NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev on their way to the joint press conference
NATO's Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen took a quick trip through all three south Caucasus countries this week, where he criticized Azerbaijan's pardon of a soldier who killed an Armenian while on a joint NATO exercise in Hungary. Rasmussen also voiced strong support for Georgia's (eventual) alliance membership.
Rasmussen's trip took place at a time of heightened tensions in the Caucasus, especially between Armenia and Azerbaijan, over the pardon of Lieutenant -- now Major -- Ramil Safarov. At a speech in Baku, he pretty strongly condemned the move:
I am deeply concerned by the Azerbaijani decision to pardon Ramil Safarov. The act he committed in 2004 was a crime which should not be glorified, as this damages trust and does not contribute to the peace process.
At a joint press conference with President Ilham Aliyev, Rasmussen was asked about the issue, and Aliyev answered too, defending the pardon as in line with the Constitution, which must have been a bit of an awkward moment.
Rasmussen used identical words at a speech in Yerevan, and they apparently weren't strong enough for a number of protesters at his speech.
The reception was warmer in Tbilisi, of course, where President Mikheil Saakashvili said that Rasmussen deserved to be named an "honorary Georgian." Rasmussen gave a fairly strong endorsement of the concept, at least, of Georgian membership in NATO:
Roland Girgvliani, 68, spreads oat on the road in Upper Svaneti as the passing cars run over it, thus threshing it. Girgvliani says that this method was started during Soviet times, substituting the traditional ox driven threshers. The unorthodox practice became useless with the deterioration of the road following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Girgvliani says that since then, many people chose to grow vegetables instead of crops that required threshing. With the recent development of tourism in Svaneti, the road was renovated, and farmers such as Girgvliani recovered the decades-old method of 'car threshing.'
Temo Bardzimashvili is a freelance photojournalist based in Tbilisi.
Nika Gugeshashvili, a local guide, looks at a stalagmite in a cave around Oni, a major town in the mountain region of Racha, Georgia. An adjacent region to the intensively promoted Svaneti, Racha remains mostly unknown to foreign tourists.
Temo Bardzimashvili is a freelance photojournalist based in Tbilisi.
Several thousand Georgians attended the Didgoroba festival in the region of Kvemo Kartli near the capital Tbilisi on August 12. The annual gathering on the field of Didgori celebrates a 12th Century victory of Georgian troops against Seljuk Turks.
Playing around an armored military vehicle, many of the people attending wore caps and T-shirts with inscriptions "I ♥ Georgia" and "5", a pre-election campaign slogan and the ballot paper number respectively for the United National Movement, Georgia's ruling party.
This year's gathering appeared to have a more political slant, as police controlling access to the field only allowed "those on the list" to enter, with no mention of what the list was. At one point police stopped, about five kilometers from the Didgori field, several minibuses with young activists from government opposition party Georgian Dream. Several folk art groups refused to perform at the festival as a protest against strong political support of Georgia President Mikheal Saakashvili, who made a speech at the gathering.
Temo Bardzimashvili is a freelance photojournalist based in Tbilisi.
Young Tbilisians explore the historic mountain village of Shatili during the annual Shatiloba folk festival on August 4. Based in Georgia’s highlands region of Khevsureti near Chechnya, the festival features horse races by locals, traditional music, and folk dancers.
Temo Bardzimashvili is a freelance photojournalist based in Tbilisi.
These days, no newscast is complete on Georgia's government-friendly national news channels without a little plug for President Mikheil Saakashvili that usually features Misha embracing an overjoyed old lady or "bebia."
One day, village women thank the president for fixing their water supplies; the next, he is personally pulling a more middle-aged woman through a flash flood.
(A photo depicting the latter scene was posted on Facebook by the Russian journal Snob.ru next to a still of Russian President Vladimir Putin thoughtfully observing flood damage from the safety of his plane. The two pictures have been madly debated, with some crediting Misha for getting his feet wet for the people, and others defending Putin's drier ways. )
Whether or not the old ladies are truly happy to see their president, the encounters are a syrupy standard for Georgia's national broadcasters, and one that no government would want to see go awry in an election year.
