Back in the Caucasus, Tbilisi Eight Years On

Tuesday December 11 2007

TBILISI, GEORGIA – The Caucasus has a charm both readily definable and elusive. Last time I was in Tbilisi, in January 2000 for an international donor conference, the bitter cold, lack of heating and intermittent electricity did nothing to dampen my enthusiasm for the place.

Overwhelmed by the history – the conference took place in an old palace where an independent democratic republic was declared in 1918, only to be crushed by the Red Army in the civil war that followed the Russian Revolution – I vowed to return.

Back then my thoughts were very much of spring; walking in the mountains, visiting vineyards and wine tasting.

As chance would have it, my return was again a winter one; this time for the 8^th Tbilisi Film Festival – which did not even exist when I was last in town.

Much has changed and much somehow stayed the same, as ever in the Caucasus.

Gone are the bonfires in the streets, groups of cold and miserable people huddled around trying to keep warm.

Gone is the corrupt regime of President Eduard Shevardnadze (a former Soviet foreign minister) that in January 2000 was already tottering.

Gone are the blackouts and chaos that best the grand and beautiful old city, a huddle of terraced, balconied old houses and ancient Christian churches that sits astride the river Mtkvari.

Largely gone are mass unemployment, rampant crime and corruption, at least lower down the political feeding chain.

Much has changed in eight years.

Shevardnadze’s regime was swept away on the back of a popular and remarkably bloodless ‘Rose Revolution’ in 2003, ushering into power American educated charismatic leader Mikhail Saakashvili.

He won a landslide election as president in 2004.

The Tbilisi International Film Festival, represents the fresh face of a country moving towards a modern, European-style democracy.

Launched late 2000 as part of another cultural festival, ‘Gift’, TIFF went independent in 2002.

Today it screens more than a 100 films, attracts a strong field of entries for its competition focused on first or second features and this year for the first time gave cash prizes worth a total of $12,000 for its Golden and Silver Prometheus awards.

Veteran US director Bob Raefelson showed up to give a masterclass and present a screening of his 1970 classic “Five Easy Pieces”.

Based at the city centre Rustaveli Cinema, one of the few modern multiplexes in Georgia, it was thronged everyday with youngsters, families and kids.

International brands compete for shop window space and the city is peppered with new monuments, including a much criticized statue of St George slaying the dragon by Moscow-resident Georgian sculptor Zurab Tsereteli rumoured to have cost $4 million.

Everything looks so much cleaner and brighter – at least on the main roads. Wander off down the side streets and nothing much has changed. Rubbish and debris, half demolished buildings. Squalor.

The spirit of the people remains strong: in a post office on the main Rustaveli Avenue last Thursday (December 6) I got chatting with an elderly man. Asked if I spoke French, I replied in my worst schoolboy French, as only an Englishman could: Je parle Francaise comme un vache Espanol. (Apologies for bad spelling etc, it’s been donkey’s years since I scraped a miserable pass at O level….)

Given his chance, he opened up like a true Caucasian troubadour poet, and recited for a full five minutes a passage from Victor Hugo, word perfect in a beautiful authentic French accent. A performance that won applause from me and the two ladies sitting behind the post office counter. Remember, this is a part of the world where poets used to meet to do battle with verse. Beautiful.

Politically things seem to be back where they were, after a fashion.

President Saakashvili is accused by a growing opposition of resorting to the sort of authoritarianism that made Shevardnadze such a hate figure.

They accuse him of failing to tackle corruption at the top and lack of action over stubbornly high rates of unemployment. Popular discontent spilled over into street protests early November.

Fearing Russian involvement in a perceived coup attempt, Saakashvili sent out the riot police to use tear gas, water cannon and baton rounds against tens of thousands of protestors.

He declared a state of emergency and took two national TV stations Rustavi 2 and Imedi off air.

Imedi – jointly owned by opposition figure Badri Patarkatsishvili and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp – was kept off air for a month until pressure from western governments brought about a lifting of a banning order.

A snap election Saakashvili has called for January 5 now looks like becoming a referendum on his presidential style, with opposition figures variously calling for scrapping the office altogether or reintroducing a constitutional monarchy not seen here for more than 200 years.

Saakashvili stepped down as president to run for re-election. You would not know it: he is ubiquitous on television news and travels with a full state security apparatus.

Last Saturday (December 8) he was due to give the awards at the closing of the Tbilisi film festival. Security was ultra-tight with masses of uniformed and plainclothes men checking all guests at the cinema.

Saakashvili failed to show up. No reason given. It’s the sort of behaviour many in Georgia say has turned the people against him.

Victory in the elections for Saakashvili is by no means certain and there are dark warnings of recriminations whoever wins.

It looks like I may be back in Tbilisi sooner rather than later and before the warm breezes of a Caucasian spring come.

Ends