A prayer from Shamkhal

Born in Saint Petersburg to the noble Rurikid princely family Grigory Gagarin was a Russian painter,Major General and diplomat.A friend of Alexander Pushkin and Mikhail Lermontov, In 1848-1855 Gagarin lived in Tiflis served under Mikhail Vorontsov. Among the military and administrative duties, Gagarin did a lot of works for the city. He built a theater, frescoed the Tbilisi Sioni Cathedral, and restored frescoes of the old Georgian cathedrals, including the Betania monastery. In his records ‘The journey to Caucasus’ a French writer Alexander Duma (the father) writes: I have never seen such a delightful theatre building before. With its vestibule, interior, theatre curtain and wall paintings it reminds me building of Pompey Theatre. The Art Palace of Georgia possesses a valuable collection of Gagarin’s ‘Sketches and Drawings of Caucasian People’