Читать книгу The Red Reign. The True Story of an Adventurous Year in Russia онлайн

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Kutais is on the southern slope of the central Caucasus, and a little more than midway between Tiflis and the Black Sea. The population of the city of Kutais is made up of Georgians, Mingrelians, Armenians, Kurds, and Jews. A polyglot population with diverse traditions, with but one thing in common—a wholesome and heartfelt dislike for Russia. The hillsides of the province are spattered with miserable hamlets; valleys that should have been beautiful are unlovely, marred by desolation, where excessive taxation and endless government impositions have produced a condition of ugliest poverty. The taxes levied upon these people were so far in excess of the prosperity in the region[4] that in the autumn of 1905 and the spring of 1906 the people ceased to pay any taxes at all, mostly because they could not, and so General Alikhanoff was sent with a force of about 18,000 troops into the district to collect the taxes and to “restore” order. At five o’clock Ivan and I drove to the official residence of the military governor-general. As I stepped out of the carriage at the door, Ivan naïvely remarked that he