Talk:Tbilisi

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Contents 1 Name of city 2 Population 3 Interwiki to ossetian article 4 Modern Landmarks 5 Tbilisi Youth City Assembly 6 Pronunciation please?

[edit] Name of city

Turkish-oriented writings (in the English language, anyway) write the name of the city as "Tiflis". Is this just Turkish usage, or do other languages use this alternate spelling? Ellsworth 22:52, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

Actually this is the real name of the city. It has never been called Tbilisi. Even armenians who formed the majority of the city before the Bolshevik takeover, used to call and still do call the city Tiflis. After 1921 it was renamed Tbilisi to justify the inclusion of Tbilisi into Georgian SSR. Prior to Russian dominance in the city since 1800s during which the city was mostly populated by Armenians and Turks the city belonged to Persian EMpire and its name Tiflis had the similar meaning and origin as Tebriz in Iran. Therefore Tiflis is modified Tebriz. Tbilisi is an artificial and made up name which means warm in Georgian. As if king Gorgasali was a balneologist and discovered thermal sources in the city and called them Warm-Tbilisi. This hypothesis is very inconsistent and non-convincing. Very naive. Armenian_nj I signed under my words and it was not my fault that it did not appear. Yo have no business to delete my words. Whatever I wrote here is not a POW. There are hundred of internet materials proving that Tiflis consisted mostly of Armenians until 1930. I will find also the links towards to version that Tiflis is the modified version of Tebrize. If you disagree then insist on your points of view but do not dare delete my postings. ANd where is the nationalism or chauvinism in my posting. So what, Azeris were the majority of Erivan before Russian takeover in 1828. Armenians were the majority o Tiflis and it is stated in beloved by you Georgians Pushkin's Puteshestvie v Arzrum. All the mayors of Tiflis were Armenian until Noy Jordania"s menshevik takeover and German occupation of Tiflis. Tell me your version, if you delete means you are just angry. It is a sign of weakness. Armenian_nj

The above paragraph was inserted unsigned by ArmenianNY on 16 September 2006, but placed above Ellsworth's signature from 2004, as explained by Kober below. I have moved the original signature back to Ellsworth's contribution. ColinFine 10:48, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Kober removed the paragraph above today (and marked the change as 'minor'). I have reinstated it, as this is not the best way to conduct arguments on a talk page. Kober: it appears you disagree with what Ellsworth says. Please argue the case rather than just deleting what he says. (I don't have knowledge or opinion on the issue: I just think that deleting a comment from a talk page is not appropriate. ColinFine 23:22, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I had removed it because it looked very much like vandalism. It was written today by a POV-pusher User:ArmenianNY who posted his comment under the name of another Wikipedian, namely User:Ellsworth and inserted a false date [1]. The comment itself is a blatant POV and full of nationalistic fantasies. It doesn't even deserve to be commented upon. Thanks, Kober 04:35, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the paragraph is highly POV, and does read like an unsupported nationalistic diatribe. I also agree that it had been inserted above another user's signature, and I have corrected that. But I still believe that on a Talk page the way to deal with such things is by challenging them, not by removing them. ColinFine 10:48, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't deny that at one point Armenians constituted the majority in the city in the 19th-20th centuries, but Tbilisi has always been a historic Georgian capital with great ethnic diversity. Your theory of the etomology of Tbilisi's name is very inconsistent, and your comment that the "inclusion of Tiflis" within Georgia needed justification is ridiculous. The 11th-century Georgian king David IV founded Gori and settled there Armenian merchants, but this doesn't mean that Gori was not a city of Georgia with its purely Georgian name, meaning 'a hill'. --Kober 04:42, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you, but as a city as a big industrial city or a governmental residence, Tbilisi has never been a Georgian capital until the Soviet times. May be there was a settlement, may be a Georgian village or whatsoever named Tbilisi since Gorgasali times. As a big city Tiflis has always been under Russian rule. It has always been called Tiflis even prior to Russian takeover by Georgievsky Treaty, when it was a part of Persian Empire ruled by Azeri speaking Safavid and Qajar dinasties. When Tiflis became a part of Russian Empire, it never became a Georgian capital, since there was no political entitiy named Georgia. There did exist Tiflis Gubernia. As an administrative center of Tiflis Gubernia and a residence of vice-roy Tiflis was an all armenian populated city, the center of Armenian business, trade and merchants. Moreover, Tiflis was the cultural capital of Eastern or Russian Armenians. I am more than sure that Georgians cinstituted the majority of Tiflis Gubernia, but not within the city, in the villages and other settlements of historical kingdom of Qartly, partly Kakhetia etc although there was no and still there is a single place southern of Tbilisi that is Georgian populated: historically Borchaly was Azeri and Armenian populated, places like Marneuli or Dmanisi or Bolnisi can be called Georgian only conditionally. Javakheti and Ajara are even out of question.When Russian Empire collapsed whatever was Tiflis gubernia became a part of menshevik Georgian Republic. And the city could not stay as an Armenian enclave withing independent Georgia, therefore it became the capital of Georgia. Let's not forget that Mtskheta and Kutaisi can be claimed as Georgian historical capitals more than Tbilisi.The independence of the Republic of Armenia was declared by Armenian National Council in Tiflis, not in Yerevan since Armenians were not able to believe that the city where they were absolute majority, and the mayor Aleksandr Khatisyan was Armenian as well, could become a center of Georgian statehood. Even after the establishment of Georgian SSR Armenians were still the majority of the city. There were ethnic clashes over where to built the politechnical university in Tbilisi in early 20s: in Armenian Havlabar or in Georgian Vera even if Tbilisi was the capital of Georgian SSR and not Armenian SSR. You can call Tbilisi multi ethnic you can call Tbilisi multi cultural etc, it is up to you, of you are still in a denial of the role of Armenians in Tiflis or if you want to sound politically correct. Whatever is gone is gone and nothing can be returned. But if I were you I wouldn't be so ignorant towards historical and political data available in non Georgian sources.And this would help you not to be so paranoic and judgemental towards others who do not think through your paradigm. Instead of labeling others' postings or deleting them, it would be nice of you not to be so culturally blind. Be aware of your own worldviews, beliefs. If you think that you are nationalistic or chauvinistic then do not go into wikipedia editing pages and judge people since instead of helping people here you can actually make detremential comments.Thats what we all saw in your treating of my posting. Thats the reason of instead of having a good and healthy discussion with me you started nationalistic demagogia here , first by calling me a nationalist, projecting your views and beliefs onto me, and then by deleting my postings. Making a comment about the majority of Tiflis population before the revolution does not make me nationalistic or chauvinistic. Everybody knows that Georgians used to be the majority of population in Abkhazia. But that didn't stop the rest of the world to call the region Abkhazia and finally it did not stop the minority from taking the political and military control of the region. From the moral point of view I can condemn Abkhaz people for establishing the rule of minority and disregarding the rights of Georgian majority in Abkhazia. This does not make me any nationalistic or chauvinistic. This also does not mean that I do not support the rights of Abkhaz people for liberation or national self determination. I am just constating the facts without judgement or passion. Armenian NY

