which sailed upon those eastern seas and crowded into those Chinese harbours. They said also with one accord that Kinsai was without doubt the finest and richest and noblest city in the world. To the men of Kinsai, Venice would have been a little suburb and the Levant a backyard. The whole of the east was their trading field, and their wealth and civilization were already old when Venice was a handful of mud huts peopled by fishermen. ”

“ Kubilai, who had sent forward provisions by sea to the mouth of the river Liao, moved on Nayan by forced marches, and found him near that same river, at some distance south of Mukden in Manchuria. The Emperor had sent scouts far ahead of his forces so that no knowledge of his movements might reach the man against whom he was marching. Kubilai divided his army into two parts, one composed of Chinese, under Li ting, a Manchu, the other of Mongols, under Yissu Timur, a grandson of Boörchu, one of Jinghis Khan’s four great heroes. ”

“ Thou alone, Georgia, couldst do it. No other people can compare with thee for endurance. How often have thy sons freely shed their blood for thee! Every foot of thy soil is made fruitful by it. And even when they bowed under oppression they always bravely rose again. Faith and freedom were their ideals.”
The novel of social life is represented by Prince Kazbek, a young and energetic writer, many of whose productions have appeared as serials in the newspapers. The best writer of historical novels is Rtsheuli; his “Queen Tamara” is a great favourite with the people.
PRINCE ILIA CHAVCHAVADZE. ”

“ This monastery was favored beyond others by the Grand Prince; not only its abbot, but its monks had high honor. The people of Moscow esteemed very greatly a deep noble voice in church service. There was a priest then in Moscow whose voice surpassed all that men remembered. This priest so pleased the Grand Prince that he raised him from low degree to such a height that people fell to asking with curiosity: “Who is this Mityai? Why has he power [373] and importance?” It proved that Mityai was the son of a priest from Kolomna, who had a church in Tashilov. ”

“ From the sixteenth century the czars of Moscow endeavoured to establish their influence in the Caucasian regions. Their projects were favoured by their community of religion with the Georgians, who repeatedly requested their assistance against the oppression of their Mobammedan neighbours. But the unsuccessful expedition which the Moscovites undertook in the beginning of the seventeenth century against the highlanders of the Eastern Caucasus stopped their projects of conquest in that quarter till the time of Peter the Great. ”

“ This limited population may be ascribed to the frequent wars which have long desolated the province, and to the emigration to Persia of many Mohammedan families since its subjection to Russia, although many Armenians were induced by the Russian government, after the peace of Toorkmanchay, to emigrate from Persia to Karabagh. ”

“ Among the many traders who visited Central Asia while it was under the government of the family of Genghis Khan, were two Venetian brothers, Maffeo and Nicolo Polo, whose wondering disposition and trading interests led them as far as the court of the Great Khan, where they remained in the most intimate relations with Kublai for some time, and were finally sent back to Italy with a request that one hundred European scholars be sent to China to instruct them in the arts of Europe. ”

“ Both Georgia and Russia are now in the same economic stage as was France in the beginning of the Great Revolution. Peasant proprietorship is not, however, completely free in Georgia. In every sale of land, the State has the first right of purchase. In this manner about two million dessjatinen of gardens, and arable land, pastures and woods have been acquired, of which the cultivated land amounts to about half a million dessjatinen. Pasture land is almost one million dessjatinen. ”

“ An old ruined citadel, perched up on a seemingly inaccessible rock, faces us from the opposite side of Divriki. A tower on a still higher peak, but communicating by a hidden path with the citadel, serves as a place of refuge for the garrison, should the first-mentioned stronghold ever be taken by assault. A rapid stream—the Tchalt Tchai—runs below the citadel. The town is said to contain about 3400 houses, of which 3000 belong to Turks, and the remainder to Armenians. ”

“ Dmitri and his intimate boyars approved of this proposal. It would save trouble, and the expense of going to Tsargrad. Command was then given to all bishops in Russia to assemble. They came, one after another, and went to be blessed by the new, so-called, metropolitan. But Dionisi, the Bishop of Suzdal, being indignant at Mityai, would not approach him. Bowing to the assembly and the Grand Prince, he spoke as follows: “We have come at thy command, and we see that thou wishest, through us, to create a metropolitan, but we may not break the law given to us. ”