Misha’s New Election Campaign & more– 24th Aug 2023

Gamarjobat from Gracia! This is the Rorshok Georgia Update from the 24th of August twenty twenty-three A quick summary of what's going down in Georgia.

Let's kick this bad boy off with political news.

On Monday, the 21st, Sopo Japaridze, a member of the United National Movement or Natsebi, launched the “Victory Campaign,” an election campaign on behalf of Misha. She outlined a plan to travel to different regions, engage with citizens, and gather their opinions in writing. She said she would directly share these opinions with Misha and use them to develop a strategy for the twenty twenty-four elections. This announcement angered Georgian Dream or Otsneba members. The best the could come up with, sticklers for detail was Mikheil Sarjveladze, the Chair of the Parliament's Committee on Human Rights, said that Misha "must not be able to carry out an election campaign in the country" as Georgian laws prohibit the participation of a foreign citizen in the elections, referring to Misha's Ukrainian citizenship.

Next a goodbye

On Friday, the 18th, Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili held a farewell meeting with the United States Ambassador Kelly Degnan, who has completed her diplomatic term in the country. Diplomatic language aside, Otsneba members did not hide their negative attitude toward Ambassador Degnan, who had an annoying habit of telling the truth. Irakli Zarkua, Otsneba member, said, "You are a wrecker, Mrs. Ambassador!" and that Degnan failed as an ambassador because, in his opinion, she was one of the creators of the revolutionary wave in the country, referring to the large protests in March against Otsneba’s adoption of the Foreign Agent Law, otherwise known as the best thing to happen in the Samshoblo in many years.

In a farewell interview with Radio Liberty, in response to th criticism from Otsneba, Degnan said that politicians say what they have to say, even when they know it’s not true. She emphasized the importance of overcoming political polarization and urged people to vote in the upcoming elections. We’ll miss you, Ambassador Ass Kicker.

We have some updates on the deadly landslide in Shovi.

On Tuesday, the 22nd, the Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that rescuers discovered another body in the disaster zone in Shovi. Until now, they have found twenty-nine bodies in the landslide area, and they are currently searching for four more missing people.

Meanwhile, political tensions regarding the tragedy continue. The Natsebi published an interim report on the deadly landslide, which says that in critical hours, the ruling party “left the citizens in the face of disaster.” Natsebi once again requested the creation of an Investigative Commission in the Parliament, which would give a clear picture of what happened that tragic day. In response, Otsneba members criticized Natsebi for using the tragedy to pit the public against the government. They also called Natsebi hypocrites as none of the party members visited Shovi after the landslide. However, a Natsebi delegation visited Shovi after a landslide for the first time on Tuesday, the 22nd. The locals concentrated on helping the victims of the tragedy. For instance, they crowdfunded money and purchased an apartment for a four-year-old, Lucy, who lost her mom.

Moving on to international news.

On Thursday, the 17th, during his visit to Israel, Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili met with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu, the well known corrupt cynical autocrat. The Administration of the Government of Georgia released an extremely bland statement reporting that the two leaders discussed cooperation between Georgia and Israel in various fields and explored prospects for further deepening their existing collaboration. The officials discussed plans to launch negotiations on a free trade agreement next year, with Garibashvili noting that trade and economic relations between the two countries are growing consistently. In twenty twenty-two, export-import between the two countries increased by 23% compared to the previous year. As Natanyahu destroys what’s left of Israeli democracy, no normal heads of state want to be seen in the same room as him, so the meeting was beneficial to both men, to BB to show that somebody will be seen with him, for Garibashvili to tell the EU once again, loudly but not obviously to the Georgian public, that he doesn’t want Georgia to get candidate status.

And the EU has returned the favor as clearly as they can.

Otsneba grapple with managing the aftermath of its exclusion from the Athens summit on Monday the 21st, where EU aspirant nations convened. Unnamed diplomatic sources disclosed to Civil.ge, that they might summon the Greek Ambassador to the Foreign Ministry to express their crankiness. Greece initiated the summit as a follow-up to the Thessaloniki EU-Balkans summit two decades ago. Unsurprisingly, Moldova and Ukraine participated in this summit, which Charles Michel, the European Council President, framed as an "informal meeting on EU enlargement." Georgia's Foreign Ministry decided on the inaccurate message that the focus was on the Ukrainian conflict as the reason for inviting Kyiv and Chisinau. Some Kremlin captured Brussels-based diplomats dutifully expressed confusion over Georgia and Turkey's exclusion, while others noted the prioritization of Ukraine and Moldova due to their advancement in the process.

