Tamada Tales

(Photo: Giorgi Lomsadze)

Apart from legislative occasions, a chokha also can be worn when washing a car.

Georgian lawmakers might soon need to upgrade their wardrobes if a new legislative fashion bill gets through parliament. The legislation, currently under discussion, will allow representatives to get decked out in traditional outfits for ordinary sessions of the national assembly.

The Conservative Party, a member of the ruling Georgian Dream alliance, and one with a taste for wearing traditional attire to parliament's opening sessions, initiated the sartorial bill in a bid to "popularize" traditional Georgian culture, but many of the rest of the representatives were left scratching their heads.

The centerpiece for Georgian men's traditional dress is the chokha, a waist-hugging longish wool coat complete with bandoliers and daggers. The ladies of the legislature might need to put on headdresses, attached to long, gauzy veils, to match their full-length dresses, possibly worn over stiff petticoats or crinolines.

Many Georgian men eagerly don chokhas for weddings and other social functions, but women tend to be less inclined to adopt their ancestors' clothing.

Sporting such attire within Georgia's spaceship-style parliament could make for an unusual visual contrast, to say the least. Georgian Dream parliamentarian Levan Berdzenishvili, no fan of chokhas, expressed skepticism about women MPs milling around the legislature with chikhti-kopis on their heads.

Credit: Parliament of the Republic of Georgia

Wanted by Russia: Givi Targamadze

He is wanted by Russian federal investigators. He is suspected of raising “millions” of protesters in Moscow and nearly bringing down Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin. He is Givi the Georgian.

A Moscow court just issued an arrest warrant for Givi Targamadze, a 44-year-old Georgian parliamentarian, staunch supporter of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and, apparently, a lone crusader against the Putin regime and a bespectacled mastermind of international conspiracy.

Russians who rallied against President Putin in 2012 claimed they wanted to end human rights abuses, the monopolization of power and rampant corruption, but Russian investigators knew that there just had to be something or someone else behind it.

After many late hours perusing evidence under a dim, desk lamp light, the investigators have found their man, the "true" source of evil. It was Givi Targamadze, who, Russian prosecutors say, secretly tutored Russian opposition leaders in the art of revolution, the craft he learned so well during Georgia’s 2003 Rose Revolution.

Along with sharing little tricks of the trade, Targamadze also allegedly slipped a big $3,000 to the dissenting Russians, telling them to go get Putin.

Some in Ukraine might nod their heads knowingly, claiming that he also tried to stop the 2010 election of Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych.

But Tbilisi, much though it is attempting to smooth over past differences with Russia, has refused to hand Givi over to Moscow for prosecution.

Just when you least expected it, Georgia's politicians have found things to discuss – and agree on – without losing teeth or gaining a bloody nose in the process.

The ruling Georgian Dream coalition, led by Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, and the opposition United National Movement, headed by President Mikheil Saakashvili, reportedly have made it to the verge of an agreement on planned constitutional reform.

The negotiations were led by Parliamentary Speaker Davit Usupashvili for the Georgian Dream and Parliamentary Minority Leader Davit Bakradze for the United National Movement; arguably, two of the most circumspect politicians from either side.

What prevents them from "getting to yes", though, is an amnesty proposal which, for outsiders, could raise as many questions about Georgia's legal system as it does about the current tense political environment.

The two sides have provided contradictory descriptions of the proposed amnesty.

Usupashvili claimed that the UNM has demanded an unconditional amnesty from criminal prosecution for all government officials, ranging from the president to town council chairpeople, for any liable activities, apart from violent or other severe crimes, up until November 1, 2012.

Bakradze, for his part, arguing that "15,000 people" have been questioned because of ties to the UNM, asserted that the amnesty is about stopping "political persecution." It would apply not to current or ex-head-honchos, but to "the thousands" of people going in for questioning "daily" – defined as those under the rank of a ministerial administrative chief's deputy, he said.

