In a move that emphasizes the South Caucasus country's emerging ties with the Middle East, Georgia’s largest carrier, Airzena Georgian Airways, has launched direct flights to Erbil, capital of the autonomous northern region of Kurdistan in Iraq.
Georgia and Iraq have visa-free travel and a growing number of Iraqis of late have been trekking out to Georgia by land or by connecting flights. After the number hit 7,000 last year, Airzena started negotiations with the government of Kurdistan over a direct air link.
The region's relative safety and the new money produced by the development of its energy resources seem to have motivated the pick of Erbil, but the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, and the Kurdish cultural hub of Sulaymaniah are next on the list.
“To our surprise the plane was almost 90 percent full, which does not usually happen on the first flights to new destinations,” Airzena spokesperson Keti Mgeladze said of the debut, March 24 Erbil-Tbilisi flight. “Some passengers knew very little about Georgia and we were giving them details on board about the hotels and places to go.”
The Kurdistan region and Erbil may be, as TIME Magazine reported, Iraq’s best bet for tourism, but it looks unlikely to get flooded anytime soon with camera-snapping Georgians. While 70 passengers from Erbil ventured to Tbilisi, no Georgian passengers opted for Airzena's first flight to the Kurdish city.
The New York Philharmonic’s administrative maestro is raging with anger and officials from the country of Georgia are advised to stay clear. With less than a month to go before showtime, the Georgian government, citing financial difficulties, has backed out of a tentative deal with the world-class orchestra on holding concerts in Tbilisi and the seaside resort town of Batumi.
“I don’t feel embarrassed by this, I am angry,” fumed Zarin Mehta, the orchestra's president and chief executive officer, to The New York Times. He said that calling off the performances in Tbilisi and Batumi came as a major financial and organizational setback to the Philharmonic.
Georgian culture ministry officials offered as excuses the lack of a signed contract and financial constraints -- Manana Muskhelishvili, international programs director at the Georgian Ministry of Culture, said that the 2-million-lari-plus (over $1.1 million) sum the Philharmonic allegedly expected to be paid for logistics "is beyond our capabilities."
“The orchestra requested two charter flights, one would carry the instruments and the other would bring the orchestra members . . . " Muskhelishvili said. "They also insisted on having not Georgian, but international stage and lighting technicians and equipment . . ."
Such reasoning failed to assuage Mehta. “I’m apoplectic, and so is my board,” he told The New York Times, calling the Georgian government “irresponsible and totally unprofessional.”
Recently appointed 26-year-old Georgian tourism chief Maia Sidamonidze may think big, but her Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts are cautioning that bigger is not always better.
Sidamonidze’s intentions dovetail with Georgia's two stated goals of building regional economic bonds with Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey, and turning Georgia itself into a major hot spot for international tourism.
But Sidamonidze appeared to overlook one minor obstacle to the grand plan: Some of the proposed tourism club members hate each others' guts. Turkey and Armenia are not even willing to share a border; Azerbaijan and Armenia have been embroiled in a bitter and bloody dispute over breakaway Nagorno Karabakh for the past 22 years.
Could tourism succeed where international mediators have failed? Don't bet on it. Azerbaijani and Armenian tourism officials and companies took turns dousing Sidamonidze with a bucket of cold water.
“Any joint projects, regional projects with Armenia are out of the question,” bristled Zohra Alyeva, spokesperson for Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Armenian officials termed the plan "unrealistic."
Some Armenian and Georgian commentators called for updating Sidamonidze, who spent years abroad, on the past two decades of news from the South Caucasus.