On to some actual western cooperation.

On Monday, the 21st, NATO’s “Agile Spirit twenty twenty-three” multinational exercise kicked off in Georgia for the eleventh time. The Ministry of Defense welcomed participants from twenty-two countries at the official opening at the NATO-Georgia Joint Training and Evaluation Center in Krtsanisi. Over thirty-five hundred troops from Germany, Romania, the UK, Belgium, Azerbaijan, and the US are participating in Agile Spirit, with twelve hundred being from the US, according to the US Department of Defense.

Let's jump to cultural news.

On Monday, the 21st, more than 200 people in the film industry signed a statement boycotting the Georgian National Film Center or GNFC, after Tea Tsulukiani, the Minister of Culture, after long funding cuts and attempts to push him out, fired its respected and successful director Gaga Chkheidze in March twenty twenty-two, and appointed her loyal supporters to direct it, with further cuts and firings even after that. The employees believe Tsulukiani was behind all this. Cinematographers demand a change in the procedure for appointing the director of the film center. They said that professionals in the field should elect the director of the cinema center through a transparent and public process rather than the minister making a unilateral decision to appoint them. They decided to boycott future GNFC competitions and projects to avoid becoming part of formalities that "destroy modern Georgian cinema, culture, and science."

More cultural news.

The first Georgian festival in the historical Leuville estate near Paris, dedicated to Georgian art and culture, ended on Sunday the 20th. Leuville housed the first democratic government of Georgia after the USSR invaded the country in nineteen twenty-one. In twenty sixteen, France officially transferred the Leuville Estate back to Georgia. The Culture Ministry said that Georgian artists, folklore, choreographic ensembles, and theater actors performed for Georgian emigrants and foreign guests. The festival's closing event at the estate included performances by the Georgian State Academic Song and Dance Ensemble Erisioni, the women's folklore ensemble Ialoni, and a play by Tumanishvili Film Actors Theatre. Keep in mind that although it is an hour train ride from Austerlitz Station in Paris, it is not normally open to the public and nothing has been done by the current government to create a place of interest or activity there in any permanent way.

Techwise, On Monday the 22nd, Interpressnews reported that Insurance company Ardi had created Ardiana, the world's first AI Enterprise voice assistant that speaks Georgian. Ardi policyholders can use it to book the most requested service - visits to family doctors. It will answer the first call and never put people on standby, even during peak demand. Ardi collaborated with the technological startup CalenAI to develop the project, which won the Georgian Startup Summit and the Google Award for Conversation Design.

The National Statistics Office reported that car imports surpassed 1.6 billion US dollars, experiencing a surge of 96% between January and July twenty twenty-three. Re-exports also saw substantial growth, with Georgia re-exporting almost 1.8 billion US dollars worth of cars to other countries. Notably, third-party nations received over 60,000 vehicles that transited through Georgia, reflecting a 200% increase in car exports. Car re-exports accounted for 33% of the overall export volume. Georgian automobile dealers primarily sold over seven thousand units to Kyrgyzstan, amounting to nearly 300 million US dollars in this Central Asian nation. As a result, the average price of exported cars to Kyrgyzstan is remarkably high at 40,000 dollars. Call me crazy, but I am guessing not all of these cars stayed in Kyrgyzstan, wink wink.

On Wednesday, the 23rd, The Ministry of Education and Science signed a memorandum of cooperation with the Peace Corps, an independent agency and program of the US government that trains and deploys volunteers around the world. The primary objective of the memorandum is to enhance and streamline the teaching and learning of English in Georgia's regional schools. According to the agreement, Peace Corps volunteers will collaborate with public school students and assist local English language educators. Additionally, under the short-term support program, volunteers will aid employees, students, and individuals in vocational colleges and resource centers interested in refining their English language proficiency and enhancing their professional skills.

Rent seems to be going down in Tbilisi. Probably because some Russian and Ukrainian migrants, who had gone to Georgia en masse, seem to be moving on to other countries. For months after the war started rents skyrocketed, but now there are ads for urgent renting. many are going to the Emirates, where they bought property and were given a ten-year “Golden Visa”. And maybe they are just buying rather than renting in Tbilisi.

That’s it for this week! Thanks for joining us!

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Nakhvamdis!