“The Georgian nation likes to give as much as other nations like to receive. What is your opinion about Georgians?” I asked Baron Fino, our consul in Tiflis, who has been living among them for three years. . What is a commendable word in the mouth of a Frenchman, who, of course, blames everything alien and prefers himself to all, like all of us!
One Russian, known for his courage, by the name of Sheremetev, told me: “You have to see them in battle: when they hear the sounds of their damned zurna, which is not suitable even for dancing dolls, they are no longer people, but titans, ready to take the sky by storm” “They should be seen at the table,” said a decent German who proudly recalled how he drank twelve mugs of beer at the Heidelberg inn at noon: “They will swallow fifteen, eighteen, twenty bottles of wine, as if nothing had happened.” And Fino spoke the truth, and the Russian spoke the truth, and the German spoke the truth. ”
(1859 g. Alexander Dumas. Caucasian)
