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Guram Odisharia: პრეზიდენტის კატა (The President’s Cat)
This book was published in English in a volume called Two Volumes from the Caucasus. The other volume is Daur Nachkebia’s Берег ночи (The Shore of Night). The two writers deliberately worked together. We are co-authors and we shall be jointly responsible for it. Both are a reaction to the war in Abkhazia which saw Abkhazia break away from Georgia, of which it had been a part, with the support of Russia though, as we shall see, the two novels are quite different in style. As the foreword says The President’s Cat is the radiant day to the dark desperation of Nachkebia’s The Shore of Night.
Our hero is a historical character – Mikhail TemurovichBgazhba. He was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Abkhazia, serving from 1958-1965. If this book is anything to go by he was a very colourful character indeed, though I suspect there is a certain amount, probably a considerable amount of literary exaggeration. He certainly does not conform to our idea of a Soviet Communist official. The book essentially recounts a series of anecdotes about Bgazhba which shows him to be a very decent man, concerned about the people of Abkhazia and a man given to massive exaggeration and often blatant lying to promote Abkhazia. Most of the other Soviet first secretaries modelled themselves on the current leader but not our hero.
He clearly likes drinking and partying. Later in the book there is a party and our author tells us that he does not need to tell us who the toastmaster is. No, he does not, as he has been toastmaster at many events. Not only can he and does he drink, he shows that he can drink Khrushchev (who makes a few appearances in this book) and Fidel Castro under the table.
Of course it is not all booze and parties. He may be a politician but he is other things as well. In particular he is botanist and actually wrote a book called Plant Resources of Abkhazia. He also introduced a variety of different plants to Abkhazia.
He seems to not only to know everyone in Abkhazia but be friends with them. He would even say of someone he did not know: “He’s my friend.
There were other changes post-Stalin. A Pepsi-Cola factory opened in Abkhazia. Mikhail Temurovich visited the USA a few times but he was not impressed America, guys, is a highly developed Soviet Union and nothing more.
However our narrator is impressed with him and, because Mikhail Temurovich has become something of a folk hero , he decides to write this book about him and if it even half of it is factual, Mikhail Temurovich was a remarkable man. The narrator held various positions that brought him into contact with Mikhail Temurovich, including being part of his security detail.
We have seen how he deals with Khrushchev. When a delegation arrives from Moscow from the USSR Party and State Inspectorate, whose job is to see that the local governments are following the rules, he says to them Nikita Sergeyevich and I came to an agreement… Comrade Khrushchev and I came to an agreement that we wouldn’t be inspected this year and then seemingly phones Khrushchev up in front of them, chats with Khrushchev as an old friend and then sends them off to Adjara. We assume that it was not Khrushchev on the line but we are not sure. In another dealing with Khrushchev, who calls for increased milk and meat production, our hero wittily responds :
In milk production we have matched America and quick,
But in meat we just can’t make it since our bull has sprained his dick
The KGB are not amused.
The book is essentially a series of anecdotes about Mikhail Temurovich, many of them funny, some serious and many featuring exaggerations and outright lies. He meets a Japanese man and boasts of Abkhazian tea (which does not exist). He had previously said tea and tobacco had done more harm to Abkhazia than anything else…Tea had deprived our women of health and tobacco had done the same for the men. When the Japanese man telegrams that he is coming to taste this tea, Mikhail Temurovich manages to invent an entire tea industry overnight. He even throws in an Abkhazian Mount Fuji. As a botanist he is keen on ekala, a cure for hangovers and persuades Khrushchev they should grow more.
And the eponymous cat? The son of a woman he knew was murdered and, as a consolation he brought her a great big ginger tomcat. It was a therapeutic cat and had belonged to President Kennedy, he claimed.
This book is enormous fun with a larger than life Soviet First Secretary who exaggerates and lies, all with the best of intentions, to help Abkhazia and Abkhazians. But the war came and it devastated him. He could not take it. All that he loved was destroyed.
Publishing history
First published in 2008 byUniversali
First published in English in 2024 by Academic Studies Press
Translated by David Foreman