"Warm spring" - this is how the name of the Georgian capital is translated. Tiflis is a modern Tbilisi, a city with more than a million people and a half thousand year history.
Ancient history of the city
A very interesting legend is connected with the foundation of old Tiflis. It is believed that back in the 5th century, during the reign of King Vakhtang Gorgasali, hills on the banks of the Kura River were covered with impenetrable forests. In these forests, the Georgian king hunted, shooting a pheasant, who, being wounded, fell into a thermal spring and cooked. After this incident, the king ordered the founding of the city of Tiflis in Georgia, whose name translates as "warm spring".
This legend is certainly beautiful, but it is not confirmed by archaeologists, since Byzantine baths of the l-lll centuries and foundations laid in the V-lll centuries BC were discovered in different parts of the city.
In addition, the city of Tbldu, to which the name of modern Tbilisi can be traced, is found on ancient Roman military maps. Thus, the story of the founding of the city by the Georgian ruler can be interpreted as the story of the expansion of an existing settlement.
Crossroads of cultures
By the beginning of the 5th century AD, the region where the city of Tiflis was located had turned into an arena of struggle between the Persian and Byzantine empires. The Sasanian dynasty won the battle, and for a long time the city fell into the hands of the Persians, and the Georgian kingdom was abolished. In 627, Tbilisi was sacked by the Allied Byzantine-Khazar army.
In the Vlll century, a new disaster struck the Caucasus in the person of the Arab conquerors. In 737, the troops of Marwan ll entered the city, who installed a new judicial system and administration in the vast territories of the Caucasus. However, most Georgians adopted Islam at that time, making Tiflis a city where the population was predominantly Muslim.
However, peace in the region did not become long, since this time the competition unfolded between the Arab caliphate and the Khazar Khaganate, which again invaded Georgian lands in 737. Such serious and prolonged conflicts over the city were associated with the fact that it is located at the crossroads of trade routes leading from the Caucasus to the Caspian region, Asia Minor and the Black Sea region.
Georgian reconquista
At the beginning of the Xll century, the Arab caliphate was weakened enough so that the inhabitants of its national suburbs felt the ability to start the liberation struggle. Georgians were no exception.
In 1122, a long struggle of the local population with the Seljuks, in which more than 60,000 Georgians participated, ended with the entrance of Georgian king David to Tbilisi. After this victory, he decided to move the monarch’s residence from Kutaisi. Since then, Tiflis is the capital of the Georgian state.
After the lands of the Orthodox kingdom were liberated from foreign dominion, a period began that went down in history as the Golden Age of Georgia, due to the flourishing of literature and architecture. By the end of the Xll century, the population of Tbilisi reached 100,000 people, which made it not only the largest city in the Caucasus, but also one of the most important centers of the entire Orthodox world.
Mongol invasion and after
However, nothing lasts forever, and by the beginning of the Xlll century, the Georgian revival was interrupted by the beginning of the Mongol conquest. In 1236, Georgia suffered a final crushing defeat from the Mongol forces and for a long time fell into a semi-independent position from a great empire.
Despite the fact that the conquerors were expelled from the country in the 1320s, a long period of instability began, aggravated by the plague epidemic that erupted in Tbilisi in 1366. The population of the city was greatly reduced, and its importance for the culture of that time fell.
The retreat of the Mongols did not lead to the desired liberation, as the Persians tried to take their place, then the rulers of the Golden Horde and other competing states formed on the expanses of the Mongol empire.
During the period from the end of the 15th century to the 15th century, the city was repeatedly ruled by interventionists and was completely destroyed twice.
Tbilisi under the rule of the Safavids
At the beginning of the XVl century, the land where the city of Tiflis is located, as well as the regions of Kartli and Kakheti fell under the control of the Iranian Shah dynasty of Safavids. The capital of the region housed a very impressive military garrison, and its architecture has undergone significant changes.
Despite the fact that the Georgian kings had some success in the fight against the Iranians, they were not able to achieve full independence. For several centuries, the city of Tbilisi became the center of the vassal kingdom, but it also received peace and growth opportunities.
