No part of Russia suffered so much from fire and sword during the revolution of 1905–6 as the Caucasus, and many revolting stories are told of the barbarities and horrors committed on both sides. But there is no use in reviving those disagreeable things. The terrible prison in the citadel that crowns a hill overlooking the city of Tiflis is still crowded with patriots whose zeal outran their judgment, and whose ideas of civil liberty are somewhat broader and more radical than we are accustomed to concede.
A Georgian Peasant
A Georgian gentleman and wife
Russian anarchists who throw bombs at their rulers and blow up barracks filled with sleeping soldiers in the name of God and liberty are not quite sane and are entitled to no sympathy. That is the most charitable way to regard the awful crimes that have been committed in the name of patriotism and liberty. The leaders of the insurrection here look upon the French revolution as sacred history, and the province of the Caucasus has been the scene of many similar occurrences.
The land troubles in Ireland have not been a circumstance to those that have occurred there, and the same fanatical spirit has been carried into education and religion as well as into business. The Georgian church is a branch of the orthodox Greek, with some minor and technical differences in theology and ritual. I have never been able to learn just what they are, and, indeed, no one seems to know, but the Georgians refuse to commune with the Russians and would burn the Russian churches and massacre their priests if they could accomplish anything thereby. They are ultra fanatical in racial prejudice.
The Russians are not altogether blameless for this terrible situation, because they have attempted to force the Russian ritual and Russian priests upon unwilling parishes in many places, and have insisted that the Russian language instead of the Georgian language shall be used in the schools. Therefore the children are growing up in ignorance. No Georgian parent will allow his children to attend a school where the Russian language is taught. He would probably suffer ostracism, if not a worse punishment, if he did.
The railway from the Black Sea enters the mountains about 150 miles from Batoum and climbs up very slowly with two locomotives over a solid track between timber-crowned hills. There are forests of locust trees white with blossoms, whose perfume fills the air. The locust seems to be popular and is not only planted around every station on the railway but around all the dwelling houses, farm houses and the cottages in the villages along the way. The farm houses look like timber claims in our Western states, and all the trees are locusts. There are a good many orchards and the quince and apple trees were in bloom when we made our journey. They seem to be well trimmed and cared for. The rocks along the cañons are decorated with rhododendrons and yellow honeysuckles, which are in blossom in April, and you can fancy how beautiful a railway right of way can be where the walls are covered with such foliage on both sides. But the scenery is not so wild as I expected from the printed descriptions I had read.
We crossed the divide through a long tunnel at an elevation of 3,027 feet and dropped down rapidly into a lovely, wide, level valley, every acre of which is covered to-day with a carpet of living green. The city of Tiflis is 1,355 feet above the sea, about the same latitude as Rome, and has an annual rainfall of nineteen inches, which is sufficient to raise all kinds of staples of the temperate zone without irrigation. Notwithstanding the restless and turbulent disposition of the Georgian and other races who make up the population, the farming element seem to be industrious and prosperous, and although their houses and the manner in which they live, their tools and implements would not be tolerated by an American farmer, their standards of comfort and luxury are not high; they would be, no doubt, contented if they had political liberty and were not so constantly reminded that they are the subjects no longer of a Georgian king, but of a Russian czar. If the government would do something for them to promote their material interests they might be more contented, but the Russian official regards the Georgians as an undisciplined and rebellious race, and as long as such relations continue there cannot be much improvement.