GEORGIA: ETHNIC RUSSIANS SAY, "THERE?S NO PLACE LIKE HOME"

[Rusiko Amirejibi-Mullen]

GEORGIA: ETHNIC RUSSIANS SAY, "THERE?S NO PLACE LIKE HOME"
Molly Corso 4/30/09

Eight months ago Georgia suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of  
the Russian army. The repercussions of the military disaster have been  
far reaching, yet Georgians do no seem inclined to vent their  
frustrations on ethnic Russians living in Georgia.

"I don?t feel any sort of negativity. . . . I never have," said  
64-year-old Viktoria Popova. "I am in love with this people. They are  
so kind."

Popova, an artist and former Russian language specialist for the  
Ministry of Education, moved to the eastern Georgian city of Rustavi  
with her family when she was a teenager. Despite the fact that she has  
no family now left in the country, she has remained in Georgia.

The number of Russians living in Georgia has dropped significantly  
over the past 20 years. The 2002 census recorded nearly 68,000 ethnic  
Russians living in Georgia -- a figure that at the time constituted  
about 1.5 percent of the total population. That total marked a steep  
decline from the 341,000 Russians (6.3 percent of the population)  
counted in 1989.

While Georgia?s ethnic Russian community now is relatively small,  
Popova says she has never seriously considered leaving, despite  
invitations to work in Russian universities. "For me, it is two  
mothers," she said, speaking in Russian. "I have trouble defining who  
I am more -- Georgian or Russian."

The Georgian Public Defender?s Office stated that it has no record of  
assaults on ethnic Russians in Georgia since the 2008 war with Russia.  
Popova noted, however, that the years of conflict between Moscow and  
Tbilisi have taken a toll: Fewer Georgians today are learning Russian.

Publisher Nikolai Sventitski, the director of Tbilisi?s  
Russian-language Griboyedov Theater, agrees. "Language should never  
been the object of politics. Language is culture. . . . We are  
neighbors. You can change apartments, you can change regions, but you  
cannot change geography," he said.

Seven years ago, Sventitski started the Tbilisi-based Russian Club to  
facilitate cultural understanding between Georgians and Russians.  
Today, he organizes poetry festivals in Georgia for poets writing in  
Russian and publishes the country?s only Russian-language magazine,  
"Russian Club."

Sventitski, who was born in Tbilisi, blames the Russian government and  
its policy toward Georgia for Georgians? lack of interest in Russian  
language and culture. Although the two countries enjoy close religious  
ties, and have a history of more than two centuries of close  
relations, today Georgians cannot go and "see the Hermitage," he  
complained.

"Russia will not allow [a Georgian] in. He cannot study there,"  
Sventitski said. "Turkey opened its borders. [A Georgian] will learn  
Turkish, of course."

A sign of that change can be seen at Sventitski?s poetry festivals,  
which, he claimed, no official from the Georgian Ministry of Culture  
attends.

While that absence may be a reflection of Georgia?s ongoing  
hostilities with Moscow, Giorgi Nizharadze, a sociologist at the  
International Center on Conflict and Negotiation in Tbilisi, states  
that Georgians are much more "negative" toward Russia itself than they  
are toward Russians.

The fact that there are few Georgian jokes about Russians is a sign of  
"recognition" of Russians and the weight of Russian culture -- a type  
of respect not shown to ethnic Armenians or Azeris, Nizharadze said.  
"There have been very little jokes about Russians. That is positive.  
But there are very many jokes about Georgians in Russia," he added.

What stereotypes exist -- Russian women as promiscuous; Russian men as  
alcoholics --apply more to Russians coming to Georgia, than to ethnic  
Russians born in Georgia, he added. "[There was] an element of  
ambivalence but no hostilities" toward Russians living in Georgia  
historically, he said, stressing that this attitude "even exists today."

Nizharadze sees that as a reflection of Russia?s past image as a more  
developed country with better ties to the outside world. The two  
countries? Orthodox faith also played a role.

But there are few signs that the previously close relationship between  
Georgians and Russians will able to bridge a widening generation gap.  
Nizharadze noted that young Georgians, as a rule, are only interested  
in Russian pop music -- and that interest is waning as well. "[T]hey  
don?t know Russian anymore and they are not interested in Russian  
culture except maybe for pop music," Nizharadze said.

Simon Janashia, head of the Ministry of Education?s National  
Curriculum Center, stated that the government has no special strategy  
to address the dwindling interest in the Russian language. "It is a  
general concern, but it is not about the Russian language that we are  
concerned," Janashia said. "If we have students that know German and  
English, we don?t care if they don?t know Russian at all."

For ethnic Russians like Sventitski and Popova, who speak Georgian,  
that trend has not contributed to any sense of isolation. Sociologist  
Nizharadze observes that in Georgia family ties and social connections  
play a stronger role than ethnicity in determining community membership.

For Olga Kvaichadze, however, the future of Russian-speaking Georgians  
is still bright. Inside her brightly painted Russian-language  
kindergarten "Pony," 30 toddlers of mixed backgrounds -- Russian,  
Georgian, American, Armenian and others -- shout over each other while  
singing a Russian counting game.

Kvaichadze, who is ethnic Russian, said that demand for her Tbilisi  
kindergarten continued even during last year?s war with Russia;  
parents called to make sure classes would go on as usual in the autumn.

"The tradition of communication between Russia and Georgia is very  
ancient and on a basic level is still very strong," she observed.  
"Whatever you do, Russia will stay where it is and Georgia will stay  
where it is. So it is better to know than not to know. Even if it is  
your enemy."

http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insightb/articles/eav043009.shtml