Guy, stop making personal attacks. Calling others culturally blind and ignorant is not civil. If you continue your insults you'll be reported and blocked from editing Wikipedia. I have no time and energy to engage in this useless discussion with you. I'd suggest to look through "Making of the Georgian People" by RG Suny (American-Armenian, btw), an Encyclopaedia of Islam article "Tiflis" by Vladimir Minorsky [2], and a number of Georgia-related articles from the Encyclopaedia Iranica, also works by Cyril Toumanoff, David Marshall Lang, and WED Allen to get more info about the history of Georgia and its capital. As you can see I'm not "so ignorant towards historical and political data available in non Georgian sources" as you speculate in your posts. --Kober 05:07, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

From the sources suggested by me, one can easily draw the basic outline of the city's history. "Tiflis" is a foreign transliteration of the Georgian "Tfilisi" (hence, the modern-day Tbilisi), literally meaning "warm". The city was the capital of Caucasian Iberia, a Georgian kingdom until being absorbed by the Sassanid empire in the 580s. The Arabs established their emirate here in the 8th century, but the Georgians fought back in the 11th century. Since then it was a capital of the Georgian kingdom, and its successor kingdom of Kartli. The 1783 Treaty of Georgievsk was concluded between the Georgian king Erekle II (who ruled as an independent monarch with his capital in Tbilisi) and Russia. The city was sacked by the Qajar khan Agha Muhhamed after the Georgians lost the Battle of Krtsanisi at the outskirts of Tbilisi in 1795, but the Persians did not establish their permanent control over Tbilisi. Erekle II, and his successor, George XII, started to rebuild the city. The Russian annexation took place in 1801, and Tbilisi became a center of the Military Governorate of Georgia, later expanded into Armenia and Azerbaijan and renamed into the Viceroyalty of Transcaucasia. The city always had a historic Armenian community which indeed played a prominent role in Tbilisi's economic and cultural life, but it increased significantly after the Russian wars with Turkey followed by a large tide of Armenians into Georgia. Georgians were traditionally bound to agricultural activities and stayed in rural areas while Armenians, skilled in commerce in urban setting, gradually became majority not only in Tbilisi, but Kutaisi, Gori, Telavi, and even Tskhinvali (see 1911 Britannica ans other contemporary sources for the demographics of the cities of Georgia). FYI, the independence of all three Transcaucasian nations - Georgia (May 26 1918), Azerbaijan (May 27), and Armenia (May 28) - were declared in Tbilisi because these events occured in the immediate afthermath of the dissolution of the Transcaucasian Federation (May 26 1918) whose government was headquartered in Tbilisi.--Kober 08:12, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

