On the 17th of March 1951, an unremarkable drama played out in Paris, the kind of drama that happens every year in every part of the world. A young 24-year-old girl, Pauline Dubuisson, came to see her former lover. Why visit exes? Probably to work things out. The guy was shot and the girl, first tried to shoot herself, then opened the gas. That's when the police arrived.

Zugdidi is the heart of the picturesque historical region of Mingrelia (Samegrelo, Mingrelia), the former residence of the Mingrelian rulers of the Dadiani princes. The city is located 332 kilometers from Tbilisi, near the administrative border with Abkhazia, and is one of the most important cities of the western part of the country. It has many amazing sights, one of which is the posthumous mask of Emperor Napoleon I Bonaparte.

The guillotine is often described by historians as the most humane form of execution. At the time of its heyday, the eighteenth century, it certainly was. For those condemned to death had previously been sent to heaven by much harsher means. For example, charioting or quartering.