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How it all started?
There have been several quasi-successful attempts to launch rugby here until it finally got foothold in 1959 According to chemistry professor Davrichachvili's recollections, who later fled Bolsheviks to France, in about 1919, during brief spell of Independence, there were three teams in Georgia Democratic Republic. They regularly played on the site of present Vake Gardens, just across the road from the Union' Offices Circa 1930 rugby was played by dockers of Poti, a Black Sea town. Then kid, soccer-star-in-making Boris Paitchadze used to join them and since then kept such affection to the Game that in mid 1960s was elected as first Chairman of Soviet Georgia Rugby Federation
Dynamo - Tbilissi premiers of 1940
Once Soviet State adopted rugby in mid 1930s, a Georgian student, Guiga Dvali was sent to a workshop held in Moscow in spring 1937. Due to bloody purges he managed to found four teams on his return to Tbilissi only three years later and arranged a week-long comp, won by Dynamo which actually was a military unit moved to Caucasus with the onset of WWII After the war, in 1947, a rugby enthusiast Vlad Tsyganov of Burevestnik Moscow, hastely essembled a team at Tbilissi Sports Technicum. Georgian students lost all three games during an inter-city tournament held at Dynamo stadium, and never played again And finally, in late 1950s, a native of Marseille, Jacques Haspekian, who temporarily settled in Tbilissi, formed teams at Polytechnical and Agricultural Institutes and footware-makers Isani. This was followed by inaugural Tbilissi Championship in 1961 and return from Moscow of Guivi Mrelashvili, a founder of first local governing body, Tbilissi Rugby Section
Tbilissi Sports Technicum playing Dynamo Moscow in 1947
Polytechnical Institute - Tbilissi premiers of 1962