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# "Two oxen, yoked to a cart, were climbing a steep road
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/dva-vola-vpriazhennye-v-arbu-podymalis-po-krutoi-doroge/
- Published: 2023-11-09T13:35:55.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:35:23.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archive, The East, Books, People

"Two oxen, yoked to a cart, were climbing a steep road. Several Georgians accompanied the cart. "Where are you from?" I asked them. "From Tehran." "What are you carrying?" "Griboyedov." It was the body of the murdered Griboyedov, which was being conveyed to Tiflis.

I never thought that I should meet our Griboyedov again! I had parted from him the previous year in Saint Petersburg, before his departure for Persia. He was melancholy and had strange forebodings. I tried to reassure him; he said to me: "Vous ne connaissez pas ces gens-là: vous verrez qu’il faudra jouer des couteaux" (You do not yet know these people: you will see that it will come to knives).

He supposed that the cause of the bloodshed would be the death of the Shah and the civil strife among his seventy sons. But the aged Shah is still alive, and Griboyedov's prophetic words have come true.

He perished under the daggers of the Persians, a victim of ignorance and perfidy. His disfigured corpse, for three days the plaything of the Tehran mob, was recognised only by the hand, once pierced by a pistol ball.

*Pushkin on his last meeting with Griboyedov, "A Journey to Arzrum"*