TBILISI, THE ANCIENT CITY OF THE CAUCASUS
Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, is a historical city founded by King Vakhtang Gorgasali in the 5th century at the foot of Trialeti Mountain, according to legends. It was used as the Caucasus regional administrative center during the Russian administration between 1801 and 1917.
Bonus: It was the capital of the very short-lived Transcaucasian Democratic Federal Republic in 1918, the Democratic Republic of Georgia from 1918 to 1921, the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1921 to 1991, and the Transcaucasian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic from 1922 to 1936.
While visiting Tbilisi, which has a magnificent European Old Town view, the mixture of Medieval, classical and Soviet architectures may fascinate your soul. Eastern Orthodox Christian culture dominates the city, which has hosted people from various cultures, ethnicities and religions throughout history. The city, which has been destroyed and rebuilt 29 times to date, is an ancient crossroads between Asia and Europe. It is definitely a place worth seeing with its narrow winding streets, magnificent religious buildings, and wooden houses with old, distorted gardens and bay windows.
According to legend, Tbilisi was a place covered with forests in the 5th century BC. One day, King Vahtang Gorgasal goes hunting. He sends his trained hawk after a pheasant. Time passes; neither hawk nor pheasant is in sight. They start looking for them and soon find them both in natural hot water. The king likes the place very much and orders to build a city. The city is called Tbilisi because of the tbili (warm) water found there.
The river that divides the city is called “Kur” by Azerbaijanis, “Mtkvari” by Georgians, and “Kura” by Turkish. It is the 19th century that his name was registered in this way around the world. The fact that Russian and Western cartographers named the name “Kura” on the maps they made in the 19th century has a great impact. Westerners saw this river as the border between Europe and Asia. It took its name from Cyrus the Great (590–529 BC), the founder of the Persian Empire. Kyros is the Greekized version of the Persian Kurash (Sun-like).
HISTORY OF TBILISI
Archaeological research shows that Tbilisi was a settlement in the 4th century BC. However, written sources show that the first settlement in Tbilisi took place in the second half of the 4th century, and a castle was built during the reign of King Varaz-Bakur. At the end of the same century, Iranians captured the castle. In the mid-5th century, the king of Kartli took the castle back.
King Vakhtang Gorgasa, who really built Tbilisi, died before he could move the capital from Mtskheta to Tbilisi. Vahteng Gorgasal’s successor, King Ucarmeli Dachi I (early 6th century), moved the capital from Mtskheta to Tbilisi. However, at that time, Tbilisi was not the capital of the united Georgian state, but only of Eastern Georgia, the kingdom called Kartli. Kolkheti, covering western Georgia, was a separate state. During the reign of Dachi I, the castle construction of the city was completed, and the new borders of the city emerged.
In the 6th century, it began to gain strategic importance on the trade and transportation routes connecting to Europe. Tbilisi was not only the strategically important capital of Kartli, but also one of the most important cities of the entire Caucasus, as it had a central location between Europe and Asia. That’s why the city was caught in the middle of the power struggle between Byzantium, Iran, Arabs, and Seljuks. The cultural development of Tbilisi was also shaped by this situation. The city changed hands between different powers between the second half of the 6th century and the end of the 10th century.
In 853, the Arab commander Buga Turk invaded the city to establish a caliphate, and Arab rule lasted until 1050. In 1068, this time the Great Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan conquered the city. King David the Founder entered the city of Tbilisi in 1122 and established definitive sovereignty. The administrative center of the United Georgian state was moved from Kutaisi to Tbilisi and Tbilisi became the capital of Georgia.
Georgia experienced its golden age in the 12th-13th centuries. In the 19th century, Tbilisi showed great development and the population of the city reached 80,000. The city has become a center of culture and literature. During the reign of Queen Tamara (also called King Tamar due to her strength), the famous poet Shota Rustaveli continued his work in Tbilisi and most likely wrote his famous epic called The Knight in the Panther’s Skin here. This period is referred to as Georgia’s Renaissance or Golden Age.
