Two hundred years after the publication of a French book that captured life in the Caucasus in the early 1800s, the work has been published in the Georgian language for the first time.
Journey Through Southern Russia was produced by Jacques Francois Gamba (1763-1833), who was the first French consul in Georgia — then part of the Russian Empire.
A view of the Sukhumi Fortress in Abkhazia in the early 1800s. The landmark is now ruins.
The traveler and merchant first published his accounts of his journeys through Georgia and the Caucasus in France in 1824–1826, in two volumes accompanied by an album of maps and illustrations.
The sketches inside the album are not credited but most are believed to have been made by the French-Russian explorer-artist Jean-Marie Chopin.
A sketch of the Surami Fortress, near Gori.
The Surami fortress seen in 2004.
Gamba made two trips to the Russian empire in the early 1800s, largely to explore potential trading opportunities for Paris.
“Gamba is not just a traveler who passed through here,” Sulkhan Saladze, the publisher of the Georgian-language version of the Frenchman’s masterpiece, told RFE/RL’s Georgian Service at the book’s September 24 launch. “He stayed in Tbilisi for a long time — that enabled this view of the vibrant everyday life of the city, which had not changed since the days of [18th century monarch] Heraclius II.”
Women depicted dancing in Tbilisi.
“His journey [to the Caucasus] reflects the kinds of interests France had here at the time, and what the arrival of French capital in Tbilisi might have led to if everything had gone as the French had envisaged,” Saladze says.
“But, during Gamba’s diplomatic mission, the Russian Empire was already becoming dominant here, they were the principal player and blocked everything,” the publisher notes.
A grape seller from the Mingrelia Region.
Gamba’s mission was to describe the region’s economic life and the prospects for developing trade. But his reports explored beyond those themes to relay history and culture of the region to his French audience, and Tbilisi’s potential future .
“When trade here develops to its full potential, [Uzbeks] coming from Samarkand, Tibet, and the borders of China, will meet Hindu merchants from Lahore and Gujarat in Tbilisi’s markets.”
A view over Tbilisi from the southern hills of the city showing the Narikala Fortress (left) and the Kura River.
A view over Tbilisi as it looked in 2021.
“At times merchants from Paris, couriers from St. Petersburg, traders from Constantinople, Englishmen from Calcutta and Madras, and finally Armenians from Smyrna and Yazd, and Uzbeks from Bukhara, all arrive in Tbilisi at the same time,” Gamba observed. “Therefore this city may be regarded as a key point between Europe and Asia.”
Gamba passed away in Tbilisi in 1833 but his burial place is unknown.
Amos Chapple and Sindre Langmoen contributed to this report
