Georgia
Looking ahead in Stalin's own country: a miner waits for his shift in a coalmine in the town of Tqibuli, near Kutaisi.
David Mdzinarishvili / Reuters
There is an old Georgian drinking custom that catches the flavour of this small Caucasus mountain republic rather nicely. It is part of the tradition of the Georgian table known as Supra. As the glasses are filled, each participant (largely but not always men) must stand and give an extended and flowery toast. Glasses must then be drained. Not only does this lead to the expected drunkenness but also to a larger-than-life sense of this land of poets and pirates.
In the dreariest days of Soviet dictatorship everyone envied the Georgians. It wasn’t just their mild Black Sea climate where you could drive from orange orchards to ski hills in no time. But the Georgians just seemed to enjoy life more – the food was better, the rules were looser, the arts were livelier. It led to a still-lingering resentment and the Moscow stereotype of Georgians as a country of chancers and crooks who just couldn’t be trusted. Joseph Stalin was a Georgian. So was Eduard Shevardnadze, the Soviet foreign minister who helped undo the Stalinist system.
Georgia has a venerable history stretching back to before 327, when King Marian the Third established Christianity as the official state religion – one of the first countries to do so. Georgia has ever since this time regarded itself as an eastern outpost of European civilization and religion – a bulwark against insurgent Islam. In the Middle Ages the country saw a renaissance that pre-dated that in Europe – a flowering of poetry, philosophy and religious tolerance. Still, geography was no friend to Georgia, as it was continually divided between the Persian, Ottoman and Russian empires. To retain a sense of national identity in such circumstances was no small feat.
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The space opened up by the Russian Revolution led to the first modern declaration of independence but this was brought to an abrupt close by the invasion of the Red Army in 1921. Georgia remained a restive part of the Soviet Union with nationalist feeling mounting, especially from the 1960s on. When the Soviet experiment started to unravel in 1989, Russian troops violently suppressed a pro-independence demonstration, killing several protesters. All the same, like the rest of the Soviet empire, Georgia moved quickly to independence, although a troubled relationship with its giant northern neighbour has continued to plague the republic.
The country has since experienced a series of ‘elected’ Presidencies – the nationalist dissident Zviad Gamsakhurdia, the aforementioned Shevardnadze and Mikheil Saakashvili, who led the popular Rose Revolution of 2003. The Rose Revolution aroused great hopes among Georgian democrats that corrupt despotic rule based on clans and notable families would be put to rest. But, despite some reforms, the George Washington University-trained Saakashvili has shown many of the same autocratic habits and intolerance for opposition that marked his predecessors. He also exposed the country to a 2008 military clash (that it could not win) with Russia, which was supporting breakaway movements in the formerly Georgian regions of Abkhazia (on the Black Sea coast) and South Ossetia (a tiny mountain enclave bordering Russia).
But, for all their political problems, Georgians maintain an attractive way of life – with an internationally renowned cuisine, over 500 kinds of wine, a rich musical and literary tradition and a climatic diversity running from sub-tropical beaches to mountain glaciers. The economy (like most post-Soviet economies) underwent a collapse after communism but has since recovered somewhat with poverty rates now dropping, although personal income is small by European standards. Georgians have much to value if they can avoid the dangers of internal despotism and superpower manipulation.
Fact file
| Leader | President Mikheil Saakashvili. |
|---|---|
| Economy | GNI per capita $2,470 (Russia $9,620, Canada $41,730). |
| Monetary unit | Lari. |
| Main exports | scrap metal, wine, mineral water, ores, vehicles, fruits and nuts. The Georgian economy depends on agriculture and tourism. It has suffered from the loss of the Russian market, particularly for wine. The country remains dependent on imports of gas and oil despite being an important pipeline route for these heading from the Caspian region to the West. |
| People | 4.6 million. Many Georgians leave the country to find work in Russia and elsewhere. As a consequence the population is shrinking – the population growth rate is -1.2%. People per square kilometre 66 (UK 253). |
| Health | Infant mortality 26 per 1,000 live births (Russia 12, Canada 6). Georgia inherited a corrupt and inefficient Soviet healthcare system but the 2007 attempt to privatize healthcare threatens to leave poor Georgians abandoned. |
| Environment | The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline is a major source of concern given the potential for spills and pipeline ruptures. Black Sea pollution, illegal logging and untreated domestic water remain problems. CO2 emissions per capita 1.2 tonnes (Canada 17.9). |
| Culture | Around 70% are Georgian, with minorities of Armenians, Russians, Azeris, Ossetians, Abkhazians and Adzharians. |
| Religion | Christian 84%, the majority Georgian Orthodox, with minorities of Russian and Armenian Orthodox. The Muslim minority (around 10%) live mostly in the Adjara region bordering Turkey. |
| Language | The majority language, Georgian, is the only living example of the Kartvelian language group indigenous to the South Caucasus. Many minority languages. |
Country ratings in detail
| Income distribution | Georgia’s income distribution has become more skewed since communism. Its Gini inequality rating is now 40.8 – the same as the US. Rural areas lag behind. |
|---|---|
| Literacy | Almost universal literacy. |
| Life expectancy | 72 years (Russia 67, Canada 81). There was a dramatic fall in life expectancy following the collapse of communism but it is now rising. |
| Freedom | Georgia is a functioning democracy with a fairly high degree of free speech. But there remain tendencies towards media manipulation and criminalizing of dissent. Saakashvili has a reputation for intolerance and for using police violence against his opponents. |
| Position of women | Formal legal equality but significant problems in practice. Wages are unequal and there is high female unemployment. Violence against women is a serious problem. |
| Sexual minorities | Homosexuality is legal (the first country in the South Caucasus to achieve this) although gay unions suffer some discrimination compared to straight marriages. |
| Previously reviewed | 1998 |
| New Internationalist assessment | The big threat to Georgia may be getting drawn into a 21st-century version of the ‘Great Game’ of international power politics. This is made more likely by the Saakashvili administration’s commitment to boost its military budget and become a part of NATO. His firm belief in ‘letting the market decide’ and his political intolerance of other views also portend future problems. Georgia needs to find its own way: it is not in the middle of Europe and must in the end survive as a small southern neighbour of Russia. |
This article is from
the November 2010 issue
of New Internationalist.
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