Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

The historian, Simon Sebag Montifiore, once described Georgia as “the most romantic and dangerous land in the world”.  He was reviewing Wendell Steavenson’s book, Stories I Stole , a quirky account of the author’s years living in Tbilisi, which I took with me to the Caucasus.  It described the chaotic 90s and early 2000s when the majority of Georgians’ homes received only a few hours of electricity each day, members of the public frequently carried guns and some areas of the country were notorious for robberies and kidnappings. With Tbilisi’s streets now completely unthreatening and everything from bridges to Ferris wheels illuminated showily after dark, it was difficult to believe that I was in the same city which Steavenson described.  Georgia, like many other post-Soviet states, has clearly changed dramatically in a relatively short period of time. The country’s capital is now a vibrant, modern place, centred around its atmospheric Old Town and Rustave...

Tbilisi looks a little like Prague from its hillside fortress. Georgia and Armenia – are these countries in Asia or in Europe?  Their status has been debated for at least a century, with commentators from outside the Caucasus region usually plumping for south-west Asia, until relatively recently.  Now, more frequently, they are described as European, although that trend is influenced at least as much by politics as geography. I can’t answer this thorny question.  It is a sensitive matter, linked to the identities and perceived futures of Armenians and Georgians.  However I can give a few impressions of how it feels to visit two fascinating countries. Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia is a sprawling, modern city, congested with traffic and, in July at least, hot and dusty.  Yet it also feels distinctly European.  Looking down from the Nariqala Fortress at the Old Town, with its narrow streets of stone houses and churches bisected by the K...

The Pankisi Gorge in Georgia, which borders Chechnya, has long provided a transit route for money, weapons and militants into and out of the Russian republic. It has been alleged that al Qaeda operates training camps in the region . Alexander Bortnikov, head of Russia’s FSB, has gone further and claimed that his security organs have gathered audio evidence that Georgia has been actively involved in training and lending safe passage to terrorists operating in Chechnya and Dagestan. Naturally the Georgian authorities have denied strenuously any cooperation with al Qaeda. Tbilisi can point to forces which it has contributed to struggles against Islamist terror, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Bortinkov’s allegations might simply represent another front in the propaganda war between Russia and Georgia. However President Saakashvili has demonstrated a penchant for rash and underhand tactics, as well as pathological dishonesty. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that Georgia has somet...

The IIFFMCG’s report on the conflict in Georgia runs to more than 1,000 pages (the Guardian provides a synopsis with excerpts it regards as critical). It is the most detailed examination, to date, of the war which erupted last summer. Although each side’s conduct, before, during and after the events of August 2008, is criticised in the document, it substantiates, unequivocally, the view that President Saakashvili’s adventurism was the immediate precipitant of conflict. . Perhaps the report might infuse with more caution those who continue to advocate the regime in Tbilisi, as if it were a bastion of freedom, democracy and good sense. Not only did Saakashvili provoke a war with Russia. He then lied to the world, in an attempt to persuade international opinion that Moscow had actually been the aggressor. The Georgian president offers partnership which is unreliable and untrustworthy. The Russian authorities, having been presented with their pretext by Saakashvili, responded disp...

Barack Obama is in Russia today. Thus a proliferation of articles and editorials urging the US President not to trust perfidious, semi-Asiatic barbarians adorn the newspapers. Predictably. In contrast, few media outlets chose to cover an assassination attempt last month on reforming Ingushetia president, Yunusbek Yevkurov, which constitutes part of a reinvigorated Islamist campaign in the Russian Caucasus. Encouraged by Dmitri Medvedev, Yevkurov has implemented a regime built on principles of glasnost in Russia’s most dangerous region. The terrorist attack was targeted very deliberately at a force for normalisation and transparency, which Wahhabi militants wish to undermine. Fewer reporters still have highlighted the ongoing struggle for democracy in Georgia and the government’s repressive tactics against the country’s opposition. But with Obama in Moscow to meet his Kremlin counterpart, all the clichés about a totalitarian Russian regime, intent on snuffing out democracy al...

One of the failures of Vladimir Putin’s administration has been his handling of the nationalities issue in the Russian Federation. I discussed the ethnic basis of regional government which Putin has been happy to perpetuate in a previous post . A failure to attempt to foster civic coherence and act against preferential treatment based on ethnicity is a dangerous recipe for ethnic strife when coupled with a preference for strong armed regional leadership. In the Caucasian Republic of Ingushetia ethnic violence has been a daily occurrence for some months now . A mixture of nationalist separatism which for years has spilt over from neighbouring Chechnya, Islamist terrorism and resentment at the imposition by Putin of President Murad Zyazikov, is contributing to a potentially explosive situation. It is no mere coincidence that the violence has taken a predominantly ethnic form with all non-Ingush possible targets.