Unfortunately, Tbilisi’s “Golden Age” did not last even a century. In 1236, after the Mongol invasion, Georgia came under Mongol rule. Tbilisi remained under Mongol influence both politically and culturally for the next century. The Mongols were expelled from the country in the 1320s. However, the city faced a new destruction in 1366. From the 14th century to the end of the 18th century, Tiflis was plundered by Tamerlane, Cihan Shah, Uzun Hasan and Agha Muhammed Khan.
TBILISI IN OTTOMAN TIME
Tbilisi was conquered on 24 August 1578 by the Turkish army, which continued its forward operations after winning the Battle of Çıldır in 1578. Tbilisi Province was established by the Ottoman Empire immediately after the conquest, but its administrative sharing was made with Iran after the Ferhat Pasha Treaty in 1590. According to the regulations, four sanjaks were established: Gori, Tumanis, Lori and Tbilisi, covering the eastern and western Kartli countries. There were 36 villages in Gori sanjak, 16 villages in Tbilisi sanjak, 34 villages in Tumanis sanjak and 20 villages in Lori sanjak.
Shah Abbas I modernized his army in 1603, and with the renewed attacks, Tbilisi constantly changed hands between Iran and the Ottoman Empire. However, Tbilisi, which was annexed to the Ottoman Empire again in 1632, was reorganized as a state, and Rostom Bey, who had converted to Islam, was appointed as the governor of the city.
The Safavid administration was re-established in the Tbilisi region in 1711, when the lords of the Kartli country pledged their allegiance to Iran. XVII. Taking advantage of the weakening of the Safavid State at the beginning of the century, Russia began to capture the western shores of the Caspian Sea (Derbent and Baku) in the summer of 1723. For this reason, the Ottoman Empire, seeing the eastern borders of the state in danger, took action and sent forces to the region. The Ottoman army conquered Tbilisi and Gori, the major cities of the Kartli country, on July 9, 1723. The region was given as a homeland and a hearth to Ibrahim, the son of Kartli Bey Vahtang, who was converted. According to the treaty signed between Russia and the Ottoman Empire in Istanbul in 1724, Kartli and Kolkheti regions, and therefore Tbilisi, joined the Ottoman administration. Nadir Shah, who seized power in Iran in 1732, captured the city of Tbilisi without a fight, right at the beginning of the wars he started against the Ottomans. In this way, Ottoman rule in Tbilisi came to an end once and for all.
RUSSIAN DOMINATION
Russian domination began in Tbilisi as a result of Kartli King Erekle 2nd, who was fed up with Iranian pressure, and asked for help from Russia against Iran. In 1801, Russia abolished the Kartli and Kolkheti Kingdoms and made Tbilisi the administrative center. At the beginning of the 19th century, European-style buildings, new roads and rail transportation routes began to be built. Tbilisi, Batumi, Poti, Baku and Yerevan were the most important cities of Transcaucasia under Russian rule. In the 1850s, Tbilisi became a trade and cultural center again.
After the 1917 Revolution, Tbilisi became the capital of the Transcaucasian Federation and then the independent Democratic Republic of Georgia. The city, which was the capital of the Transcaucasian Federation formed by Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan for a very short time in 1918, became the capital of independent Georgia between 1918 and 1921.
On February 25, 1921, the Red Army occupied the city, and then the city became the capital of the Transcaucasian Federated Soviet Republic. It became the capital of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1936, and this period lasted until 1991. Large-scale demonstrations were held in Tbilisi against the Moscow administration in 1956, 1978 and 1989. The 1956 and 1989 demonstrations were bloodily suppressed by the Moscow administration.
RE-INDEPENDENT GEORGIA
A Georgian artist, emphasizing the historical richness of the country, said, “Georgia is trying to preserve its ancient richness. This place is truly full of history. So much so that sometimes even a stone you see on the road can tell more than pages full of books.”
After the USSR began its disintegration process, a strong independence movement started in Georgia in 1990. During this process, the Georgian-USSR Treaty of 1921 and the 1922 Union Treaty were declared invalid by the Georgian Supreme Soviet, and a referendum was held at the Georgian level on March 31, 1991, and the authority for independence was obtained. On April 28, 1991, the Georgian Parliament declared Georgia’s independence.