Orbeliani Baths

The princely Orbeliani family owned the bathhouse above a sulfur spring, and their surname remained in its Russian name. The Georgian name of Orbeliani Baths translates as Motley Bath; it is connected with the colorful cladding of the pointed facade and the blue tiles. The bath rooms stand where sulfur water emerges directly from the ground, so it did not need to be heated in a furnace. Today, people take sulfur baths here and order scrubbing with a kisa and a massage to go with them.

In May of eighteen twenty-nine, twenty-nine-year-old Aleksandr Pushkin arrived in Tiflis—that was what Tbilisi was called at the time. The poet hoped to find his brother and friends here, serving in the active army, but their regiment had already left on campaign. The next day, Pushkin went to the city baths.

The owner handed the guest over to the bath attendant Hassan. For Hassan, it was work: he had to wash, rub down, and knead the client so that the client would pay for his skill rather than regret entrusting his own joints to him. First, the bath attendant laid Pushkin on the warm stone floor. Then Hassan began stretching his arms and legs and striking him hard with his fists. The poet expected pain, but instead felt relief.

Hassan rubbed him for a long time with a woolen mitt, poured warm water over him, and worked up soap with a linen bag. At the end, Hassan sent his client into a deep stone bath, into which hot sulfur water flowed. The spring emerged from the ground by itself here: no furnace was needed to heat it. That is why the bathhouse stood directly above this part of the gorge, and Hassan's work complemented what the water provided.

Pushkin left with a detailed description of the whole procedure. He even suggested that Russian bathhouses adopt the mitt and the bag for soap foam. The poet called Hassan a master, and ended his review with the words: “Never in my life have I encountered anything more luxurious than the baths of Tiflis, neither in Russia nor in Turkey.”

Pushkin gave neither an address nor the owner's name. Local tradition, rather than an undisputed entry in a travel diary, preserves his visit specifically here. A bathhouse belonging to the Georgian princely Orbeliani family was already operating on this site then: the owners' surname gave it its Russian name. The second name means “Motley Bath” and refers to the colorful cladding. The present pointed facade appeared later than Pushkin's visit, in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Now Pushkin's words are inscribed on a plaque amid blue tiles, and one of the rooms inside bears his name. Behind these doors, people still order a sulfur bath, scrubbing with a kisa, and a massage—the very sequence Hassan once performed for an unknown traveler who was his guest.