Georgia's domestically produced Lazika armored vehicle
During last year's election campaign, leader of the Georgian Dream coalition Bidzina Ivanishvili expressed skepticism about President Mikheil Saakashvili's drive to create an indigenous defense industry. Ivanishvili wasn't the only one -- as EurasiaNet's Molly Corso reported last year, "Many analysts say the development of Tbilisi’s defense industries won’t do much to make Georgia more secure in a potential conflict against a military power like Russia. They see it mostly as an exercise in national pride." That impression was bolstered by the splashy PR efforts exerted to roll out domestically produced armored personnel carriers and drones (the latter of which turned out to not be especially homegrown, borrowing very heavily from an Estonian production).
During a speech on Tuesday, Saakashvili alluded to plans of the new government to scotch defense production, Civil.ge reported:
“It will be a huge mistake if Georgia says no to production of military hardware,” President Saakashvili said, adding that now it was no time for pre-election rhetoric and saying that armored and infantry fighting vehicles produced by [state-owned defense manufacturer] Delta were “bluff” – a reference to remarks of PM Bidzina Ivanishvili who during his pre-election campaign voiced skepticism over Delta’s potential.
But now that the campaign is over and Ivanishvili is prime minister, his government appears to be interested in keeping Georgia's defense industry on the path that the previous government forged. In response to Saakashvili's comments, Ivanishvili's defense ministry appointees say that there is no need to fret:
Russia’s criminal world has been bereaved of its top gangster, 75-year-old Tbilisi-born Aslan Usoyan, known to friends and enemies alike as Grandpa Hassan. First among equals in the Soviet-born and ex-Soviet-wide system of criminals, Grandpa Hassan died a soldier’s death, shot by a sniper bullet in central Moscow, on January 16.
The Russian news agency Interfax reported symbolically that the killer fired from the roof of the apartment of the late Soviet poet Sergei Mikhalkov, who penned the lyrics of the Soviet Union's anthem.
A career criminal, Usoyan was born to a Yezidi Kurdish family in Georgia's capital, Tbilisi, once the main exporter of mafia bosses. In his teen years, he began his ascent through the Soviet mafia hierarchy known as the thieves-in-law.
His authority soon outgrew Georgia, but Grandpa Hassan kept on climbing the career ladder.
As perhaps no other institution did in Soviet times, thieves-in-law embraced the spirit of multiculturalism with Georgians, Russians, Armenians and others all participating, coexisting and fighting one another.
That code held true for Grandpa Hassan well into old age. Russian media reported that in 2008 he clashed with the competing clan of Tarieli Oniani (also Georgian) at a mafia summit, where plans for appropriating the funds for Sochi's 2014 Winter Olympics were supposedly discussed.
Proud of his ethnic roots, Grandpa Hassan was also known for affirmative action policies to promote the Kurdish minority through the criminal ranks.
He is survived by many fellow mafia bosses in Russia and outside its borders. His criminal remains may be buried near the Moscow grave of another assassinated criminal mafia boss, Yaponchik ("Little Japanese man").
President Mikheil Saakashvili and Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili vie in pleasing the patriarch.
Georgia’s two squabbling rulers, the prime minister and the president, both need love . . . the love of the country’s spiritual leader, the guardian of national unity, the primus inter pares, Georgian Orthodox Church Patriarch Ilia II.
“You love him more,” Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, apparently in a sudden grip of jealousy, told the patriarch at a January 14 gathering, pointing at President Mikheil Saakashvili, who stood towering over both men with a happy smile.
“Now, why would you say he loves me more?” responded the president, tapping his diminutive rival on the shoulder.
The aging prelate, caught in the middle of the awkward exchange, maintained a diplomatic silence.
The footage of the meeting cuts there, so we don’t know the outcome of this telling conversation, but the party at the patriarch’s showed rather clearly that Georgia’s political system is not a diarchy, but a triumvirate, and that secular leaders need to vie for the holy graces of the chief of the Georgian Orthodox Church.
Georgians’ infatuation with their political leaders is pretty much a one-night stand and they tend to lose interest the moment leaders take office. But the patriarch always tops the national love charts.
And, so, well aware of the patriarch’s star power, Saakashvili and Ivanishvili turned up at the celebrations that marked Orthodox New Year, plus Ilia II's 80th birthday and the anniversary of his 1977 enthronement ; “a celebration of love,” as the church leader himself put it.
