Georgia's Russians Express Shame

[Rusiko Amirejibi-Mullen]

Georgia's Russians Express Shame, Anger Over Moscow's Actions

By Tara Bahrampour
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, August 26, 2008; A08



TBILISI, Georgia -- Growing up in this capital, Svetlana Tikhonova  
remembers how proud her father, Petr, was of his medals. A Soviet Red  
Army pilot during World War II, he used to show them off to visitors,  
and on the annual holiday commemorating the end of the war, he would  
march down the street with all 30 of them affixed to his chest.

But since the violent Russian conflict with Georgia, his home for more  
than half his life, the 86-year-old ethnic Russian won't leave his  
room. "He says it is a shame for him to look into people's eyes,"  
Tikhonova said. "He is ashamed that his army has turned into this  
group of bandits."

When the Soviet Union imploded in 1991, millions of ethnic Russians  
were left in the newly independent states, outside Russia. Many have  
felt a stronger allegiance to Moscow than to the country where they  
wound up. The Kremlin has pushed this to its advantage in some cases.  
In years of tension here, Russia supported separatist movements and  
even issued Russian passports to residents of Abkhazia and South  
Ossetia, two breakaway regions that have sought independence from  
Georgia.

But in the rest of Georgia, and especially in Tbilisi, where residents  
are proud of the city's multiethnic composition, playing the  
nationalist card hasn't worked. Russians here feel a mix of emotions  
these days, but the most salient ones seem to be shame before their  
Georgian neighbors and anger that the latest conflict among  
politicians could threaten their harmonious relations.

"We all love Georgia and we all feel nervous about this situation,"  
said Mikhael Kazakov, 68, an ethnic Russian who was fixing a bathroom  
door at the Count Alexander Nevsky Russian Orthodox Church, one of  
several Russian churches in Tbilisi. "In this mutual fighting and  
these mutual victims, we feel like we are losing something, and of  
course we feel sad about that. In Tbilisi, we were always saying, 'I  
have no nationality -- I feel I am a resident of Tbilisi.' "

Russia has long been an integral part of Georgian life. For more than  
a century, Georgia was part of the czarist empire; after a brief fling  
with independence from 1918 to 1921, it was swallowed by the Soviet  
Union. Russian literature and language influenced Georgian culture,  
and close ties with Russia offered education and work opportunities  
that were unavailable here. Although Georgian remained the official  
language, educated Georgians spoke Russian as fluently as their own  
language.

Georgia, for its part, was a source of wine, fresh fruit, art films,  
and mountain and beach vacations for the czarist and Soviet elites.  
Some Russians chose to move here, charmed by the sunny climate, and  
many married Georgians.

Wars and the rise of a nationalistic leader at the time of the Soviet  
collapse sent many Russians back to Russia. Some also returned to  
Russia to work as the economy improved. Their presence here shrank  
from 6.3 percent of the population in 1989 to 1.5 percent in 2002;  
today an estimated 65,000 Russians live here, according to the office  
of Georgia's ombudsman.

For the last few days, the ombudsman's office has hosted meetings for  
ethnic Russians who have come up with a petition declaring their  
allegiance to Georgia and condemning the Russian occupation.

Lali Moroshkina, a journalist who arranged the meetings, said she is  
worried that Russians living here may be used as political pawns.  
"Russia often says they must defend their citizens in Georgia," she  
said.

She said some ethnic Russians have been quiet since the war began,  
perhaps because they are afraid they won't get Russian visas. An  
estimated 1 million Georgians live and work in Russia, sending money  
back to family here. This has become harder since Russia cracked down  
on trade two years ago, banning Georgian wine and mineral water,  
restricting travel and deporting some Georgians back to their  
homeland. The bans effectively shut down the biggest market for  
Georgian goods.

But the 60 or so people who attended one of the meetings were not shy  
about making their feelings known.

"It's doubly painful for me . . . because my roots, my compatriots,  
are doing this," said Lyudmila Atamanova, 53, whose father, a Russian  
military officer, moved to Georgia 50 years ago because of the  
"special energy here." She was signing the petition, she said, because  
"in the future we will be asked where we stood during this war. We are  
citizens of Georgia, and I think the majority of us think this way.  
It's not nice to be objects of manipulation like what happened in  
Abkhazia and South Ossetia."

Atamanova said that when she told her sister in Russia about the  
bombings, she didn't believe it. "She told me, 'You are inventing it.'  
Now, they are silent. Maybe they are afraid to say anything."

Russians here said they had not yet heard of any backlash from  
Georgians, but a few said they were worried. Matrushka, a Russian  
restaurant in Tbilisi, is nearly empty these days, and Oleg  
Alfanesiev, 32, the manager there, said he feels a bit self-conscious.

"My neighbors say hello to me in the same way. When we watch TV and we  
see these corpses, sometimes they say curses, but they're not directed  
at me." However, he said, he doesn't let his son, a 10-year-old with  
blond hair and Slavic eyes, play in the street now. "I don't want that  
someone may call my children something because they're Russian,"  
Alfanesiev said.

He may take comfort in looking at the Azerbaijanis and Armenians here.  
For years, their countries have been in a cold war over a disputed  
enclave, but in Tbilisi they play backgammon at teahouses and leave  
politics behind.

Even in Gori, a city that suffered from heavy Russian bombardment,  
Georgians standing in the shattered main square Sunday said they bore  
their Russian neighbors no ill will.

"The local Russians are ashamed of those Russians who came," said  
Emzar Akhalkatsi, a soccer scout, who had returned from a shelter in  
Tbilisi. "There won't be any problems for Russians; they've never done  
anything but good here."