In the Eastern War, the Turks came again, surging through the scented, warm air. There are texts in the Qur’aan and Sunnah that prescribe the manumission of a slave to expiate sin, yet they send shiploads of captured children back to Constantinople for enslavement. Good Christians may also hang their heads in shame, for they are not exempt. The immutable rules of war dictate: take what you can, destroy the rest. With the incessant rains, their army is soon submerged in the Mingrelian mud. Before the Mohammedans are finally expelled they turn to the comforts of massacre, pillage and incendiarism.

‘Zugdidi is no longer,’ wrote Ekaterine Chavchavadze, the widow of David Dadiani, the buildings of her estate reduced to ashes, the contents dismembered and scattered. Everything that can be broken is smashed, everything that can be seared by flame is set alight. Vases, urns, statuary, chandeliers, furniture, fine porcelain, all reduced to charred splinters and dust. They leave nothing but dirt, disease and ruin behind them.

Even the remarkable botanical garden there, the product of sixteen years of careful labour, is erased. All fruits, flowers and plants cut down or taken away. Of all the wealth of the Dadiani castle, only a few fragments of broken tableware remain.

Tolstoy, who not so long ago was eating ice creams in Bucharest and spending his evenings at the Italian opera, is across the sea in besieged Sevastopol. Of the grim battlefields of this conflict he writes, ‘You will see fearsome sights that will shake the roots of your being; you will see war not as a beautiful orderly and gleaming formation, with music and beaten drums, streaming banners and generals on prancing horses, but war in its authentic expression – as blood, suffering and death’.

Fragment of a porcelain set from Dadiani Castle (1850’s), dedicated to David Dadiani: found on territory of Khulevi village.