122 Ë Renewal
that shortly after the suppression of the rebellions in 1924, “counterrevolutionary [i.e.,
Georgian patriotic] elements” had revived in Georgia. Moreover, Rostomashvili and
Dzhokhadze had allegedly created a “spy network” of twenty-two agents and collected
information on the Caucasus railway, the timber and manganese industry, the Batumi
and Poti ports, the composition and garrisons of the Transcaucasia Military District,
and the coastal guard of the Black Sea.⁵⁶
Even relatives of the future Soviet secret police chief Lavrenti Beria were among
those who traveled between Georgia and the Far East. In 1915 Beria’s maternal uncle
Kapiton Kvaratskhelia moved to Harbin to join the business of another uncle of Be-
ria’s, Egor Dzhakeli. Kvaratskhelia returned to Tbilisi in 1926 or 1927, lived with Beria’s
family for a few months, and then moved back to Harbin, where he was joined by his
daughter, who had lived with Beria. A few years later he went back to Tbilisi, and died
in Sukhumi in western Georgia in 1951.⁵⁷
There is no evidence that these and other movements were ordered by Japanese in-
telligence or that these people maintained any connections to Japanese authorities. In
fact, as will be discussed in chapter 6, some of these Caucasian residents in Manchuria
were Soviet agents working secretly for Moscow. Given Japan’s presence in Harbin and
elsewhere in Manchuria, these Caucasians no doubt had business and commercial
connections with Japan and Japanese concerns. Soviet allegations about Japan’s in-
volvement came later in the 1930s. Pitskhelauri, for instance, stated under captivity
in Soviet Georgia in 1937 that in 1924–26, his agents, Egor Dzhakeli, David Dvali, and
Ivan Metreveli (all three mentioned on p. 67 in Chapter 3 as having been recruited as
“Japanese agents” before World War I) had organized a number of incidents of sabo-
tage on the Chinese Eastern Railway against Soviet interests.⁵⁸These allegations made
at the time of the Great Terror in 1937–38 are hardly credible. What is clear is that both
Japanese and Soviet Intelligence were monitoring the movements of people between
Manchuria and the Soviet Caucasus with suspicion.
Japanese Intelligence also undoubtedly regarded people from the Caucasus as po-
tentially useful. In Japan’s scheme against the Soviet Union, the Caucasus, far as it
was from Tokyo or Harbin, occupied an important place, just as it had at the time of
the Russo-Japanese War. In May 1928, Japan’s ambassador to Turkey Yukichi Obata, ̄
visited Baku and Batumi with his secretary and military attaché. Another group of
Japanese headed by “BaronOkura” (likely to be Kishichir ̄ o ̄Okura, a powerful busi- ̄
nessman) had visited the Caucasus cities “three days earlier.”⁵⁹In 1928 Japan’s mil-
itary and naval attachés based in Moscow also traveled to the Caucasus, venturing
56 File of K.O. Gelovani, Archive of the Ministry of Internal Aairs of Georgia (Tbilisi).
57 O.B. Mozokhin, ed.,Politbiuro i delo Beriia. Sbornik dokumentov(Moscow: Kuchkovo pole, 2012),
183.
58 File of K.O. Gelovani, Archive of the Ministry of Internal Aairs of Georgia (Tbilisi).
59 See AVP RF, f. 08, op. 11, papka 67, d. 340, ll. 1–2.