Kutaisi According To The Memories Of Niko Nikoladze

Abstract

Memories of the Georgian public man and thinker, publicist and critic Niko Nikoladze kept lots of interesting notes about Kutaisi. Memoirist depicts the history of the city since 1820 when the Kingdom of Imereti stopped its existence and the Russian government took control over it, as for the king of Imereti Solomon II was forced to exile in Turkey.

Niko Nikoladze gives important notes about the population of the city. According to him, the city residents were the locals, foreigners and Imeretian noble people. They resided in different parts of the city. For instance, the locals used to live in Gora, Jews and catholic people resided on the left part of a bank of the river, apart from them, along the forest there was the Armenian community. All of them were the owners of the small lands and had no pheasants. They made a living by themselves: some of them had mills, some of them followed silk manufacturing, some of them had vineyards and cultivated corn. The main job of foreigners was trade. Kings of Imereti had settled them in this region for that very reason. Generally, most of Kutaisi residents were well of families with good living conditions.

According to Niko Nikoladze, Georgians used to consider trading as a shameful job. In his words” no matter how poor was the local man he wouldn’t consider trading”. In this respect, the grandfather of the writer –Mamuka Nikoladze was a special exception, he was the first Georgian merchant. The job was followed by his sons, father, and uncle of Niko Nikoladze.

Generally, the memories of Niko Nikoladze gives us a clear view about the I half of the XIX century Kutaisi, about its geography, lifestyle, studying conditions – Kutaisi gymnasium, which was the school of Georgian students, including writers and famous public men.