A competitive parliamentary election race is taking shape in Georgia. As a result, the political process in the South Caucasus nation is diversifying – getting out of the capital and into the countryside.
Always on the lookout for economic opportunity, officials in Georgia are trying to encourage members of the country’s far-flung Diaspora to organize, and bring their skills and cash back home.
Twenty-year-old Tbilisi supermarket clerk Kristina works seven days a week, eight hours a day, making a pre-tax monthly salary of about $121 (200 laris). She’s an hourly worker, but since late December she has not been paid. Still, she keeps working: in an economy where jobs are scarce, it’s not like she has a lot of options.
Gambling spots sometimes seem as commonplace as khachapuri bakeries in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi. So it’s no surprise that amid the strong growth of the Internet, a rapidly increasing number of Georgians have a fever for online betting.
In the United States, the embattled postal service is resorting to drastic cost-cutting and sell-offs to stay solvent. In the Republic of Georgia, the post office is taking a different route to fiscal soundness – running the lottery.
Nine days ago in Georgia’s Black Sea region of Achara, President Mikheil Saakashvili unveiled the glitzy, “seven-star” seaside resort of Anaklia -- a complex intended as a response to Russia’s military presence in breakaway Abkhazia.
