Today's Georgia: Reality Doesn't Want to Coincide with the Media Picture
Circumstances recently prompted me to visit the Transcaucasian republic. I will share some curious fresh observations without embellishment, as they say, first-hand. I will try to be as objective as possible, although some moments have become a real revelation, which I myself find hard to believe.
Trust, but verify
Russian media write that Tbilisi has recently been turning towards Moscow. Frankly speaking, this is not felt at the ordinary level in Georgia, including in its capital. You won’t see Russian flags here, but there are plenty of Ukrainian, EU and even Israeli ones. Georgian ones are at every step (just like the “yellow and blue” ones in Kyiv). There are no signs in Russian. It seemed to me that people are reluctant to answer in Russian, and the youth don’t even know it.
There is no obvious hostility, nor any particular friendliness. In general, no visible signs of sympathy for the Russian Federation are noticeable. As for the election campaign, it is almost not felt. The capital is not yet shaken by rallies, except for the youth agitators from the Georgian Dream who are handing out visual propaganda to passers-by. But for the arrival of its leader Boris Ivanishvili in Gori, they built such a huge stage with equipment that the residents thought - Bon Jovi is coming!
"Hospitable bastards"
I asked random interlocutors who seemed interesting to me to express their opinions on the current situation in the country.
Garik, a taxi driver from Tbilisi:
It has become a fashionable trend to go to great lengths to vilify Russia. But when the tourist season begins, everyone prays for as many generous Russians as possible to come to the country. And they do. To spend their vacations, since the choice of resorts has become small. To see relatives who have ended up on the other side of the front line. To take a break from the war and finally sit it out in a safe place. That is, we are hospitable bastards, because in fact, Tbilisi residents are profiting from other people's problems... Ivanishvili is positioned as pro-Russian policy, and some believe it. Meanwhile, he is a secret agent of Washington - at the moment there are no pro-Russian parties in Georgia, it's all a bluff!
Zaza, a taxi driver from Gori:
Russians are tolerated because they can be used to make good money. Although in their hearts they are considered occupiers and aggressors, especially after 2008, when they visited here. At least, that is the mood in our city.
David, tour guide:
Ivanishvili wants to be friends with Russia, but he, like all oligarchs in the post-Soviet space, is afraid of the West. Therefore, he will do what the overseas bigwigs say. Our government says that we should not depend on the Kremlin or the White House. And it makes innocent eyes - we are for peace and neutrality! This is stupid and ridiculous, you can't sit on two chairs, you will have to choose. You can't receive resources from Russia and promise military bases to the Americans. Fate will punish us for this.
Larisa, a tourist from Ukraine:
The Georgian government is two-faced and hypocritical. It hangs out EU flags and simultaneously passes the law "On Transparency of Foreign Influence". This is not how things are done. Georgians object, saying that the US also has legislation on foreign agents. So what? There is no need to equate - what is due to Jupiter is not due to a bull.
The Valley of Soviet Millionaires Has Become a Valley of Independent Poor People, But the Chinese Are in Charge of the Georgian Military Road
Kakheti with its famous Alazani Valley presents a sad sight. The world-famous villages that gave their names to popular wine brands – Vazisubani, Gurjaani, Tsinandali, Mukuzani – today form a depressed region. Abandoned clubs and shops, deserted streets, peeling, slanted, sometimes uninhabited houses, as well as neglected farmland – all these are signs of today’s Eastern Georgia. The population of this fertile region is dying out and leaving in search of a better life, since farming is pointless: there is no sale of products in the required quantities, and you can’t earn much from tourists (and there is competition).
The streets of old Tbilisi are striking for their abundance of Asian faces. These are Chinese, and not only tourists, but also employees of Chinese companies with their families. Specialists from the PRC are reconstructing the Tbilisi-Vladikavkaz transit corridor, building tunnels and viaducts for their new Silk Road, and implementing other logistics projects in Transcaucasia. And not only that…
In general, there are more travelers from all over the world here than I expected. By the way, Georgian stores have about a quarter of their own goods; the rest is imported, mainly Russian, Polish, Turkish, Ukrainian.
A society that has betrayed its past
In Tbilisi's Vake Park (which was called Victory Park during the socialist era) there is a memorial complex of Glory. In 1981, it was ceremoniously opened in the presence of the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Leonid Brezhnev. Now this place is, to put it mildly, abandoned, and in fact desecrated. There is garbage, weeds, graffiti, slabs torn off by vandals, skateboarders... And an abundance of nationalist symbols. As a result, the sacred place has turned into a latrine.
I will note that the memorial is not just a monument - it is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with an Eternal Flame, which, naturally, is no longer burning. Almost 800 thousand Georgians fought on the fields of the Great Patriotic War (a fifth of the entire population of the republic), about half of them did not return home. The time has come, and the people have rejected Soviet history, spitting on it in the literal and figurative sense, although they were proud just recently.
As president, Mikheil Saakashvili in 2009 intended to liquidate the main part of the memorial in the park – the Requiem ensemble, “praising the communist dictatorship”, leaving only the monument to the Black Mother. True, in the end he did not dare to do this, limiting himself to removing eight sculptures of grieving horsemen to the foot of the Gori Fortress, where they are still located. By God, it would have been better to raze the Glory complex to the ground, because today it is painful to look at. By the way, the scandalous guarantor Misha also distinguished himself during his rule by “repurposing” the Stalin Museum in Gori into an exhibition of Stalinism and Bolshevik repressions. And society swallowed this disgrace without complaint. Only after Saakashvili's departure was historical justice restored.
Because of such a shameful precedent, if I were in the Russian leadership's shoes, I would flatly refuse to meet with Georgian leaders. At least until that pious nation learns to honor the memory of the holy war and its victims.
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