Gamba Jacques François

Jacques François Gamba (December 26, 1763, Dunkirk – March 27, 1833, Tbilisi) was a French traveler and merchant. He received his primary education at the Jesuit Monastery College in Jülich and higher education in Paris and Leipzig, where he studied European languages. With the support of the French government, which was interested in trade with Asia, he traveled to southern Russia in 1817–1818. During his second trip in 1820, he arrived in Tbilisi via the southern Military Road through Georgia. He visited Kakheti and Kutaisi. After returning to St. Petersburg from Georgia, he was appointed as the head of the newly established French consulate in Tbilisi. The Russian government allocated a large part of land (near Ajameti, in Imereti region) to him, supposedly for the purpose of improving the local agriculture. In 1824–1826, he went to Paris for consular matters, where he published his work, based on his diaries (it also includes diaries of his brother who traveled to Georgia in 1823). The work contains essays on economic, ethnographic, and historical topics. It describes Eastern and Western Georgia ("Colchis"), North Caucasus, as well as Tbilisi, Kutaisi, Sokhumi, Sighnaghi, Telavi, Tsinandali, and other locations. The publication includes maps of Abkhazia, Samegrelo, Imereti; as well as sketches (dancing Georgian women in Tbilisi, Khevsurs, churches, fortresses), and others.

Literary works: Voyage dans la Russie méridionale et particuliérement dans les provinces situées au delà du Caucase, fait depuis 1820 jusqu'en 1824, t. 1–2. P., 1826; მოგზაურობა სამხრეთ რუსეთში, კერძოდ ამიერკავკასიაში... თარგმ. და კომენტ. მ. მგალობლიშვილისა, თბ., 1987.

E. Mamistvalisshvili