At the end of the eighteenth century, Georgians decided to get out of Persian rule and made an important decision to unite with Russia.
Unification with Russia
The end of Iranian rule was laid in 1801, after the Kartli-Kakheti kingdom with its capital in Tiflis was annexed to the Russian Empire.
From this moment, Tiflis is the center of a vast region in the very center of Transcaucasia, an important transport hub and stronghold of the military might of a vast empire in the Caucasus. After the establishment of Russian power in Tbilisi, the city began to grow rapidly, increasing its weight both economically and politically.
Wishing to unite Tbilisi with Batumi, Baku, Poti and Yerevan, the imperial authorities began intensive construction of roads, including railways. By the mid-nineteenth century, Tiflis is an indispensable point of any trip to the Caucasus. Griboedov, Pushkin, Lermontov, Leo Tolstoy visited this city.
It was in Tsarist times that Golovin Avenue, which today bears the name of Rustaveli, became the main transport artery of the city. It housed the main administrative buildings and the residence of the governors of the emperor in Transcaucasia.
Short period of independence
After the 1917 revolution, Tiflis became the center of an independent Transcaucasian Federation. Thus, from May 28, 1918 to February 25, 1921, Tiflis is the capital of the independent Democratic Republic of Georgia, which ceased to exist after the 11th Bolshevik army occupied Tbilisi as a result of prolonged battles. From this moment begins the seventy-year period of Soviet power in Georgia and its capital - Tbilisi.
Soviet authority
After the abolition of the Transcaucasian Federation, Tiflis became the official capital of the Transcaucasian SFSR, after the dissolution of which the city became the center of the Georgian SSR until 1991.
It was during the USSR that the city began to develop actively, numerous industrial enterprises, universities, and cultural institutions appeared. Thanks to serious investments in the infrastructure of the city, Tiflis became one of the most important scientific, industrial and cultural centers not only of Transcaucasia, but of the entire USSR.
Often you can meet the question of what city is it now - Tiflis? This question arose as a result of the official change of the Russian name of the city in 1936 from Tiflis to Tbilisi. Such changes were needed in order to bring the Russian name closer to the Georgian, which sounds like Tbiliso.
In the 1970s, the historical center of the city was significantly rebuilt, and new residential areas appeared on its outskirts, connected to the old part by metro lines.
Post-Soviet Tbilisi
After Georgia gained independence, the city faced numerous problems related to the general political instability in the region caused by the Georgian-Ossetian and Abkhaz-Georgian conflicts.
Between 1993 and 2003, corruption and crime spread at all levels of Georgian society. The city was faced with significant violations in transport communication, housing began to deteriorate, and infrastructure too.
In 2003, the city became the center of a nationwide protest against corrupt power and election fraud, leading to events that went down in history as the Rose Revolution. As a result, Eduard Shevardnadze resigned, and Mikheil Saakashvili took his place.
After the change of power in the city, marked changes began. Numerous new buildings were built, the transport infrastructure was significantly reconstructed. After the reforms, the city became an important tourist center, attracting annually hundreds of thousands of tourists from America, Europe and Russia.
Modern Tbilisi
Despite the fact that about 89% of the city’s population are Georgians, about 100 different ethnic groups live in the Georgian capital, including Russians, Ukrainians, Ossetians, Azerbaijanis, Germans, Jews and Greeks. Moreover, 95% of the population consider themselves Christians of various churches.
As for the economy, more than half of the national product is produced in Tbilisi. The predominant sectors of the economy are wholesale and retail trade, services and hospitality. An important place is transport.
Shota Rustaveli Airport annually serves 1,850,000 passengers arriving from several dozen countries. A significant part of the passenger flow is made up of Russian tourists, the number of which is growing every year due to a visa-free regime for Russians and the relatively low cost of flights and accommodation in Georgia.
Thus, the answer to the question of which city Tiflis is, may consist in the fact that it is one of the oldest cities in the Caucasus, the capital of modern Georgia and an important economic and political center of Transcaucasia.