Book I0% in

Niza Jashi

The chocolate-maker's shop

Book I

The saga begins with a confectioner whose secret hot chocolate is so good it seems dangerous, a sweetness the narrator comes to read as a family curse. His shop belongs to the merchant lanes of the old town, where such trades clustered in the last years before the empire fell.

Book I (Stasia)

inferredThe novel places the family's confectionery in the old town but gives no street; this marks a representative point on Kote Abkhazi Street, the historic commercial artery of Old Tbilisi, once called Leselidze.

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Book II25% in

Niza Jashi

The family house, Sololaki

Book II

The generations gather in a large family home whose rooms fill and empty as the century turns, holding weddings, denunciations and long silences. The elegant houses of Sololaki, built by merchants below the hill, match the world the book gives the Jashi family.

Book II (Christine)

inferredThe novel does not give the house an address; the grand old quarter it describes at the foot of Mtatsminda reads as Sololaki, so this marks a central point in that district.

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Book III50% in

Niza Jashi

The old town below Narikala

Book III

The city itself is a character across the book, its brick bathhouse domes, crooked lanes and river running under the whole saga. Abanotubani, the sulphur-bath quarter below the Narikala fortress, is the oldest heart of the Tbilisi the family never quite leaves behind.

Books I to VIII (Tbilisi)

explicitThe old town of Tbilisi is named in the novel; this marks the bath district of Abanotubani beneath the Narikala fortress, the ancient core of the city.

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Book V75% in

Niza Jashi

Rustaveli Avenue

Book V

Public life plays out along the grand central avenue, where parades pass, theatres light up and, in the later chapters, protest turns to bloodshed under Soviet rule. Rustaveli Avenue is the stage on which the family's private history keeps colliding with the state's.

Books IV to VI (Soviet years)

explicitRustaveli Avenue is a named, real thoroughfare; this marks a central point on the avenue, formerly Golovin Street.

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Book VIII100% in

Niza Jashi

Mtatsminda, the holy mountain

Book VIII

The hill rises over every rooftop in the book, a place the characters climb to look down on the city that has held and hurt them. Mtatsminda, the holy mountain, carries the Pantheon of Georgia's dead and gives the saga its long view over Tbilisi and the years.

Books VI to VIII (Tbilisi)

explicitMtatsminda is the named hill above Tbilisi; this marks the Pantheon on its slope, the terrace and burial ground overlooking the city.

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