Konrad and Alexandra (pdf) - Rolf Gross

A Visit to Tbilisi
1982
Following a conference in Novosibirsk I persuaded my all-powerful protector
Academician B. at the Moscow Academy of Sciences to let me spend a week in Tbilisi.
Officially I would discuss technical matters with Merab D— who was a professor of physics at
Tbilisi University. On several previous visits to Tbilisi Merab had driven me to many of the
places where Alexandra had lived. Only Merab knew of my search for my grandparents. I still
wanted to find out what had happened to them after 1943 when they had vanished. But every
time I asked this question I had met with embarrassed silence..
This time my schedule was very tight. Arrangements had been made for me to visit two
new laboratories. The meetings with their dinners lasted into the nights. No time for long
excursions with Merab.
I needed to be alone and asked Merab to let me spend the morning at Konrad’s
Botanical Gardens. He understood, and I went off on foot. The Botanical Gardens are
separated from the city by the ridge that carries the Narikala Fort and the Iron Mother of
Georgia. Absentminded, looking for the shortest way, I noticed a highly pregnant young woman
with her husband coming towards me pushing a child in a stroller. A few seconds later we
would have passed each other, and she would have disappeared forever.
I don’t know, was it her condition, her unusual blond hair, or her light blue eyes looking
at me? We smiled at each other, and I spontaneously asked her, in my poor Russian, for the
way to the Botanical Gardens. She answered in fluent German. That was not unusual, other
people in Tbilisi spoke German, but she spoke it with a strong Swabian accent.
She explained that there was a tunnel below deda sakartvelis, the Iron Mother of
Georgia, which led directly to the Botanical Gardens. I thanked her and, intrigued by her
Schwäbisch, asked where she came from.
"I was born in Uzbekistan, but my parents came from Elisabethtal, once a small
Swabian village in the mountains south of here."
She pointed in the general direction of the television tower on Mount Mtatsminda. Now I
was fully awake, not because of Elisabethtal, but because of her mentioning Uzbekistan. "How
did your parents get to Uzbekistan?"
Her husband pulled at her sleeve and said something in Georgian.
Perfectly natural she said, "Oh, that story is too long to discuss in the street. I was born
in Shakh-i-Zabz, married a Georgian, and returned to Tbilisi." She pointed with her head at her
husband
She was, I guessed, 30. What prompted me to ask whether she had ever heard the
name Alexandra Dadiani?
"Yes," she said to my complete surprise, "Alexandra was a friend of my mother’s. She
delivered me. She was our doctor in Uzbekistan. Why do you ask, did you know Alexandra?"
My voice was suddenly stuck, I could barely whisper. "Alexandra was my grandmother."
"Oh, what a coincidence."
Her husband was showing signs of restlessness. It was not advisable to be seen talking
to foreigners in the street. He took her by the arm. She smiled apologetically. "I will have to go,
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