Tiflis: The Paris of the Caucasus - Dzhegitov, 1837 & Vasily Krivenko, 1893
Translations about the city of Tbilisi, the jewel of the Caucasus
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Below are two translations about city of the Tbilisi in the south Caucasus, the capital of the Georgia, as well as being the largest, and arguably the greatest city in the region. The city straddles both sides of the Kura River which flows eastwards before discharging into the Caspian Sea. Located south of the main Caucasus range, the city is surrounded by low mountains which create an amphitheater like environment where buildings are terraced on the mountain sides. In the southwestern corner of the city is the Nari-Kala fortress whose half ruined citadel lies on top of a mountain that overlooks the old city immediately below.
The first excerpt, titled “What is Tiflis?”, is from “Feast in the Caucasus” by an author named “Dzhegitov.” From what I could find, “Dzhegitov” appears to have been a pseudonym used by the writer Vladimir Pavlovich Titov. Titov was born in 1807 near Ryazan and wrote several novels. He also served in the Asiatic Department within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as an envoy to Constantinople. The source of the this translation can be found here. The full text can be found here.
The second excerpt, titled “Paris of the Caucasus”, is from “Essays on the Caucasus” and “A trip to the south of Russia in 1888” by Vasily Silovich Krivenko. Born in 1854, Krivenko served as an officer in the Finnish Life-Guards Regiment and later joined the Imperial Court. The source for the translation can be found here. The original wetexts can be found here (“Essays on the Caucasus” and “A trip to the south of Russia in 1888”).
Tiflis, as it is known in Persian, was likely founded by the Sassanid Dynasty sometime in the 4th or 5th century as a fortress guarding the southern end of the Daryal Pass, the great mountain chasm cutting through the Caucasus that connects the world of the steppes to the Middle East. Later, Tiflis became the capital of Iberia, an ancient kingdom located in today’s central Georgia. Further west were the kingdoms of Colchis and Abkhazia, while to east was Caucasian Albania and south was Armenia. Lying on the roads leading from the Black to Caspian Seas and from the steppes to Mesopotamia, the city occupied a highly strategic crossroads on what the Greeks called the “Caucasian Isthmus.”
Tiflis’ strategic value was made apparent during the final great war between the Byzantine and Sasanian Empires in the early 7th century, the war which weakened both so fatally and allowed for the rise of Islam. In 627, while the Sasanaids still threatened Constantinople, the Byzantine emperor Heraclitus launched an invasion of the Persian Empire deep in the enemy’s rear. He marched on Tiflis where he was joined by a force of Turks from the Western Turkic Khagante, and together they captured Tiflis. Heraclitus then went south to invade Mesopotamia, the very heartland of the Sasanaid Empire. There Byzantines defeated the Sasanaids at Nivneveh in 628, and with little standing in the way if Heraclitus marching on the Sasanaid capital of Ctesiphon, the Persians made peace on terms of status quo ante bellum.
In later centuries Tiflis became a military center for the Islamic Caliphates and was a crucial base in their struggle against the Khazar Khaganate north of the mountains.
Due to the importance of the city’s location, Tbilisi has been sacked and destroyed countless times throughout history. Most notably, in 1226 the city was ruined by the the Khwarazmian sultan Jalal al-Din who captured the city while he was fleeing from the Mongols. Jalal al-Din ordered the whole city to be converted to Islam, and anyone who refused to be beheaded. Thus, according to Georgian chronicles, 100,000 Christians were beheaded on the Metekhi Bridge and their heads thrown in the Kura River below.
Unlike most other part Georgia and Tiflis voluntarily joined the Russian Empire. Under pressure from the Muslim Turks, the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti sought Russian protection and was annexed to the Empire in 1801. Tiflis became the center of Russian power in the Caucasus, and the Georgian aristocracy was integrated with the Russian one. Prince Pyotr Bagration, of the ancient Bagrationi dynasty, died fighting at the Battle of Borodino outside of Moscow in 1812. Another Georgian noble, Pavel Tsitsianov, served as the Russian Commander in Chief in the Caucasus during the first years of the 19th century and conquered much of modern day Azerbaijan at the expense of Persia’s Qajar Dynasty.
