05/12/2024
One constant in Georgia is the change of seasons. What I can’t capture at the bazaar is the anxiety. Most vendors are of the generation that came of age during communism and became adults in the violent 90’s. Since then, they’ve put their heads down and work on survival mode. The freedoms people are fighting for on the street, selling out to Russia, turning on the EU, are abstract. I know many people who support the GD here. When they go home after a long day at the market they turn on the tv and hear about “the global war party, how the US wants Georgia to open a new front against Russia, is backing the protests etc, because the government controls the major news sources. Yesterday two of my friends there worried about war. “Why don’t they just go home, everything will be quiet.” This is a Russian way of thinking. Safe, obedient fearful. Let us sell our cucumbers peacefully, leave the politics to whoever is in charge. The kids and everyone else on the street are also fighting to rid the country of this mentality, they are fighting for the future of Georgia. In the meantime, winter will blossom into spring, then summer and fall. But what kind of country will we be living in when it’s time to pick tkemali, or harvest our grapes? 🇬🇪
