The Kingdom of Georgia: Notes of travel in a land of women, wine, and song

by John Oliver Wardrop

During the wars with Kasi-mullah and Shamil, it became indispensable to effect great improvements, and, at length, about five-and-twenty years ago, under the governorship of Prince Bariatinskii, the road was finished, and is now one of the finest in the world, besides being one of the highest—the Simplon is only 6147 feet above sea-level, while the Dariel road is nearly 2000 feet higher. The total distance from Tiflis to Vladikavkaz is 126 miles, and the distance can be done comfortably in less than twenty hours. During the summer 1150 horses are kept in readiness at the stations, in the winter the number is reduced by about 300. Two stage coaches start from each end every day, but as they run during the night also, much of the beauty of the scenery is lost by those who avail themselves of this mode of conveyance; besides, it is difficult to get an outside seat unless you book it a long time in advance. It is far better to travel by troïka, as you are then free to stop when you like and as long as you like, and you get an uninterrupted view of the country through which you pass.

About the middle of June, having previously obtained a formidable-looking document by which Alexander Alexandrovich, Autocrat of all the Russias, commanded all postmasters to supply me with horses immediately on demand, I set out on my journey over the frosty Caucasus, accompanied by a young Russian friend. The troïka had been ordered for four a.m., but, of course, it did not turn up till half-past five. For the information of those who have never been in Russia, I may say that a troïka is a team of three horses harnessed abreast in a vehicle of unique construction called a teliezhka. The form of the cart is like a longitudinal section of a beer barrel; it is large enough to contain an ordinary travelling trunk; it is of wood, has neither sides nor springs, and there are four wheels; the seat is made by slipping a piece of rope through a couple of rings on either side, and laying your cloak and a pillow on the rope; the driver sits on the front edge of the cart; the whole affair is invariably in the last stage of decay. The shafts are so long that the horses cannot kick the bottom out of the thing, and the horse in the centre has his head swung up in a wooden frame. The driver is always asleep or drunk, or both, but he never lets the reins fall, and at regular intervals mechanically applies the whip to his steeds; he only wakes up when there is a shaky bridge to cross, and, regardless of the notice “Walking pace!”, first crosses himself and commends his soul to the saints, then gallops over the creaking structure at racing speed.

As we clattered down the steep rocky streets which lead to the Boulevard, I had not much time to look round; all my attention was necessary to preserve myself from falling out of the cart, the jolting was terrible. However, by the time we had got to the outskirts of the town the road became much smoother; the driver got down and released the clappers of the bells above the middle horse’s head, and we rattled along merrily to the tune of eight miles an hour. Just outside the city an imposing cruciform monument marks the spot where the late Tsar’s carriage was overturned without injuring his Majesty. Passing the Sakartvelo Gardens, where the good people of Tiflis often dine in vine-covered bowers by the river-side, we cross the Vera, an important tributary of the Kura, and then enter a broad plain which continues for many miles to the westward.

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. Some of these colonies were founded in order to set before the native peasantry examples of good agriculture and farm management, but this worthy object has not been attained, and the Teutons are looked upon with feelings generally of indifference, sometimes of positive ill-will. High on the hills behind the colony stands the white monastery of St. Antony, a favourite place for picnics. In the cliffs on the left of our road are numerous holes, variously conjectured to be troglodyte dwellings (like those at Uphlis Tsikhe), rock tombs, places of refuge in time of war, provision stores, &c. Before us we see the road winding up between the hills in a northerly direction, and after crossing the Transcaucasian railway and then the Kura we arrive at the post-house of Mtzkhet, not far from the village of that name.

Mtzkhet, if we are to believe local traditions, is one of the oldest cities on earth, for the story goes that it was founded by a great-grandson of the patriarch Noah. Be that as it may, there are unmistakable signs that a Greek or Roman town existed here at a remote date, and antiquaries generally agree in identifying Mtzkhet with the Acrostopolis of the Romans, the headquarters of Pompey after he had defeated Mithridates and subdued Iberia and Albania. No better spot could have been chosen, for its position at the junction of the Aragva and the Kura commands the two great roads of the country and makes it the key of Transcaucasia. Mtzkhet, the ancient capital of Georgia, was always a place of much importance in the annals of the kingdom; now it is a wretched village of some hundreds of inhabitants. It was here that St. Nina began her work of converting the nation, and we propose to give a brief account of the legends relating to this event.

