Читать книгу Around the Black Sea. Asia Minor, Armenia, Caucasus, Circassia, Daghestan, the Crimea, Roumania онлайн

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The Russians are not altogether blameless for this terrible situation, because they have attempted to force the Russian ritual and Russian priests upon unwilling parishes in many places, and have insisted that the Russian language instead of the Georgian language shall be used in the schools. Therefore the children are growing up in ignorance. No Georgian parent will allow his children to attend a school where the Russian language is taught. He would probably suffer ostracism, if not a worse punishment, if he did.

The railway from the Black Sea enters the mountains about 150 miles from Batoum and climbs up very slowly with two locomotives over a solid track between timber-crowned hills. There are forests of locust trees white with blossoms, whose perfume fills the air. The locust seems to be popular and is not only planted around every station on the railway but around all the dwelling houses, farm houses and the cottages in the villages along the way. The farm houses look like timber claims in our Western states, and all the trees are locusts. There are a good many orchards and the quince and apple trees were in bloom when we made our journey. They seem to be well trimmed and cared for. The rocks along the cañons are decorated with rhododendrons and yellow honeysuckles, which are in blossom in April, and you can fancy how beautiful a railway right of way can be where the walls are covered with such foliage on both sides. But the scenery is not so wild as I expected from the printed descriptions I had read.