With many thanks to the Georgian Embassy for their kind hospitality, British Georgian Society is delighted to welcome back Peter Skinner, author of Georgia, The Land Below the Caucasus, to talk about his newly published Twenty five Years in the Caucasus by Arnold Zisserman. 

Georgian Embassy

Tuesday 20th February 

4 Russell Gardens, London W14 8EZ Doors open 6.30pm for 7.00pm start 

(Georgian wine will be served)

Zisserman’s Travels are a fabulous addition to the growing body of work about Georgia now available in English. Full of detail and insights into the culture, politics, ethnography and history of that fascinating country, enlivened with personal encounters and observations of life at all levels, this is essential reading for anyone with any interest in the Caucasus, Russian colonial expansion, and travel writing of the most immersive kind. Written with considerable narrative flair and wit, Zisserman’s account is especially valuable: an eye-witness to – and participant in – the Russian Conquest of the Caucasus, a Russian himself, still a teenager when he first arrived in Tbilisi as a lowly clerk, he was seized by the spirit of adventure. His book, written over his 25 years in the region, is filled with marvellous encounters and descriptions: of nobles & peasants, of soldiers and officials, of Russians and Georgians and as many tribes of mountain Tush, Khevsurs, Lesgians, Avars & Daghestanis, Chechens, Kists, Azeris and Tartars, as will delight the most demanding of ethnophiles.

The book has been fluently & vividly translated by Inna Kiziriya, and brilliantly organised & introduced by its editor, Peter Skinner, with the addition of many marvellous maps and illustrations and a plethora of fascinating appendices and notes: without doubt one of the most important, engaging and entertaining publications about Georgia to have appeared in many years. Please email info@britishgeorgiansociety.org if you would like to attend.