BATUMI CITY SELF-GOVERNMENT IN THE YEARS 1888-1914

Abstract

In 1878, by the decision of the Berlin Congress, Adjara, along with other territories of southwestern Georgia, became part of the Russian Empire with Batumi. The city of Batumi was transferred to Russia as a free trade port - Porto-Franco. At that time, Batumi was a small city with about 3,000 inhabitants, but it had a magnificent natural bay, which promised a great future for the development of Batumi. Soon, industrialists interested in the export of Baku oil drew attention to Batumi. For them, Batumi, with its natural bay and convenient transit location, was an excellent base for the export of Baku oil. This is precisely what determined the construction of the port and the Batumi-Samtredia railway line in the 80s of the 19th century. In a short time, Batumi turned into an important industrial and transit center. Many interested parties came to it. All this led to a rapid growth of the population of Batumi.

For the next 10 years after the annexation to Russia, a military-police regime existed in Batumi. The police chief resolved all issues in agreement with the head of the Batumi district and the military governor of Kutaisi. The rapid pace of economic and demographic development in Batumi has put changes on the agenda in the sphere of city governance. As early as 1885, about 90 Batumi residents appealed to the governor-general of the Caucasus with a request to introduce self-government in the city. A special commission was created to study the issue. Despite the objections, on April 28, 1888, a supreme decree was issued on the introduction of city self-government in Batumi.

The presented work studies and analyzes the prerequisites for the declaration of Batumi city self-government, the role of self-government and its efforts in the struggle to solve the problems of Batumi's planning and development, economic development, education and culture, and urgent issues of socio-political life.

Keywords: Batumi; Porto-Franco; oil export; city self-government; Khmosani; elections to the city council; city administration; head of the city.