Adjara of the Last Quarter of the XIX Century Dimitri Bakradze According to the Trip

Abstract

Well-known scientist Dimitri Bakradze in his work “Archaeological Journey in Guria and Adjara” describes in great detail the historical past of Guria and Adjara, especially Adjara in the last quarter of the XIX century.

In 1873 he applied to the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg with a request to study the Caucasus as a region with historical and ethnographic features at the crossroads of Europe and Asia and indeed in 1874 Dimitri Bakradze traveled to Adjara with the permission and support of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and described it, where a detailed description of Batumi as the central city of Lazistan and its constituencies is given, the object of which we consider because in this case the description work is performed not by an ordinary traveler, but by Dimitri Bakradze, a historian, archaeologist, and ethnographer with specific education, a membercorrespondent of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. The researcher will study in detail the land and navigation roads, bridges, natural cover, forms of forest use in Adjara, tell us about the rules of taking blood left in Adjara, Christian customs, etc. It can be said that Dimitri Bakradze does not miss even a small detail of the life of Adjara people during his trip, but it can be emphasized that he pays special attention to the roads in the region, which in our opinion is purposefully implemented.