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Ahmed-Pasha Khimshiashvili


Ahmed Bey, subsequently Ahmed Paşa (1781 – October 1836) was a Muslim Georgian nobleman of the Khimshiashvili clan from Adjara, which he ruled as an autonomous ruler (bey) under the Ottoman Empire after 1818. He played a notable role in the Caucasian theatre of the Russo-Turkish War (1828–29) in which he failed to recapture Akhaltsikhe for the Ottomans, but checked Russian attempts to invade Adjara. Subsequently, Ahmed abandoned his earlier clandestine diplomacy with the Russians and served loyally to the Ottoman government as a commander in Kars and Erzurum. He died fighting the Kurdish insurgents in 1836.

Ahmed Bey was a son of Selim Bey of Adjara, a derebey ("the lord of the valleys") of Upper Adjara, who was put to death, in 1815, for having opposed the Ottoman control of the Muslim Georgian fiefdoms. After this, Ahmed Bey and his brother Abdi Bey fled to their in-laws in the neighboring Georgian principality of Guria, a subject of the Russian Empire. In 1818, once the Ottoman punitive force left Adjara, Ahmed returned to his native village of Nigazeuli, expanded his family's powerbase in Adjara and established himself at Khulo, where he built a castle on the ruins of an old Christian monastery. He also attempted to extend his influence to Guria, where he supported anti-Russian opposition and threatened Russian loyalists. On 9 April 1819, Ahmed Bey made a surprise raid into Guria, burned down the village of Askana, and carried off many prisoners. On his way back, already in Adjara, the Gurians overtook him and defeated in a pitched battle, freeing their countrymen. At least 34 Adjarians, including an agha, were killed; Ahmed's cousin, two Turkish officials, 12 standard-bearers, and 79 others were taken captive. An incident induced the Russian troops to more energetically engage in the frontier districts, leading to a series of reprisal raids into the Muslim settlements.


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