But when they do, leave it to the president to turn them around into another bebia-hugging success.
Case in point: At a July 24 event in western Georgia, Roza Tskabelia, a poverty-stricken local, tried to approach Saakashvili to tell him about her plight. Opposition-minded TV cameras filmed two plainclothesmen crudely dragging the struggling woman away. The video was aired on TV and went viral online, with Internet users demanding the men's punishment.
Iuza Beradze, a 71-year-old veteran folk singer, jokes as his wife helps him fasten the traditional Imeretian dress in the village of Kitskhi, Georgia. Beradze, who lost his son during the war in Abkhazia in the early 1990s, says that only singing and humor helped him survive all these years.
Temo Bardzimashvili is a freelance photojournalist based in Tbilisi.
Georgia's stern-faced Education Minister Dimitri Shashkin, often depicted as a Georgian-style Agatha Trunchbull, can finally let his ardor for discipline go wild. The country’s top schoolmaster has been penciled in as minister of defense in an ongoing makeover of the Georgian cabinet.
Depending on which side of Georgia’s political divide you're standing, the 36-year-old Shashkin, who installed police supervisors in public schools, is either criticized for turning educational institutions into one big guardhouse or praised for reducing school violence and truancy. But everyone, including his critics, agree that he is well-placed as the taskmaster for Georgia's men and women in uniform.
The no less strait-laced Bacho Akhalaia, defense minister since 2009, has been tagged to hop over to the interior ministry.
On July 4, parliament is scheduled to vote on the changes, including President Mikheil Saakashvili's June 30 appointment of longtime Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili as prime minister.
Per tradition, the top nominations in the so-called power ministries are reserved for members of President Mikheil Saakashvili’s inner circle.
But the proposed cabinet will not be without some new faces. Two additional women will bring some gender balance to the predominantly male 20-member group as well.
Khatia Dekanoidze, a former police academy rector, is slotted to replace Shashkin as education minister, while the education minister from Abkhazia's government-in-exile, Dali Khomeriki, has been proposed to head the IDP ministry.
Just as Georgia was about to snooze away the summer, its political scene was jolted wide awake by President Mikheil Saakashvili's June 30 appointment of the country's executive sheriff, Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili, as prime minister. The move has major implications for the October parliamentary vote and, potentially, for what direction Georgia takes once President Saakashvili steps down from power in 2013.
Until now, the “iron minister” has stayed outside the Saakashvili administration's ongoing game of musical chairs with ministerial appointments. This is the first time since 2005 that a figure with national heft has been chosen for the job, which, in recent years, has been mostly reserved for technocrats fluent in English and business.
Parliament, controlled by Saakashvili's United National Movement, is expected to approve the nomination.
Merabishvili, who presided over the oft-praised clean-up of Georgia’s legendarily corrupt police force, has a reputation as a skilled manager. The government, citing one recent survey, maintains that 87 percent of the population give the police a thumbs-up.
Conceivably, they must be hoping that, with Merabishvili as prime minister, some of that public trust will fob off on the government just in time for the elections.
Surveys show that Armenians tend to believe that the man has to be the principal moneymaker in a family. But looks like the country's presidential family is bucking that trend. Judging by official income disclosures, President Serzh Sargsyan lives, financially speaking, in the shadow of his richer wife, Rita.
While the president was scrimping together a modest annual income in drams of some $34,900 (salary plus accruals on loans) in 2011, Rita Sargsyan was busy making the dram equivalent of $41,000, reported the investigative news service Hetq. Perhaps because of his modest revenue, the Armenian president did not do any large-scale shopping or investment in 2011, if we go by his income declaration.
In neighboring Georgia, President Mikheil Saakashvili seems to be the breadwinner in his family. President Saakashvili’s annual salary in laris is just $1,000 higher than that of his Armenian counterpart, while his wife, Sandra Roelofs, has not disclosed any earned wages for 2011. Saakashvili owns more property than his wife, but the his and her bank accounts seem to be about the same size in that family. As of May 16, 2012, the president reported about $85,000 in his bank accounts (in dollars, euros and laris), while the first lady has above $86,000 worth of euros and laris.
