He was a terrible person. The authorities were afraid of him even when they were able to shackle him and put him in a prison cell.
Sometimes the craving for knowledge opens the way for a person to scientific discoveries, and sometimes it also leads him to the scaffold. It all depends on the order that prevails in society. The glory of a noble robber may seem enviable, but the ending for such persons is always tragic.
Childhood
In the Caucasus, the birth of a son is a great happiness. In 1876, the priest of the village of Tkhviavi, Zakhary Ketskhoveli, became a father. The newborn was named Vladimir. The relatives called the baby in the Georgian manner of Lado. The family was large - his wife gave Zachariah six children, which did not pass without a trace for her. In 1883, the mother of many children died, and all the care of the heirs fell on the shoulders of the widower.
Lado watched his parent's character deteriorate. To prevent the children from starving, he increased the fees from the parishioners of his church. When one of the poor could not pay the tax, Zakhariy called the soldiers for help and they destroyed the house of the disobedient. The boy expressed his indignation in the face of his father, who was offended and told him to get ready. It was costly to feed the child, but the holy husband no longer wanted to endure the obstinate.
Youth
The teenager began his independent life very early. He was sent to the Gori religious school. The teachers did not like him at once - he asked too many tricky questions, declared that the ministers of the church are not always fair. The news that Vladimir's elder brother Niko had contacted the populists added fuel to the fire. These guys did nothing criminal, but they loved to read forbidden literature and often slipped it to the peasants.
Lado rarely saw his brother, but the stories that he had some scary books disturbed the boy's imagination. He was able to get something from what was called forbidden. The work of the authors, whom the mentors of the educational institution ranked among the servants of Satan, turned out to be interesting, and it was not at all about black masses, but about the need to fight for their rights.
Dangerous dating
Volodya began to conduct educational work among his comrades. He organized a literary circle, where the children read and discussed books, including those not rejected by the censorship of imperial Russia. The meetings were attended by both Lado's peers and students of the junior and senior grades. Among them was Joseph Dzhugashvili, who would later become famous under the party pseudonym Stalin.
So that everyone could practice their own political journalism, Ketskhoveli began to publish the magazine "Gantiadi". The title of the publication is translated as "Dawn". This handwritten collection of sedition fell into the hands of one of the teachers, and the authors were promised big problems with their future careers. Only the intervention of his father saved the freethinker from expulsion and allowed him in 1891 to continue his education at the Tiflis Theological Seminary.
Insurrection
The order in the seminary was brutal. Some teachers allowed themselves Nazi statements, humiliated poor students. Our hero could not continue here the activities of an underground literary circle, which could only criticize the tyrants exposed by the authorities. The young man gathered like-minded people and invited them to go on strike. In December 1893, the seminarians raged for several days, demanding the expulsion of sadists and Nazis from the staff of teachers.
The riot resulted in the expulsion of 23 students. Among them was the organizer of the uprising - Lado Ketskhoveli. He returned to Thiavi to the parental home. Zacharius loved his son and urged him to think about the future. He insisted that the convinced atheist continue his studies and receive a dignity. It was impossible to do this in Georgia - the young rowdy became too famous, Lado had to be sent to Kiev.
Underground worker
Every mountaineer respects his elders, but he also has his own pride. The young man formally fulfilled all of his papa's orders - in 1894 he arrived in Kiev, entered the theological seminary, but instead of studying religious texts, he began to seek contacts with the revolutionaries. A cell of social democrats operated in the city. Soon Lado joined the ranks of this illegal organization. In 1897, searches began in the apartments of the underground workers, and our hero was forced to flee.
It was a shame to come home, because Ketskhoveli found shelter with his like-minded people in Tiflis. There he met an old acquaintance, Dzhugashvili. Young people fought against the tsarist regime. Lado's contribution was the organization of a printing house that produced leaflets. The need to constantly hide put an end to his personal life, therefore, when it was necessary to transfer someone to Baku, the bachelor Ketskhoveli was chosen.
Doom
In January 1900, the Baku organization of the RSDLP was replenished with a new member. Vladimir immediately set about organizing a printing house. His brainchild will bear the female name "Nina". The agitation of the workers of the railway and oil fields attracted the attention of the gendarmes to the underground samizdat. In the fall of 1902, the printing workshop was discovered and everyone who was there was arrested. Lado was also among the detainees.
It was difficult for the court to pass a harsh sentence on this guy. In his biography there were no episodes of robbery or actions of retaliation to representatives of the authorities. Ketskhoveli was sent to a Baku prison. This did not cool his hot head - he raised a revolt of prisoners against the terrible conditions of detention. The disobedient was transferred to the Metekhi castle. The coward guarding the place of detention saw a famous revolutionary in the window of one of the casemates and fired at him with a rifle. So Lado Ketskhoveli died.