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan says he won a second term -- his rival (Sargsyan told RFE/RL he prefers the word "competitor") says, no, he did not. And with that, Armenia's stage is once again set for a potentially protracted political fray.

Cinching a reelection was expected to be a cakewalk for Sargsyan, who faced scattered opposition during the campaign. One rival was shot in an alleged assassination attempt, another bailed out, accusing the authorities of vote-rigging, and still another tried to starve himself into true democracy.

The rest of Armenia doesn’t seem to care about the presidential office too much. Eighty percent of 1,080 Armenians questioned for a recent survey by local pollster Sociometer don’t want to be presidents of their country.

The only other Armenian who wants to be president and put up a real fight for it is Raffi Hovannisian, the Fresno, California-born leader of the tiny opposition Heritage Party. Hovannisian claims that Sargsyan stole the victory from him through widespread funny business, ranging from bribery to ballot-box stuffing.  

Ten days ago, Azerbaijan slung into space its first-ever satellite as an apotheosis of the country’s hydrocarbon-fueled progress. And what better way to celebrate the joy and the glory of the moment than to burst into song?

“Our first national satellite went into orbit. How can I not be happy, oh, motherland?” elated, shiny-eyed opera singer Ramil Qasimov bellows out in a handsome, optimism-infused tenor.  “And now that our voice comes from the cosmos, nothing can restrain my joy,” he continues, gesturing dramatically in an online video recently posted in the Azerbaijani Studies Digest listserv.

A festively dressed choir, each woman holding a single flower, then kicks in with the politically correct chorus: “With Ilham, we march toward happy tomorrows . . . !”

The folk dancers kick and jump, the choir croons, the conductor waves her hands and the Azerbaijani satellite flies high in the sky.

If you feel like you've seen this somewhere before, you would not be far wrong.

Reminiscent of Soviet-era hymns to the proletariat, space exploration or young communists, the panegyric to the 3.2-ton, $230-million piece of national pride has sparked much eye-rolling among many Azerbaijani Facebook users.

But those Azerbaijanis weary of the country's Aliyev personality cult may see more space singing soon.

President Ilham Aliyev, so dearly mentioned in the song, has pledged that the February 8 satellite launch is just the first step in his country’s space ambitions. Lease fees are expected to recoup the cost of the US-made satellite and oil-and-gas dollars will help sponsor future projects and, perhaps . . . even accompanying soundtracks?

In news that might come as a surprise to fans of French-Armenian crooner Charles Aznavour, Armenia has ranked at the very bottom of global love rankings released by the Washington, DC-based Brookings Institution on Valentine's Day.
 
The love survey, run by the Gallup Organization, asked respondents in 135 countries if they had experienced love the day before; the most negative responses came from Armenia. Its neighbors, Georgia and Azerbaijan, are not the world’s most amorous places, either.

Georgia is only three countries -- Uzbekistan, Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan -- ahead of Armenia on the love chart.  Azerbaijan sits in the similarly love-starved 126th place.

The survey's analysts tried to track a connection between the wallet and the heart, but while richer countries tend to be more love-prone, the Philippines and Rwanda rank as the two countries the most in love.

So, if money's not it, what's the reason for Armenia's lack of love? Could communism have something to do with it?

With the exception of Morocco, the ten most loveless countries all share a Soviet past.

Whatever the case, governments and international development agencies should take note. Looks like it's time to devise national love policies, provide tax privileges for lovers and, even, love grants to encourage grassroots activity.

In tightly ruled Azerbaijan, people are not usually pampered by dismissals of failing government officials, but President Iham Aliyev has gone the distance this time to tackle a recent outpouring of popular anger in the region of Ismayilli by firing its governor, Nizami Alakbarov.

The governor's nephew, Vugar Alakbarov, son of Labor and Social Welfare Minister Fizuli Alakbarov, reportedly became the cause of car-burning riots and clashes with police in the region's main city after a January 23 car accident involving his luxury sports car and a local taxi. Alakbarov the younger allegedly beat the taxi driver, with no interference from police. The Alakbarov family is reputed to have wide-ranging economic interests in the region, and resentment at their impunity from the law runs strong.

