. All the Russias: travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. igned all the Tsars of Geor- THE GEORGIAN ROAD 20I gia; hither came the Vandals of Tamerlane and rased the cathe-dral, but Tsar Alexander I. of Georgia rebuilt it, and under itsaisles lie Georgias rulers and wise men. The cathedral itselfwas built originally in 328 , over the spot where Christsseamless robe, brought from Golgotha either by a Jew or bythe Centurion Longinus—the legends differ—and given byhim to his sister Sidonia, was found. She wrapped it aroundher, fel
. All the Russias: travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. igned all the Tsars of Geor- THE GEORGIAN ROAD 20I gia; hither came the Vandals of Tamerlane and rased the cathe-dral, but Tsar Alexander I. of Georgia rebuilt it, and under itsaisles lie Georgias rulers and wise men. The cathedral itselfwas built originally in 328 , over the spot where Christsseamless robe, brought from Golgotha either by a Jew or bythe Centurion Longinus—the legends differ—and given byhim to his sister Sidonia, was found. She wrapped it aroundher, fell dead, and as it could not be detached from her body,she was buried in it, and until it was carried off to the Cathe-dral of the Assumption at Moscow, a holy oil exuded fromthe very stones above the precious relic. Such was oldMtskhet. To-day it is a railway station on the line fromBatum to Baku, the point where the military road meets themilitary railway—a plain village, but ennobled by the ruinsof palaces and churches telling of the wonders of the dayswhen Tsars lived here, before the proud name went Shoeing an Ox in the Caucasus. CHAPTER XIVTIFLIS OF THE CROSS-ROADS THE German philologist, Professor Brugsch, has calculatedthat seventy languages are spoken in Tiflis. That simplestatement, pondered long enough, might almost suffice to de-scribe the city. It is the modern Babel, the meeting-place ofEurope and Asia, the cross-roads of the great routes north andsouth, and east and west, the focus of a score of keenly tradingpeoples, the conglomerate deposit of two thousand years of busyhistory. Over this complication Russia rules easily and well. Itis an excellent example of how she carries civilisation to Easternpeoples. Externally, half of Tiflis is a little Paris, or a prettier Bucha-rest. A mass of tin roofs, painted in pale green and Indian red,makes a pleasant colour impression as you approach the cityfrom the mountains, but to see it in its real and remarkab
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