Tradition says that at the beginning of our era there lived in Mtzkhet a wealthy Jew named Eleazar, who frequently made journeys to Jerusalem on business. On the occasion of one of these visits he became possessed of the tunic of our Lord, which he brought home with him as a present to his daughter. She, expecting a valuable gift, ran out to meet him, and with an angry expression snatched from his hands the precious relic, of which she little knew the worth; she fell dead on the spot, but no force could take the garment from her hands, so it was buried with her, and from her grave there soon grew up a tall cedar, from the bark of which oozed a fragrant myrrh, which healed the sick. Now about three centuries later, that is in the third century of our era, St. Nina was born in Cappadocia. When she was twelve years of age her parents proceeded to Jerusalem, and gave themselves up to religious work, leaving the maiden under the care of a devout old woman, who taught her to read the Scriptures. Nina was very anxious to learn what had become of Christ’s tunic, and said to her teacher, “Tell me, I pray thee, where is that earthly purple of the Son of God now kept?” To which the venerable matron replied that it had been taken to a heathen land called Iveria, far away to the northward, and that it lay buried there in the city of Mtzkhet. One night the Blessed Virgin appeared to the damsel in a dream, and said to her, “Go to the Iverian land, preach the Gospel of the Lord Jesus, and He will reward thee. I will be thy guard and guide,” and with these words she handed to her a cross made of vine branches. When Nina awoke and saw in her hands the wondrous cross she wept for joy, and after reverently kissing the holy gift she bound the two loose sticks together with her own long hair. This cross has always been the palladium of Georgia, and is still preserved in the Sion Cathedral at Tiflis. Now it so happened that at this time seven-and-thirty maidens, fleeing from the persecutions of Diocletian, left Jerusalem to spread the good tidings in Armenia; St. Nina went with them as far as Vashgarabada, and then pursued her journey alone. As she was entering the city of Mtzkhet, the king of Georgia, Marian, with all his people, went out to a hill in the neighbourhood to offer human sacrifices to idols, but in answer to her prayer a mighty storm arose and destroyed the images. She took up her abode in a cell in the king’s garden, and soon became well-known as a healer of the sick. At length the queen fell ill, and St. Nina, having made her whole in the name of Jesus, converted the Georgian court to Christianity, and in 314 A.D. baptized all the people of the city. Over the spot in the royal garden where her cell had been, the king built the Samtavr church, which still exists, and lies to the left of the post-road. It was then revealed to St. Nina that the tunic, the object of her search, lay buried under a cedar in the middle of the town; the tree was cut down and the robe was found in the hands of the dead girl. On the spot where the cedar stood King Marian built, in 328, the Cathedral of the Twelve Apostles; the cedar was replaced by a column, and this column is said to drip myrrh occasionally, even in these degenerate days of ours. The sacred garment was preserved in the cathedral until the seventeenth century, when Shah Abbas sent it as a present to the Tsar of Russia, Mikhail Fedorovich. It was solemnly deposited in the Cathedral of the Assumption at Moscow, where I saw it last autumn.

Having evangelized Kartli, St. Nina proceeded to Kakheti, where she met with the same success, and died at Bodbé, near Signakh; her tomb is in a monastery overlooking one of the finest landscapes in all Kakheti.

The Cathedral of the Twelve Apostles is the chief place of interest in Mtzkhet. The original church was of wood, but in 378 it was replaced by a stone edifice, which stood until the invasion of Tamerlane. The existing church was built in the fifteenth century. A stone wall, with ruined towers, encloses a rectangular piece of ground, in which stands the cathedral, a fine building about seventy paces long by twenty-five paces broad. It is in the Byzantine style, and the interior is divided into three parts by two rows of columns. Here lie buried the last kings of Georgia and their families, the patriarchs of the church, and other illustrious persons.

The post-house at Mtzkhet was a pleasant surprise to me, but I found nearly all the stations on this road equally comfortable; in many of them there are bed-rooms, a dining-room, a ladies’ room, and one can get white bread and European food. Those who have travelled on post-roads in Russia will readily understand my surprise.

Leaving Mtzkhet, our road follows the Aragva along a smooth valley between forest-clad hills; the scenery reminded me very much of some of the dales of Thelemarken in Norway. The soil is rich and well cultivated, and here, as elsewhere, we saw a whole herd of oxen dragging one wooden plough. This valley is one of the most feverish places on the whole road, and the people attribute this to a yellow weed (Carlina arcaulis), of which there is a great abundance; strange to say, other places where the plant flourishes have the same unpleasant reputation for unhealthiness, the explanation is doubtless to be found in the fact that this weed grows best in a damp soil.