During the Soviet period Georgia and Tbilisi became favoured destinations for Russian tourists from the north, and despite off and on political tensions since the collapse of the Soviet Union this has remained so. Today Georgian restaurants are widespread across Russia, and Georgian food is a favoured cuisine alongside Central Asian food.
What is Tiflis?
Here are the Caucasus. And here is Tiflis. An endless depth of views, - cheerful, gloomy, magnificent, pitful, - of all kinds. With admiration I looked upon the charming view of the Kura, which brought me closer to Tiflis, and then suddenly frowned as I saw the bare, scorched, and grinning mountains which surround this celebrated city. Finally I arrived to Tiflis, stopping off at an old acquaintance, Anton Fedorivich Khashmin, and immediately the reason for why I was so hot was revealed: Reomyurov’s thermometer showed that it was 31 degrees, in the shade!
Nothing but a provincial city, like all the others, - a city with public spaces; a city where journals, decisions, agreements are signed, where papers are cleared and given numbers; where cases are considered, passports examined, contracts and tenders are negotiated and concluded, - as what goes on in any other city, making them neither more famous nor fun.
But what is the physiognomy of this city? It is really possible that the city has no physiognomy, as it is in my featureless, or if you would like, absurd story?
The physiognomy of the city – this is an entirely different affair! What can be said about her? Tiflis!... Tiflis!... Well, simply that she is a Trans-Caucasian1 Khan, subjected to Russia: it wears an Asiatic shawl robe and the epaulets of a Russian general; on its shaved head there a wool hat, on its feet are Persian boots, and across its shoulders are a Russian ribbons. Tiflis is like an old Asian khan, one of those khans that you all know: a belt dripping with gold and a kinzhal2 covered in precious stones hanging from it, - and from its dyed beard a red silk shirt peeks forth, only changed once in month no matter how scorching the summer heat is. Tiflis is a mixed salad3 of Europe and Asia. You will see two or three squares decorated with European buildings either rebuilt or still under construction, or just starting to grow out from their foundations. But walk by them carefully in order not to stumble over a Georgian saklya,4 and where instead of a door there is a hole dug into the earth, instead of piping there is a pit, instead of a window there is a dug out opening. I advise you do not walk around Tiflis at night, it doesn’t matter how bright the moon is shining, how entrancing the air is, no matter how much you would like to take in the poetry of this magical radiance, this luxurious place: you could fall into a pit and scare a raggedly Georgian women who has taken off her chadra5 at home, - this is a white as snow, magical covering over an Asian women in which only a freak or a monster would not look beautiful in.
Tiflis, new Tiflis, is a city with several straight and wide streets; these streets are lined with solid two-story homes inside of which are two or three shops, - the consequences of porto-franco:6 this is a city of Russians; the Russians rebuilt it; prior to their arrival it was nothing but a clean field, - clean in the local way, with many ravines through which Lezgins7 would sneak around in and capture careless people as prisoners. But step outside the Russian part of the city, the streets become narrow and where you can’t escape, the homes are like ruins and the ruins are used as homes. Another step forward, and climb down from your horse; you must go on foot, along stairs that have been carved out from the rocks to which homes are glued to, and their flat roofs raise up upon each other as stairs themselves; the roof of the lower house serves as the street, balcony and whatever else is done up there. You climb the stairs and see one saklya on top of another, peeking out like dogs in a burrow. If you grow tired of climbing, go back down to the narrow, stuffy bazar, or to the maidan,8 littered with fruit and stinking cheramsha (a type of wild garlic, which has a stronger smell than ours); head into the crowded shops where you can find all of the activities and products of Asia. There the Russian watchman plays with coy Tatar women. There ten natives, with their copper plaques across their chests, drag a struggling soldier by the collar. Further is the musketeer, sometimes in a Tatar hat, and a Persian stone layer in a soldier’s greatcoat, who have served their time in the Caucasus without any fault, - and this includes already quite a few. A civilian official in a tailcoat speaks in secrecy to an Armenian merchant: about what? – it’s not of affairs; and his comrade picked up from the same shop a young housekeeper, and in a nearby dukkan,9 wide open, similar to an Orthodox “kabak,”10 Allah does Allah does verdi and yakshi-yol with it, which means: “God gave it (wine) to us!”11 – “Good luck to it on its way down your throat!” You ask them the reason behind this friendship and in the end the drunken orderly staggers and falls to the feet of the tanned son of Asia, who does keif12 under the July Georgian sun, in the type of spot where you could bake an egg without any fire. Such is Tiflis.
