Tiflis is situated on the banks of the Kura, in a valley surrounded by stony mountains. They shield it on all sides from the winds, and, turned burning hot by the sun, do not so much heat as boil the motionless air. That is the cause of the unbearable heat that reigns in Tiflis, even though the city is situated only at just under forty-one degrees latitude. Its very name (
The greater part of the city is built in the Asiatic way: low houses, flat roofs. In the northern part houses of European architecture rise, and around them regular squares are beginning to form. The market is divided into several rows; the shops are filled with Turkish and Persian goods, rather cheap, if you take into account the universally high prices. Tiflis weapons are highly valued everywhere in the East. Count Samoilov and V., reputed to be mighty men here, used to try out their new swords by cutting a sheep in two or chopping off a bull’s head at one stroke.42
Armenians make up the main part of the population of Tiflis: in 1825 there were as many as 2,500 families. During the present wars their number has increased still more. Georgian families amount to 1,500. Russians do not consider themselves local residents. The military, bound by duty, live in Georgia because they have been ordered to. Young titular councilors come here in pursuit of the much-desired rank of assessor.43 Both the former and the latter look upon Georgia as exile.
The Tiflis climate is said to be unhealthy. The local fevers are terrible; they are treated with mercury, the use of which is harmless because of the heat. Doctors feed it to their patients quite shamelessly. General Sipyagin died, they say, because his personal physician, who came with him from Petersburg, was frightened of the dose suggested by the local doctors and did not give it to the sick man.44 The local fevers resemble those of the Crimea and Moldavia and are treated in the same way.
The inhabitants drink the water of the Kura, cloudy but pleasant. The water of all the springs and wells has a strong taste of sulfur. However, wine here is in such general use that a lack of water would go unnoticed.
I was astonished by the low value of money in Tiflis. Having taken a cab through two streets and let it go after half an hour, I had to pay the cabbie two silver roubles. I thought at first that he wanted to profit from a visitor’s ignorance; but I was told that that was indeed the price. Everything else is correspondingly expensive.
We went to the German colony and had dinner there. We drank the beer they make, of a very unpleasant taste, and paid very dearly for a very bad meal. In my inn the food was just as expensive and bad. General Strekalov, a well-known gastronome, once invited me to dinner; unfortunately, the dishes were served according to rank and there were English officers with general’s epaulettes at the table.45 The servants bypassed me so assiduously that I got up from the table hungry. Devil take the Tiflis gastronome!
I waited impatiently for my fate to be decided. At last I received a note from Raevsky. He wrote that I should make haste to Kars, because in a few days the troops were to go further on. I left the next day.
I went on horseback, changing horses at the Cossack outposts. The earth around me was scorched by the heat. From a distance the Georgian villages looked to me like beautiful gardens, but, on riding up to them, I saw a few poor saklias overshaded by dusty poplars. The sun went down, but the air was still stifling:
Torrid nights!
Foreign stars!…
The moon shone; all was still; only the trot of my horse rang out in the night’s silence. I rode for a long time without meeting any signs of habitation. At last I saw a solitary saklia. I started knocking at the door. The owner came out. I asked for water, first in Russian, then in Tatar. He did not understand me. Amazing nonchalance! Twenty miles from Tiflis and on the road to Persia and Turkey, he did not know a word of Russian or of Tatar.
Having spent the night at a Cossack outpost, I headed further on at dawn. The road went through mountains and forests. I met some traveling Tatars; there were several women among them. They were on horseback, wrapped in chadras; all you could see were their eyes and heels.
I started going up Bezobdal, the mountain that separates Georgia from ancient Armenia. A wide road, overshaded by trees, winds around the mountain. On the summit of Bezobdal I rode through a small gorge, apparently called the Wolf Gate, and found myself on the natural border of Georgia. Before me were new mountains, a new horizon; below me spread fertile green wheatfields. I looked back once more at scorched Georgia and started down the gently sloping mountain to the fresh plains of Armenia. With indescribable pleasure I noticed that the heat suddenly became less intense: the climate was different.
