For past couple of years Georgia is in western media almost every week, if not many times a week. Most of the coverage is about Georgia’s reforms, its food & wines, Georgia as a tourism destination, 2008 Georgia-Russia War, etc. and etc. Those articles later appear in local media: “Another article on Georgian reforms in NYTimes” or “Financial Times about Georgia’s economic growth.” And of course all of this coverage makes Georgians happy just like any other mention on web, for example this:
In the eleventh edition of Tbilisi Hangout Mirian Jugheli, Nick Clayton and Mathias Huter of Transparency International Georgia talk about Georgian media, net freedom, “cohabitation”, ownership transparency, February 8 National Library Incident, etc.
Whenever you’re abroad for a long time you look for different ways to contact your family every once in a while (Skype, landline, etc.). A Georgian friend of mine who lives in Bulgaria wanted to call home and he decided to use Google Voice (A telecommunication service from Google). But before doing so he checked call rates. By doing this he suddenly discovered that Google Voice lists Abkhazia as one of the rates for calling Russia.
In addition to this strange fact it turns out that the fee for Abkhazia is the highest in the list. I decided to write Google Voice and ask them why do they list Abkhazia as an option for Russia. I am waiting for their answer and as soon as they reply I’ll post it here.
Mikheil Saakashvili, the president of Georgia and his political team – United National Movement have been very tough on soviet symbols in Georgia. During their parliamentary rule a law was passed that required all soviet symbols to be taken down from public buildings. They also removed monuments of Stalin from Gori (Stalin’s hometown) and other parts of Georgia. After the October 1, 2012 parliamentary election, when Bidzina Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream came to power elderly citizens of Georgia began to re-erect Stalin’s monument in various parts of Georgia. For example in this video called “Glory to big Stalin” people say what a great person Stalin was and what great things he has done:
This fact has upset the other part of Georgians who decided to fight against resurrection of Stalin monuments by painting them pink. And this is the result:
Stalin monument in Village Alvani, Kakheti region.
Stalin monument in village Akura, Kakheti region.
Stalin monument in village Kiketi, near Tbilisi
A Facebook page called Pink Stalin has been created calling everyone to join them in painting Stalin’s monuments wherever they are. In addition to that the Ministry of Internal Affairs has issued a statement saying that the it is investigating these cases. As a result of this statement many Georgians recorded a video of themselves saying “I painted Stalin’s monument”
It seems like this guerrilla movement is getting viral so expect more in coming days.
JumpStart Georgia, an NGO which applies open-source technologies to open up public data has launched a new project called Feradi.info.
Feradi.info is a collection of news and data that is brought to you visually; The website calls all interested individuals to share their own visuals or ideas. So far JumpStart has posted two infographics about the death rate in Georgian penitentiary system. Information is based on an annual report presented by the Public Defender’s office of Georgia. According to the data 653 inmates died in the period 2006-2011, 1/3 of them because of tuberculosis. (more…)
Starting from November 28, Every Wednesday at 20:00 (Tbilisi time) me and Nicholas Clayton will talk about current affairs of Georgia on Google Hangout. The live webcast is called Tbilisi Hangout and it is about politics, society, sports and whatever nonsense we find interesting. We are trying to make it as interactive as possible, hence you can ask questions or leave comments, decide what you would like to hear next week and also join us with your web camera. Occasionally we will be coming live from various locations like bars, offices, streets, etc. You can subscribe to this YouTube channel in order to be updated about upcoming hangouts.
Here’s the first Tbilisi Hangout. In this episode we talk about anti-Ivansivhili articles in western media, global amnesty, mandatory ID cards, Georgia rugby, etc. let us know what you think.
