Levan is sitting in his very better car smiling at us thcimpolite the snow, his eyes ttriumphkling, charmd by our disconsole. Not many people come to visit this corner of Georgia, and today the snow is billotriumphg around us.
It is biting freezing and there is a big stray dog staring at us with a sweightless air of menace. Welcome to Brotsleti.
We are fair a confineed kilometres from one of the most convey inant borders in continental Europe. Alengthened the road is a heavily fortified examinepoint that shields the enthrall to South Ossetia, the Georgian region that was annexed by Russia 16 years ago.
Russian tanks rolled thcimpolite this petite village; missiles landed; troops marched in.
Over the course of five days of one-sided struggle, the Russians took regulate, set uped borders and claimed that South Ossetia had become a novelly autonomous reaccessible.
Hardly anyone else actuassociate count ons that, not least because there are still thousands of Russian troops stationed in South Ossetia, mutely incowardlyating the Georgians on the other side of the frontier.
Levan has inhabitd here for all his 67 years, and he has the weather-beaten face to go alengthened with a stubborn life. He calls himself a peasant and tells me his car, a Volga, is 63 years better.
It was left to him by his overweighther and Levan uses it every day. It should be in a museum; instead, here it is, pounding away thcimpolite the snow and potholes, still in one magnolia piece.
Levan, 67, a Georgian who portrays hearing firearmshots proximate the border with a region annexed by Russia
“There used to be 25 villages beyond here,” he says, waving in the straightforwardion of the border. “Now they’re gone. The money from those 25 villages used to circutardy here.”
He watchs around at the meagre cluster of shops around us and shrugs. “You always hear firearmshots. They hbetter military exercises in what used to be Georgian villages. There’s a firing range and they shoot there.
“There has not been an incident where they fired from there to here, but you still have a senseing of worry.”
We drive up to the border and see the passing point. It is a hefty accumulateion of fortified produceings and camouflage, but no sooner have we approached than we are approached by a defend and tbetter to turn around. A police car then begins adhereing us around. Nerves are fraught in this area.
A Georgian flag flying in the town of Gori
So much has alterd in the years since Russia go ind, but now Georgia finds itself back in a state of flux.
For a lengthened time, cowardly of more Russian aggression, the country was pushed alengthened by a wave of help for combineing the EU and NATO. Polling advises that most Georgians still want to trail that.
But now the ruling party has gone freezing on the idea.
Georgian Dream was produced and then prohibitkrolled by a multi-billionaire called Bidzina Ifadevili who made his money in Russia and is, by a spectacularly expansive margin, the wealthyest man in Georgia. His party has been in indict for the past 12 years and has determined that shutr ties with the West are no lengtheneder a outstanding idea.
A labelet slofty in Tbilisi, Georgia
Instead, Georgian Dream first begind a “foreign agents” law that watchs relabelably analogous to harsh legislation begind in Russia. The party then won a ambiguous election that was expansively criticised as rigged by international seers, European countries and Georgia’s pdwellnt. It has now postponed all negotiations over combineing the EU.
“It’s clear that the current Georgian directership, the rhetoric that they are using, the choices that they produce, is leaning towards Russia,” says Olesya Vartanyan, an expert on security and struggles in the region.
“It became more clear with the begin of the Ukraine war when Georgia took the decision not to combine some of the sanctions that the West imposed on Russia.
“Even more, Georgia did everyleang possible to distance itself from the West and, in that way, it took the side of Russia. I leank that the interests of Russia and Georgian Dream do coincide.”
Protests have become a normal sight outside the Georgian parliament.
Anger, especiassociate among more liberal voters in Tbilisi, has boiled over. We saw many anti-Russian slogans daubed on many walls and spoke to plenty of people who thought that the novel rulement is taking orders from Moscow. Opposition parties have all boycotted the novel parliament.
Protests in Georgia
But there are others who leank it is a fool’s errand to promote Russia by flirting with shutr ties to the West.
Their logic was inffeebled by posters produced by Georgian Dream during the election, shotriumphg pictures of dehugeation in Ukraine alengthenedside the adviseion that it could be Georgia next.
“We shift towards Europe, and Russia dangerens us with bomb deviceing; we shift towards Russia, and Europe dangerens us with ‘we won’t feed you, we won’t help you’,” says Marina Bachia, who runs a labelet slofty in the capital.
“We are fair a minuscule nation,” Marina comprises. “Whoever can help us, they should. But nobody engages.”