A goat dragging a snapped rope around its neck calmly hoofs it over a crosswalk in a Tbilisi suburb on January 10. Once common during the economic breakdown of the 1990s, some Tbilisi residents still keep domestic animals in the city.
Temo Bardzimashvili is a freelance photojournalist based in Tbilisi.
Georgia's new defense minister has said the country will eliminate military conscription and move to an all-professional army within four years, reports Civil.ge:
“We plan to move fully on professional army in four years. The term of compulsory military service will be gradually reduced [from current 15 months] to 12 months, and then we will fully move to a contract-based army,” said [Irakli] Alasania, who is also the first deputy PM.
“We should not be forcing anyone to be enrolled in the army,” he said, adding that only professionals with relevant education should be serving in the army.
Professionalization is one of the key steps in moving from a Soviet-style military to a Western-style one, but it's much easier said than done, and countries in the ex-communist world invariably take much longer to fully professionalize than they plan. To take just one example, in 2007, Georgia said it would move to a fully professional army by 2009. All of the former Soviet states, except the Baltics, still have compulsory military service, though Ukraine just announced today that it will end conscription this year.
And just a few months ago (while the previous government was still in power), Georgia actually increased the term of conscription from 12 months to 15. From IWPR:
Hunters paddle out for an evening pursuit of prey as smoke rises over Paliastomi Lake near Poti, Georgia, in late December. The Paliastomi lake marshes, which are part of the Kolkheti National Park, are often set on fire by hunters and cattle herders, who clear the area for easier fowling and cow grazing. Violation of national park regulations – quite common in Georgia’s protected areas – are often due to poor management.
Temo Bardzimashvili is a freelance photojournalist based in Tbilisi.
A recent opinion poll shows Georgia's support for President Mikheil Saakashvili at an all-time low, and for Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili at a staggering high, but the question is -- how long will the love for Ivanishvili last?
The survey, conducted among 1,947 Georgian voters by the Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC) for the National Democratic Institute, gave Ivanishvili a general approval rating of 80 percent, slightly more than a twofold increase since August, compared with 29 percent for his prime rival, Saakashvili, who tumbled from a 61-percent rating.
The ratings, based on fieldwork done between November 14 and 25, differ dramatically from the results of the October 1 parliamentary elections, in which 54.97 percent of voters gave the nod to Ivanishvili's Georgian Dream and 40.34 percent to Saakashvili's UNM.
That means that support for Ivanishvili jumped by a whopping 25 percent in just over a month after the vote. The hike occurred before the Ivanishvili-led cabinet could offer much in terms of new policies; hence, the reason for the jump is not entirely clear.
One analyst notes that the atmosphere of intimidation recorded by international observers during the campaign period may have played a role. “It is quite possible that support for the United National Movement was mile-wide, but inch-deep to start with,” said George Welton, a Tbilisi-based independent analyst.
Georgians’ changing news diet could also be a factor, said Welton, who is married to Georgian Deputy Defense Minister Tamar Karosanidze.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili says that NATO was ready to offer his country the long-coveted Membership Action Plan to join the alliance but that "events of recent months" have scuttled those hopes. That seems to contradict statements made a day earlier by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, in which he said there were never any such plans.
Saakashvili was speaking to Georgian journalists in Warsaw, on the way back to Georgia from NATO meetings in Brussels, reports Civil.ge:
“We were permanently making progress in respect of NATO [integration]. At Bucharest summit [in April 2008] we failed to get MAP, but we got a direct declaration that Georgia will become a NATO member and it was a real geopolitical breakthrough. Then NATO-Georgia Commission was established [in September, 2008]… Then we received a status of an aspirant state [December, 2011]… Then there was a statement at the NATO Chicago summit [in May, 2012] that at the next summit NATO should expand and that Georgia was one of the major candidates,” Saakashvili said....
“Yesterday [December 5] NATO-Georgia Commission meeting was held in Brussels. After the elections we had a chance of receiving MAP, because at the time discussions were ongoing that because elections were held so well and because we had a consensus between the new [government] and the President about NATO membership, there was a chance of at last getting this MAP by December – I was personally told about it at the very highest level,” Saakashvili said....
“Unfortunately, events of recent months – and I am saying it with great regret – did not allow us [to get MAP].”
“Yesterday’s [NATO-Georgia Commission] meeting was held actually without having new institutional progress [with NATO],” Saakashvili said.