In Tiflis there are also hot sulfuric baths, or banya, where Asians and Russian with Asiatic tastes feast, and all around beyond Tiflis the mountains rise up, barren and naked, which to curious geologists show their ribs in a systematic order of layers. The center of a huge region, which Russia carries under its heart in its gigantic body, until the future time when it is released it from the burden, until the era when there is education and development in Georgia, now known today as Tiflis, despite these baths, is nothing but a provincial city with shades of the local region. The former capital of the Georgian kingdom, which for 35 years you would not dare stick your nose into in fear of a Lezgin lasso, kinzhal or bullets. The former capital, where all the bashi,13 all the first ranking dignitaries, would stoop down to eat from the bazar, sometimes with debts to their villages which were ruled by their Lezgin friends, sometimes in debt, on their word of honor, which however, did not even exist in Georgia at that time but was adopted from the Persians, and more often than not instead of a pishkesh, a “little gift”, in other words, a bribe. Now this capital is as safe and well feed as one could only wish for in Asia, but is still unbearable in the summer due to the heat for any respectable person who is prone to sweat.
Paris of the Caucasus
The long-suffering frontier city of Tiflis has been invaded many times. Persians, Arabs, Mongols, Turks, and Lezgins14 have all looted the city. There were many times that all that remained of Tiflis were ruins, but its favorable strategic position attracted people to return to it, and the city was again rebuilt only for it to be ruined again. The last pogrom15 Tiflis experienced was in 1795, during the invasion by the Persian Shah Aga-Magomed-Khan. The spiteful, inhuman old man dyed the River Kura red with Christian blood and left the city completely empty. By the time the bloodthirsty enemy had departed only 60 families remained in Tiflis. The city existed in a sad state for a long time.
On 26th of November 1789, Tiflis became the permanent residence the Russian 17th Chasseur Regiment (an immediate descendant of the ancient Russian regiments, Butyrsky), now the Life-Yerevan Grenadier Regiment under command of Major-General Lazarev.
During this time Tiflis was a sad sight to see. The Georgian Tsar himself was huddled in a tiny house. The population that gradually gathered did not show much interest in their living arrangements and were content with simple dugout homes. When he was already the high commander in Georgia, General Rtishchev forbid the construction of similarly primitive dwellings, despite that they were very common among the villagers of the Trans-Caucasus.
