A Visit to Transcaucasus by Ludwig Richard Conradi

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · May 17, 1906

A Visit to Transcaucasus

By Ludwig Richard Conradi

L. R. CONRADI

The evening of October 24, I left Alexandrodar, going to the station to take the train for Tiflis, Transcaucasus. It was agreed that the other laborers should visit the various churches easy of access, while I was to visit Tiflis. About twelve years ago I made the trip to that city, crossing the range from Wladikawkas by stage. At that time the railway via the Caspian Sea and Baku had not been built. The distance by rail from Alexandrodar to Tiflis is nine hundred and twenty-five miles, and it requires forty-six hours to make that trip on the cars. As I passed through the German colony Chassaw-jurt, where we have lately raised up a church, I did not dream that a few days later at that very place the same train I was riding on would be held up by Tartar brigands from the mountains, and the baggage and mail carried off, while twelve people would be murdered and a large number wounded, and all of the passengers robbed. For the first time I passed along the shores of the Caspian Sea, the greatest inland sea in the world. I tried to get some snap-shot kodak pictures along the way, but was hindered by the police, as everything was under martial law; however, I succeeded in getting one picture showing a policeman in his uniform.

Upon my arrival at Tiflis on the night of the twenty-sixth, I was met at the station by both the Brethren Pampaian. The doctor had lately moved to Etechmiansin, near Erevan, the headquarters of the Armenian Church, where their catholicos, who is chosen by the whole nation, dwells, but this choice must be confirmed by the Russian czar before the catholicos dare take his seat. Here is also their leading educational seminary, where students from India, Turkey, Russia, etc., are trained for the priesthood. This has been a strong Armenian center since 1441. About twenty-five miles south of Erevan towers Mt. Ararat, 15,160 feet high, and beyond that is Little Ararat, as shown in the picture. Ararat is on the borders of Turkey, Russia, and Persia; thus to-day in the very shade of the mountains where the ark rested we have a laborer proclaiming present truth.

I found Tiflis in an uproar. A few days previously to my arrival the mayor of the city had given permission for a large meeting of the citizens to be held, in which the present situation of Russia was discussed by many very intelligent and enlightened people of the neighborhood; but when this peaceful meeting closed, the Cossacks, who were guarding the exits to the building, began to fire into the defenseless crowd as they came out. One could still see the marks of the bullets. Blood streamed down the steps of the building. The corpses were buried by the government; and it was possible for but one man (he was a general) to secure the dead body of a relative or friend. Although the mayor had granted the permission, yet the government had sent the Cossacks. Of course the natural outcome of such an outrage would be an insurrection and the explosion of a lot of hand grenades.

At noon, next day after my arrival, we learned that the trains in the Transcaucasus district had also stopped running. We spent several evenings with a German family where the Brethren Pampaian were stopping. They had awakened some interest in the truth here, and so we had a Bible study at the house, while the soldiers were riding up and down the street and heavily guarding the station and all public buildings. Sabbath we went to see some interested readers of our literature, but we found a number of the streets closed by the soldiers. Some officers had been killed, and an investigation was in progress.

There being no opportunity for me to leave by train, I decided to secure passage over the mountain pass to Wladikawkas with the mail-couch. I would exchange a thirty-six hours' ride on the railway for a trip taking forty-eight hours by stage. By the time we got back near the railway station, we found that section of the city also closed by soldiers. Just then the station-master came up, and called to an official, who permitted us all to pass accompanied by armed soldiers. From a boarding-house right across from ours, shots had been fired, and several policemen had been killed, and the soldiers had shot several innocent persons, who, from curiosity, had looked out of their windows. The military and police officials were investigating whence the shots had come.

We found all the houses in that district, including our own boarding-house, closed; so we returned to the family where our brethren stopped, and glad indeed we were that evening to secure my luggage from the boarding-house. We spent the night with the German family and the Brethren Pampaian.

During our stay we had had ample time to counsel over the work. It was decided that while the doctor would continue work among the Armenians at Erevan, his brother, the nurse, had better go to Bulgaria and work among the Armenians there. His wife's home is there, and she had gone to that country some weeks before. Although we have still a worker in this part of the German Union District, yet we found that there was an urgent demand for a German Russian worker to labor in this field, where, as stated before, I found about fifty Sabbath-keepers. There are nearly five millions of people here, and we have about eight Sabbath-keepers at Tasehkent in Asiatic Turkestan. There are also some of our brethren in the Russian army in Manchuria; we have learned positively that five of these were able to have the Sabbath free, and so far as we have been able to ascertain, none of the Sabbath-keepers in the army were even wounded. Thus the Lord is caring for his truth, and it is extending from the north to the south and from the west into eastern Asia, where Russian soldiers have been sowing the good seeds of the kingdom, and some have been converted.

Early on Sunday, the twenty-ninth, having previously secured a second-class ticket, we started on the stage-coach trip across the mountains. I was surprised to find that I was the only through-second-class passenger (there were no first-class passengers at all). The second-class passengers ride on the front seat under cover, although the body is not very well protected, while those going first-class ride inside, where they can be quite comfortable.

In Tiflis the weather was rather hot, yet; for the first twenty miles we followed the railroad toward Batum, but we saw no trains of any kind. Then we turned into the mountains toward Mlety, where we stopped for the night in a pouring rain, after having made about seventy miles during a ride of fifteen hours. We were at an elevation of about five thousand feet.

By daylight next morning we were again on the way; we crossed a mountain stream, and climbed the mountainside by a road making eighteen sharp turns, when we reached Gudaur, nine miles from our last stopping place, and twenty-three hundred feet higher. About five hundred and seventy-five feet higher up we had to pass under strong snow-sheds, built to protect the road against snowslides. As we ascended, we got into a blinding snow-storm. It soon

became so cold that the conductor asked me inside with him. When we reached the summit of the pass, we were over eight thousand feet high; we then began a rapid descent, through romantic defiles, viewing here and there small villages, perched like swallows' nests among the mountains, in full sight of Mt. Kasbek, towering 16,800 feet high. Late at night we reached Wladikawkas, where we were again near the railway.