Battle for the Caucasus: Georgia Scraps Visas for Residents of Russia's North Caucasus
In the struggle for the Caucasus, Russia may have gotten an initial upper hand by setting up shop in the two breakaway territories on Georgia’s side of the Caucasus mountain range, but Tbilisi is now hoping to defeat Moscow on its own home turf.
While still not on speaking terms with the rest of Russia, Tbilisi has announced plans to allow residents from Russia's North Caucasus republics to make 90-day trips to Georgia visa-free.
The offer has been extended to the whole bouquet of troubled Russian republics: Chechnya, Ingushetia, North Ossetia, Daghestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia and Adygea. The move is directly connected to President Mikheil Saakashvili's recent call at the United Nations General Assembly for a "united Caucasus," commented presidential spokesperson Manana Manjgaladze.
Tbilisi hopes the Caucasus will coalesce around Georgia, as the region’s lab for “economic and social transformation,” in Saakashvili's words.
Earlier overtures have not gotten so far, however. A Russian-language satellite TV channel, First Caucasian, lost its broadcast transmission. An offer to Azerbaijan and Armenia for economic and political integration has the obvious obstacle of Karabakh in its way. Economic and social welfare perks proposed to the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia were met with derision.
Now Tbilisi has reached out to its northern neighbors. The Kremlin responded angrily, calling the move Georgian propaganda.
The situation brings to mind the final scene from Bertolt Brecht’s play, "The Caucasian Chalk Circle" in which a peasant woman and a grand duchess grab a boy by his hands and try to pull him to their sides in a test of their claims of motherhood. In Brecht’s play, the woman who lets go of the boy's hand lest she hurt him becomes the winner. In Georgia and Russia’s case, letting go of the Caucasus does not seem to be an option for either side.
Giorgi Lomsadze is a journalist based in Tbilisi, and author of Tamada Tales.
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