1812-1813 ANTI-RUSSIAN REBELLION IN KAKHETI

Abstract

In 1812 the first anti-Russian units were formed in Tianeti and Akhmeta. On February 2, all kinds of communications between Telavi and Sighnaghi were ceased. On the same day, rebels led by Simon Beburishvili and Ivane Makashvili took control of Telavi. The Russian garrison, headed by Commandant Shmatov, could hardly be fortified at Telavi Fortress, and the troops sent by General Portniagin to Telavi couldn’t do anything to the city. Almost half of these detachments were killed in the fight against the rebels. The rest could hardly pave their way and get to the castle where nearly 300 Russian soldiers besieged by Kakhetians, almost doomed to die, were completely torn away from the outer world for 32 days