David Sarajishvili

Chemist, founder of Georgian brandy, philanthropist

1848–1911

David Sarajishvili (1848–1911) was born in Tiflis into a merchant family, finished the First Tiflis Gymnasium and went to study in Germany. In 1871 the faculty of philosophy of Heidelberg University awarded him a doctorate with chemistry as his main subject; he then studied agriculture in Hoffenheim and Halle. In 1878–1879 he studied winemaking and distilling in France, where he met Jean-Baptiste Camus, founder of the Camus cognac house.

Back home he put the distillation of grape spirit on a scientific footing: in 1884 he founded his business in Tiflis, released the first brandy in 1887 and built works in Kizlyar, Yerevan, Călărași and Baku. Georgian brandy became an industry rather than a household craft.

He spent the money on people. Sarajishvili paid student stipends, supported painters, musicians and scholars, funded the archaeological excavations of Ekvtime Takaishvili and the building of the nobility gymnasium out of which Tbilisi University grew.

The house he built in 1905 on the site of his parents’ home became the Writers’ House of Georgia. Sarajishvili and his wife Ekaterine Porakishvili had no children; in 1995 his ashes were reburied in the grounds of the Kashveti church on Rustaveli Avenue, whose construction he had helped to fund together with other Georgian entrepreneurs and nobles.