66 Ë A Lull
the Japanese embassy for many years, as well as others) who were visiting Ti is were
in fact military spies because they “walked a great deal around the town.”⁵⁷
It is also quite likely that Japan sought to use as spies and informers Russian citi-
zens (including those from the Caucasus) working as conductors, waiters, and in sim-
ilar capacities on the railways connecting Russia and China. A number of people from
the Caucasus were indeed in the Far East in one capacity or another. On his way to
Japan in early 1910, Abdrashid Ibragimov was surprised to see so many dierent peo-
ples (including Georgians and Ossetians) on the Japanese boat from Vladivostok to
Tsuruga, Japan, even though there were not many passengers.⁵⁸It is di cult to con-
rm that any of the Caucasians actually spied for Japan. Suspicions remained strong,
however: many years later, under Stalin, some of those Caucasians who had lived in
the Far East were to be accused of espionage for Japan and executed (see chapter 6).
Among these was Giorgi Pitskhelauri, born in Telavi, Georgia, in 1873, who had
lived in Harbin in Manchuria from 1899 to 1926 before returning to Georgia. Arrested
in 1937 on charges of espionage for Japan, Pitskhelauri stated under questioning that
at the time of the Russo-Japanese War a sizeable colony of Georgians formed in Harbin,
mainly traders, speculators, and owners of canteens, supplemented by “adventur-
ists,” fugitives, and exiles.⁵⁹Among them were strong anti-Russian sentiments. There
were also Georgians who ran dining cars in railways covering the Chinese Eastern
Railway and the Trans-Siberian Railway, an excellent base for military and economic
intelligence. Simon Ordzhonikidze, who had been persecuted by Tsarist authorities,
lived in Harbin under the name of Mikhail Nazarov and, according to Pitskhelauri,
worked for Japanese intelligence. It was through Ordzhonikidze that Pitskhelauri was
allegedly recruited by an o cial of the Japanese consulate in Harbin to spy for Japan.
The Japanese, according to Pitskhelauri’s confessions, promised support for Georgia’s
struggle against Tsarist Russia and, in the event of success, Japan’s guarantee of Geor-
gia’s independence. In return he, as a merchant, was to promote Japanophilic work,
provide intelligence, and create intelligence and diversionary agents along the railway
lines.⁶⁰
Pitskhelauri further stated, according to the Soviet secret police, that nearly all
leaders of the Georgian colony in Harbin had been “recruited” at the time by Japan:
Ivlian Khaindrava, Beglar Robakidze, Giorgi Mgaloblishvili, Nikoloz Tsulukidze, Ilia
Pateishvili, and others, each of whom had his own agents both in Manchuria and in
Russia. In 1906, allegedly to cover its clandestine operations, Japan created the Geor-
gian Society in Harbin, the head of which was Pitskhelauri. It had three hundred to
four hundred members and used philanthropic covers “for intelligence purposes.”
57 GARF, f. 102, DP PP, 1913, op. 316, d. 38lia, l. 42-42ob.
58 Ibrahim,Un Tatar au Japon, 96.
59 By 1905 the Georgian community in Harbin had grown substantially to justify the foundation of a
national library. SeeRubezh(Harbin-Shanghai), 4 October 1941, 14.
60 File of K.O. Gelovani, Archive of the Ministry of Internal Aairs of Georgia (Tbilisi).