What happens to people when their governments fight?

My sadness didn't hit me in Georgia when Tbilisi residents joined hands in a human chain yelling "Stop Russia!" or even Monday in Hague when representatives of our two nations faced off at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN's highest court. Instead, it hit me in a Georgian restaurant in Moscow. On that Saturday evening, the venue was completely empty. The staff were as polite as always — the chef, waiters and performers — and everyone pretended that nothing had happened.

 

 

"They should have been gentler with us," an Adjarian businessman, Murman, told me in Batumi. He owned a hotel that was privatized just before the fall of the Soviet Union. "Russia could have received anything she wanted — Akhazia, South Ossetia and even Georgia."

 

When Murman said "gentler," he was referring to the U.S. mechanism for influencing foreign nations — pumping finances into a country and taking upon oneself the minimal obligations.

 

 

I've had the chance to observe Georgia over the past two years. And I can state with certainty that the finances that have been poured into the country were used appropriately. This doesn't mean that all Georgians have hot running water and no longer fear electrical shortages. However, schools have become genuine schools and hospitals real, functioning hospitals. Fountains burst round-the-clock in Tbilisi and Signakhi has turned into a magnificent European city. But the true eye catcher in Georgia is the large number of small children playing in the streets. The country's birth rate is a fail proof barometer for its stability.

 

Imagine this strange picture. You're walking down the street in a city in Russia and hear 5-year-old children playing and yelling in their courtyards: "Russia!", "Russia!" And this isn't during Eurovision or the UEFA championship.

 

This is exactly what I saw in Georgia. Four hours after the all-national anti-Russian campaign, children were still roaming the streets and hanging out of their parents' cars waving Georgian flags and chanting: "Sakartvelo! Sakartvelo!"

 

After watching a fair amount of Georgian television, I started to realize that the issue at hand isn't just Western propaganda. The mentality of Georgians today is more the result of their President Mikhail Saakashvili, and his unique ability to captivate his citizens.

 

Every evening, Saakashvili appears on live television and addresses the country for 40 minutes. Although I don't understand a word of Georgian, after staring at the television three nights in a row, I slowly began to discern between his tones of voice. His method of addressing the people has a truly hypnotic effect. I wouldn't be surprised if an army of rebellious Georgians is soon born whose aim will be to seek revenge on Russia for "its aggression" during the South Ossetian War.

 

As I watched representatives of various Russian-speaking minorities join hands in the human chain against Russian aggression in Batumi, I couldn't help but think back to the early 1990s in the Batlics. Exactly the same thing had happened.

 

The Russian-speaking population had been sidelined and divided into numerous ethnic groups so they could easily be controlled by the government. Now, in Georgia, if something happens to Russians, only a small group will appeal to Moscow for assistance. The rest will turn to the individual governments that correspond with their ethnicity — Ukrainians to Ukraine, Armenians to Armenia, and Belarusians to Belarus — even if they've never been there and don't speak a word of the national language.

 

Later in the day, I was introduced to an elderly Jew. He had such sadness in his eyes. He had never been to Israel and didn't speak a word of Hebrew, but he had been asked to stand in the square waving an Israeli flag. What a strange feeling. A crowd of Soviet people with Georgian passports, all of whom spoke Russian and read Russian newspapers and books, were now foreigners to each other. This is the most sure-fire way to reduce the voice of local Russian sympathizers.

 

Such a method of dividing and ruling the people worked well in the Baltics, but the repercussions could be far more severe in Batumi, where there are over 83 nationalities. Combined with the Caucasus temperament, this could be a recipe for disaster.

"Our Georgia. And yours, too!"

 

"Why do I need this?! I want to go to Russia!" several taxi drivers told me. "Everyone supports you here!" the director of a cafe on the shore in Batumi told me. I heard almost the same thing from everyone in the area. I don't know where they got all those people who lined up during the anti-Russian meetings. Can the people just not make up their minds?

 

But this has nothing to do with indecisiveness. This is an ideological choice. And this choice between Russia and the U.S. is divided along social lines. It has nothing to do with geography or age. Richer Georgians support Saakashvili. But they were the ones who ran away first when they heard the Russians were approaching Batumi. They packed their things and headed to their dachas in the mountains.

 

Russia has the support of the 80 percent of the people who are poorer. These were the soldiers who were fighting in South Ossetia. And this explains the looks of confusion Russians saw on the faces of Georgian soldiers on national television. They simply don't know who their enemy is and why. I walked over to a bunch of students waving flags of "friendly" nations on the street — U.S., EU, Ukraine and the Baltics and asked them a few questions hoping to incite their anger.

 

"So you mean to say the Russians are your enemies?" I asked.

 

"No. They're good, too!" they told me.

 

 

I was sitting with Murman in his restaurant one evening. He was reciting Turgenev to me, and I recalled a few lines of Baratashvili. Everything we talked about was painful — Paradzhanov, Griboedev and Okudzhav...

 

"Okudzhav would die today if he knew what was happening," Murman said. "My tears aren't figurative, but real. Now it's time for us to leave Russia..."

 

When we parted, I didn't go to my room to cry. Instead I left Georgia with a smile because I know things are far from over. Everything is still possible, even though I know that with each paragraph I write Georgia's lawyers are accusing Russia of human rights violations before the ICJ.