Documents of the Tbilisi Gendarmerie Division Fonds, kept at the National Archives of the Ministry of Justice of Georgia, will be presented to the public for the first time through an exhibition and web program.

The gendarmerie was the secret (political) police of the Russian King created in the 1820s. Its purpose was to expose and combat state and political crimes.

Tbilisi Gendarmerie Fonds, which combines written documents, surveillance materials, secret correspondence and other interesting documents, created by the organization in 1839-1917, is accompanied by gendarmerie cards for prisoners in 1904-1917. Along with the photos, the cards kept fingerprints of the detainee, personal information, physical descriptions and prosecution information. 5413 such cards have been issued before us.

As for the gendarmerie photo collection, it is mostly preserved on glass negatives and contains about 5,000 photographs of people arrested by the Tbilisi Gendarmerie Department in 1904-1917, which were taken during their arrest.

Among the detainees are Georgian public figures and politicians, who have had problems with the gendarmerie because of their work. In the materials you will find photos and gendarmerie cards of Mikheil Javakhishvili, Noe Zhordania, Noe Ramishvili, Razhden Arsenidze, Ana Sologhashvili, Zakaria Chichinadze, Ioseb Imedashvili and other famous people.

The photo collection and the cards, in addition to its direct content, provide a variety of interesting information. For example, the physical data of people of a century ago, their attire and social status.

The National Archives plans to present a rich collection of gendarmerie photos and cards to the public through a web application. The documents will also be exhibited at the Exhibition Pavilion of National Archives in November 2019.