By uniting with Russia,16 Tiflis put an end to enemy invasions. Serving as the central administration point for the entire region, the city attracted many mandatory residents, namely state servants. Quite a bit of Russian money was spent to decorate Tiflis, and now it looks like a rich provincial city. The climax of Tiflis’ occurred in the 70’s of this century. With the construction of stores and theaters, and a large population of officials, the city began to look like a small capital, with more than 100,000 residents (including military forces). The Viceroyalty was abolished, the railway was extended to Baku, and Tiflis began to dissolve. Competitors appeared – Baku17 and Batum.18 Trade and commerce turned Tiflis into a railway station with a huge depot, a grand Trans-Caucasian caravan-sarai.19 Not to mention those millions that made it into the hands of all those contractors by various means, and those other jackals in the army who received huge benefits from all those years of the Caucasus War.20 War, war! How much blood and ruin, tears and grief, how many of the noblest impulses on the field of honor!... But what a bacchanalia for these jackal-people, happily prowling in the capitals, in the headquarters, in the administrative structures, in the rear of the army and… and even in its service. In the past, the Caucasus was a gold mine for such covetous people. Those who “cashed in” as contractors on blank cheques, “cashed in” as engineers who built buildings that were actually erected for free by soldiers and local labor; commanders who “cashed in” with rations, fodder, uniforms and even weapons (the famous case of illicit gunpowder sales); “cashed in”… well, it seems, enough has been said on this. Among those who made millions, a significant portion of them lived in Tiflis. Thanks to God, the war fell silent; but the city became poorer and declined, although now it still remains the Paris of the Caucasus, twhere everyone comes to from different backwoods parts of the Caucasus to see the cream of the local community, to have fun, to visit the theater and buy new clothes.
(…)
Tiflis since the beginning of this century has not ceased to be the center of the Caucasus’ military administration. The majority of state employees in this region are military personnel, and those who wished to dedicated their children to a similar career. While civilian gymnasiums have been opened in the Caucasus, unfortunately and as strangely as it might be, no cadet corps has yet been opened. In the 20’s, the Tiflis military governor Adjutant General Sipyagin designed the structure of the corps, but found no support from the commander of the region, and the Caucasus had to wait another 15 years for the opening of a secondary level military educational institution. During this time, how many guys were placed in far off “Russian” corps at a tender age, torn from their families for many years, only to die in the north from the unusual climatic conditions! And how many Caucasian natives also because of this began service as junkers,21 without nearly any scientific training!
With the construction of the Trans-Caspian railway, Turkestan was brought closer to the Caucasus, which, undoubtedly, made it much more convenient for local servicemen to send their children to the Caucasus corps, where they could travel to on the railway and then take a steam ship, compared to riding a horse a thousand verstas22 to Orenburg,23 where the 2nd corps was opened specifically for Turkestantsy.24
“Закавказья”, or “Over the Caucasus”. Russians used a similar trans dichotomy to mountain regions as the ancient Greeks to refer to the region on the far side of a mountain range. Trans-Caucasus today means South Caucasus
A Caucasian weapon, like a long dagger or a short sword. The word is originally Persian
“винегрет”
A type of Caucasian single story home, akin to a shack or a dug out
A full body robe covering that is often worn in conservative Muslim countries today. Many Orthodox countries historically had similar custom pertaining to women’s dress as Muslim ones
Italian, meaning free port, where there are no duties on exports or imports
Small ethnicity local to southern Dagestan and northeast of Georgia
A public square, often hosting markets and shops
A small Turkish-style shop
A tavern
Original says “проделывает с ним Аллах-верды и якши-йоль, что значит: «Бог дал нам его (вино)!»”
Turkish custom of relaxing with coffee after a meal
Turkic word for “chiefs”
Small ethnic group living in Dagestan and Azerbaijan. North Caucasian highlanders would regularly cross the mountains and raid Georgia
Organized looting and attacks on a civilian population. The term usually refers to anti-Jewish mob violence during the late Russian Empire
“Тифлис с присоединением к России”. Russians often write “united” (присоеденение) instead of conquered when speaking about the territorial formation of the empire, but in the case of Georgia this phase is mostly accurate
Today capital of Azerbaijan
Georgia’s main port city on the Black Sea
A caravan-sarai is a rest house for traveling caravans. Similar to a hostel
From Georgia’s unification with the Russian Empire until 1864, Russia struggled to subdue the peoples of the North Caucasus, primarily the Chechens, Dagestanis and Circassians
Rank in the Russian, intermediate between unter and ober officers
Old Russian unit of measurement. 1 versta = 1.0668 km / 3,500 ft
The main Russian city in Europe facing Central Asia
Russians based in Turkestan (also known as Central Asia)
Great piece. Thank you for writing!