First of all nobody is attacking you personally. Second, you are not the one who will decide who has to be blocked and who not. I have no time to go into the details of some pseudo historical data that you are arguing about. We were discussing the name of the city. You mentioned here about king Erecle 2, the battle of Krtsanisi etc etc etc . Even if supposingly we all agree, at least one of the Armenians will say- you guy, I do not believe in what is written in your history books or in ROnald Suny's books (by the way, Suny does not see the history of Tiflis in his dreams in USA or in his sexual fantasies- he just takes the same Georgian sources and translates them into English to bullshit as if he is doing something, the same way he falsificated all Armenian history as well, but thats a different topic),so that single armenian with a common sense will say I believe in what is obvious in folk culture or what is preserved today. The folk culture of Tbilisi did preserve some of the songs of the great trubadour of that time, a real " Tifliser" Sayat Nova, who was one of Erecle the 2's diplomats and was in love with king Erecle's sister Anna. Being a witness of all you described above- Battle of Krtsanisi near " Tbilisi", Georgievsky treaty etc etc Sayat Nova himself never called the city Tbilisi. He calls it Tiflis. Never ever he mentioned even in a single poem or a song or an idiom the word Tbilisi. Remember, he was killed by the same Qajar dinasty's Agha Khan who sacked Tbilisi and demanded the denounciation of the treaty of Georgievsk. Therefore, all whatever is written about the time of Georgievksiy dogovor or Battle of Krtsanisi or Erecle's time is a pure product of Georgian fantasy. There is no way to find a single document of that time when Tbilisi would be named Tbilisi. It is impossible since the real singer of the city who was in love with that city, in love with the sister of the king of Georgia calls it Tiflis. WHy shoud he use the Persian Tiurkic version of the name instead of Georgian name Tbilisi if he was the patriot of Georgia? This means that during the period under Persian rule and much before that period, today's capital of Georgia was really known as Tiflis and not Tbilisi. YOurs. ArmenianNY

Calling one of the most tragic pages in the history of Georgia "fabtasies" is highly offending. You have probably overlooked that I refer not only to Suny, but many other authorities (Minorsky, Lang, Allen). I can give you direct citations from myriads of contemporary and modern accounts (European, Russian, Armenian, Georgian) about the late 18th century history of Tbilisi, but I see no point in arguing with you. Btw, Sayat-Nova also used Tpilisi rather than Tiflis in his Georgian lyrics. Kind regards, --Kober 04:51, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I think Russian language used Tiflis before the October revolution.

[edit] Population

The main text says it "has more than 1.345 million inhabitants" whereas the basic information bar on the right gives the population as "1,093,000 (2005 est.)". Which one is correct?

[edit] Interwiki to ossetian article

Why does the interwiki link to Kalak not work? os:калак shows up attached to the Tbilisi Metro link. The link is there, and the article is there http://os.wikipedia.org/wiki/Калак, but there appears to be a prollem getting from one to the other. Tomer ^TALK 01:55, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

Seems the OS wiki was still new, and it just took time for the links to resolve. Tomer ^TALK 02:31, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

Hello, actually Tiflis is the Turkish version of the name Tbilisi. Tiflis as a name was used by other cultures / languages as well, when referring to Tbilisi. However, the proper Georgian name for the capital is Tbilisi. Hope this helps!

Oh yeah, of course it helps. I wish it was so easy to explain everything. We call it Tbilisi the other cultures call it Tiflis. The same way Russians will say we call it Kaliningrad but some Germanic cultures call it Konigsberg. And everybody is happy and satisfied.... Guy, this is an encyclopedic site, so please, go and express your thoughts in the children's version of wikipedia if it exists. Or you try editing some junior encyclopedia's such as "When, who and where" or " I want to know everything" or "Pochemuchka" in Russian etc. ArmenianNY

[edit] Modern Landmarks

Before I changed it, somebody had titled this section "Nowadays". Modern Landmarks may be a poor subheading, so change it as you see fit.--EatAlbertaBeef 02:19, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tbilisi Youth City Assembly

Just curious, is this body important enough to be included in the article? --Kober 14:37, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Probably not:). I haven't really checked out the Tbilisi Youth City Assembly page and don't know what it does, but I don't see a problem with its inclusion as long as the text that is being input into the Tbilisi page meets good writing standards. The new edits don't seem to be written well. D.Papuashvili 14:47, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Fine then. I'd like to ask Mr Gegelia if he happens to have an image of the Tbilisi city seal of better quality. --Kober 14:58, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation please?

Preferably IPA? —Keenan Pepper 20:31, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Nobody knows? Come on, people! —Keenan Pepper 20:32, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Pronounciation should probably go in the first paragraph, and should be in IPA. This is typically the style. Doyel 14:08, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Sport: surely the fererence to Ruby League in a mistake and it should be Rugby Union, which the article on Rubgy League in Georgia states is the second most popular game.