Ivane Machabeli Street

Our next stop is a wonderful building of the Georgian Writers' Union in Machabeli street, which is the monument of the town architecture of the 20th century. The building was erected in 1905 (architect K. Tsaar) by David Sarajishvili (1848 - 1911), a famous Georgian patron of arts, an enterpriser, the founder of cognac production not only in the Caucasus but in the entire Russian empire, a doctor of philosophy and chemistry. The architecture style of the building is clearly expressed "modern". All his capital together with this building Sarajishvili bequeathed to the Georgian public, church, engineers, technicians and workers of his cognac factory. After the death of Sarajisvili his wife's brother broke his will and in 1918 decided to sell this building at the auction in Sergiev street. This fact infuriated the Georgian public and it addressed to a Georgian businessman famous for his charity activities Akaki Khoshtaria, who purchased the building. In 1921 when Bolsheviks came to power, Khoshtaria left Georgia and gave this building as a gift to Georgian writers. Later, when the independence of Georgia was proclaimed, the building was given to the Writers' Union. In 1928 M. Gorki lived on the second floor of the building. In 1927 Vladimir Maiakovski read his poems to young Georgian writers there. On the 8th of October in 1927 a progressive French writer, publicist and statesman Henri Barbusse was solemnly met there. On the 10th of June in 1938 a prominent Russian writer Alexey Tolstoy gave a speech in this building.

Beria's residence, 11 Ivane Machabelis Street 

Likely built at the turn of the 20th century, 11 Machabelis Street is notable because for seven years, from 1931 to 1938, it was home to Lavrenti Beria when he served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Georgia, before was named head of the NKVD, the secret police. 

All information about the building was considered a state secret - even today, according to SovLab, the name of the architect is off-limits. 

One detail has emerged, however: Beria, who was quite the builder during his time in Tbilisi - the parliament and the former Institute of Marxism and Leninism were among his projects - had underground tunnels put in the yard, which were rumored to lead to an underground bunker and to the parliament building. Today, the building is the headquarters for the Georgian National Olympic Committee. 

A famous Russian poet Nikolay Gumilev lived in Machabeli street (the first left turn on Leonidze street), (1900-1903) in the house of an engineer Mirzoev (at the corner of Leonidze and Machabeli streets). It is an angular building and it faces two picturesque green streets. In Tbilisi Gumilev saw his first poem published and here he wrote his poem for the album "of a beautiful dame". 

Ivane Machabeli Street before and now