Old postcards Mikhail Hubashvili

This subsection holds postcards of works by Mikhail Khubashvili showing characters of old Tbilisi. Every card was printed in 1976. The captions name characters and scenes: traders, craftsmen, a feast, a dance.

The central figure is the kinto. In Georgia, and above all in Tbilisi, the word meant a petty street trader, usually selling fruit and vegetables on the move; later it came to mean any merry idler and joker. The kinto is a stock character of Georgian songs and city legends and was painted by Niko Pirosmani and Lado Gudiashvili. Here he appears in Kinto with a Tray and Kinto the Organ Grinder, while The Kintouri Dance refers to the men’s handkerchief dance named after the kinto.

The other cards form a gallery of city trades: The Matsoni Seller (matsoni is a fermented milk product of Georgian and Armenian cuisine), Karachogeli with a Ram and a general Resident of Old Tbilisi.

For collectors of Caucasus subjects, these vintage postcards give a whole cast of Tbilisi street life by one artist.