Teimuraz I of Kakheti
During his travels the Italian adventurer Pietro Della Valle claimed that there was no household in Persia without its Georgian slaves, noticing the huge amounts of Georgians present everywhere in society. The later Safavid capital, Isfahan, was home to many Georgians. Many of the city’s inhabitants were of Georgian, Circassian, and Daghistani descent. Engelbert Kaempfer, who was in Safavid Persia in 1684-85, estimated their number at 20,000. Following an agreement between Shah Abbas I and his Georgian subject Teimuraz I of Kakheti ("Tahmuras Khan"), whereby the latter submitted to Safavid rule in exchange for being allowed to rule as the region’s wāli (governor) and for having his son serve as dāruḡa ("prefect") of Isfahan in perpetuity, a Georgian prince converted to Islam served as governor. He was accompanied by a certain number of soldiers, and they spoke in Georgian among themselves. There must also have been some Georgian Orthodox Christians. The royal court in Isfahan had a great number of Georgian ḡolāms (military slaves) as well as Georgian women. Although they spoke Persian or Turkic, their mother tongue was Georgian.