Can You Hear History?

A hidden mansion in Tbilisi, Georgia, has five generations of stories to tell about the strength and resilience of a region of former Soviet republics.

- INNA LAZAREVA

Every day thousands of pedestrians stroll along a busy section of Rustaveli Avenue in Tbilisi, Georgia, without the faintest idea that just around a corner, on a side street past a crumbling cable car station, stands a mansion that looks as if it has been lifted straight from the pages of a fairy tale. It has intricately carved balconies painted a light turquoise that looks as if it might melt into the sky above. Inside the Blue House, as it is called, the walls are covered with artworks by members of an extraordinary family that has managed—through Soviet occupation, civil war, and a Russian invasion in 2008—to hold on to its precious home.

The story begins in the 19th century, when Georgia, a small country in the Caucasus mountain range, was part of the Russian empire under the tsars. In 1898 Prince Vasil Gabashvili, a lawyer and real estate magnate from a noble family, asked the renowned architect Cornell Tatishchev to design the house of his dreams. Tatishchev crafted a unique edifice that combined typical Georgian architectural features, such as curvaceous wooden lace balconies, with Baroque and Rococo details. The house became a family home for the delighted Gabashvili, though he did not enjoy it for long. He died in 1906, bequeathing it to his wife and children.

By then the wheels of a Georgian independence movement were already in motion. In 1918, the year after Russia’s Communist revolution, the tiny nation proclaimed its independence and established the world’s first socialist democracy. That too was short-lived. In 1921 the Red Army invaded Georgia and occupied the entire country. “Death and its scythe slowly ambled into town,” wrote Georgian poet Kolau Nadiradze of the soldiers’ advance.