In the beginning of the 1960s, Levan Kursua (1887-1969), a resident of the seaside village of Ergeta (Anaklia) in Mingrelia (Colchis), retold a Georgian legend about Colchian (Lazica) and Iberian warriors who, as part of their training, used a style of swimming where their hands and feet were bound firmly.
Born into a petite noble family in Abasha in western Georgian province of Mingrelia, then under the Imperial Russian rule, Gamsakhurdia received early education at the Kutaisi gymnasium and then studied in St. Petersburg, where he quarreled with Nicholas Marr.