The central government’s first response followed the standard steps in its crisis management playbook: send in riot police, arrest reporters, and civil rights activists and politicians, who expressed solidarity with the protesters, and, of course, blame external foes for everything.

But with tensions over the crackdown still simmering, Aliyev, who is running for reelection this year, opted for another play.

“If I hear again that a member of some family acts like a hooligan, does not know who to behave himself, this person will be arrested and his father will be dismissed,” declared Aliyev at a recent meeting.

"This was no democracy," Georgian media reported a frustrated US Ambassador Richard Norland as saying after a violent February 8 bust-up in Tbilisi over Georgian President Mikheil Saakasvhili's annual state-of-the-nation speech.

The US embassy offered a more diplomatic version of the language used, and the European Union and Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, among others, have expressed similar grievances. But the impression left was the same: Four months after becoming the first ex-Soviet republic in the South Caucasus to see a change of government via the ballot box, Georgia nonetheless is still having trouble getting democracy to fit right.

Ever sensitive to the political risk of being blamed, both at home and abroad, for causing Georgia to miss yet another chance at success, both government and opposition are now putting on a determined effort, by hook or by crook, to show that they're all about dialogue.

(This post was updated at 5:32am EST, February 11.)

Wounded Armenian presidential candidate Paruyr Hayrikian has changed his mind, yet again, about asking for a delay in Armenia's February 18 presidential vote. After personally filing a request on February 10 with Armenia's Constitutional Court to postpone the vote by two weeks, he about-faced on February 11, when the Court was expected to discuss the appeal, and withdrew his petition.

Hayrikian's campaign had earlier indicated that, if it managed to make a deal for a last-minute alliance with two other opposition candidates (Heritage Party's Raffi Hovhanissian and Liberty Party's Grant Bagratian) about a united candidate, it could rescind its request for a delayed election.

Bagratian, who has questioned Hayrikian's opposition to the government, had responded that, if such a deal is made, then Hayrikian himself would first need to withdraw his candidacy, PanArmenian.net reported. The Heritage Party stated that the proposal would need to be discussed.

Whether or not such a deal has now come about was not immediately clear. Reasons for the change of mind -- by our count, the third in the 11 days since he was shot in a supposed assassination attempt on January 31 -- remain murky.

In comments to PanArmenian.net, Hayrikian touched on an earlier theme to explain his reasoning -- the belief that a postponed vote could help Armenia's "enemies."

"The important thing is not to allow that the enemies of our country could influence the [election] processes in the country," he told the news service.

Why that concern was apparently less important yesterday was also not clear, although Hayrikian indicated that he had filed a petition then since it was his last chance to do so before the vote.

With less than ten days to go before Armenia's February 18 presidential vote, Armenians still do not know for sure when, exactly, the election will take place.

The reason is presidential candidate Paruyr Hayrikian, the victim of a January 31 shooting attack. By law, Hayrikian can ask the Constitutional Court to postpone the vote for two weeks to give him time to recover his health; a request he had previously indicated he would make.

But on Tuesday, he decided against such a move. Then, late on Thursday, he changed his mind again.

At last word, Hayrikian intended to file the request on February 8, but a spokesperson for the Constitutional Court told EurasiaNet.org late in the day that it still had not heard from him. The Court will remain open over the weekend in case Hayrikian stands by his latest decision and requests a delay in the elections.
  
Hayrikian's earlier surprise decision to not mind his damaged collarbone, but carry on with his campaign had sparked speculation that he had made a deal with the government, but the candidate angrily dismissed such claims.

More surprises, though, came today, when the National Security Service unexpectedly reported that it had arrested two 40-something suspects, Khachatur Pogosian and Samvel Arutiunian, in the shooting and that both had "confessed to the crime." The suspects are said to be “illegally residing in Armenia," and allegedly have a criminal record for drug dealing. Their supposed motivation for the attack has not been released.