Lincoln Mitchell on the Georgia-Russia Conflict

Despite the recent cease-fire brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, reports of fighting in Georgia continue, with stories of continued Russian presence in cities such as Zugdidi, Poti, and Gori.  Though the major news outlets have begun to drift towards other stories, the conflict in Georgia continues.  This morning I sat down with Lincoln Mitchell, the Arnold A. Saltzman Assistant Professor in International Politics at Columbia University to discuss some of the background on the conflict and where things might be headed.   Professor Mitchell focuses on democratic transitions in the former Soviet Union. He recently returned from Abkhazia on a Harriman Institute sponsored research trip on Frozen Conflicts.  He served as chief of party for the National Democratic Institute in Georgia from 2002-2004.

Me: To start, some of my questions are about general motivation and what’s going on from both sides, and looking at what Georgia’s motivation would be.

On my way back from Georgia,  I just wanted news about what was going on so I bought a book that was published in 2005.  There was one article by Jaba Devdariani mentioning two different times that Georgia went on the offense–with Ajara and the blocking of Russian military bases–and how that the “episode shows that if Georgia seizes the initiative, Russia will not challenge it.”  Do you think there’s any truth to that as being potential motivation?

LM: I think that that’s not really a useful approach and we learned that.  I don’t want to be in the position of saying somebody’s at fault, Georgia’s at fault– because Georgia’s not at fault here –but I think it is important to make policy in the context of reality, whether you’re the United States or Georgia.  The reality is that the Russian military was always able to takeover Georgia if it wanted to.  Now, in the past I would argue that it hasn’t had to.  I think with the new Georgia, the post-Rose Revolution Georgia … there was a real possibility to Russia that Georgia would get on its feet as a meaningful sovereign state and therefore they had to do something as dramatic as this.  Because I do believe that for a variety of reasons, and you can go at that from a lot of ways, Russia didn’t feel it could live with that.

Me: So then the whole question of why now?  People have been pointing to the Olympics, they’ve been pointing to U.S. elections.  Does the imminent closure of Russian bases have an impact?

LM: I don’t think the Olympics are a huge factor here.  If anything it was a big miscalculation because Bush does have to be in an international setting, and frankly Bush is the kind of guy who– especially as he’s in his last year as president and he like sports–he’s going to be paying attention to the Olympics and it’s been a good Olympics for the United States and he doesn’t really need this.

Unfortunately, I think the presidential election in the United States played a role, but I would say in a very disingenuous way.  I think the notion that Barack Obama is not going to be a supporter of Georgia is just flat out wrong and they know that in Tbilisi, and they know that in Washington, and they know that in Moscow.  However, I think there was a miscalculation internally in Georgia with the willingness to use the election as a means to build support.  I would urge you to look at the statement made by Congress today or yesterday.  I thinks it’s a very strong statement and I think it shows that we have bipartisan support for Georgia and a  bipartisan awareness of the reality of the situation.

Me:  Though I suppose you could see, especially in the initial reactions between McCain and Obama…

LM: To some extent, I think from McCain you have you have a candidate’s bluster and from Obama you have “what would I actually do if I were President?” I think you’ve seen that with other issues globally as well.  So that’s one issue.

Misha’s a provocable guy.  I think that Russia’s approach has been, if we provoke him enough eventually one of these times he will snap.  And I think that was also part of it.  And I think another part of it is that there must have been people around Saakashvili who said maybe we can sneak this sunrise past this rooster– a dumb idea to be sure but I think there were people there who were pushing for it.  And I think those are the major reasons that led to why now.

I know last Thursday when this started, I was skyping and phoning with Georgians and Americans who are Georgia watchers and all of us were saying there’s a 1 in 10, 1 in 50, whatever number you want to give it, chance he’s going to pull it off and wouldn’t that be good. I mean, I do think also there is a couple of things to keep in mind about South Ossetia.  One is the accusations on the Russian side against Saakashvili, from everything I’ve seen, are way out of line.  I don’t think the notion that this is comparable to Milosovic in Kosovo makes for a kind of convenient parallel, but it’s not grounded in reality and that’s troubling to me.   Having said that, I think we should be aware that there are South Ossetian victims of this who are suffering.  But, having said that I think there are South Ossetians who in a moment of honesty would tell you they’ve been used by both sides.  And the Russians have used South Ossetians as a means of achieving their broader goal of destabilizing Georgia.

So what do you do if you’re Georgian?  Well you probably don’t send your troops in because you’re going to get this in response.  I don’t know any Georgian who is surprised by this.  But, you have to do something.  I’ve noticed from the readings on the internet there are some things worth mentioning.  One thing is going from Gori to Tskhinvali is not considered crossing an international border.  Georgian troops did not cross an international border here.  It is broadly recognized as part of Georgia.   A part of Georgia that is not consolidated and over which Tbilisi doesn’t exercise sovereignty– but this is not the U.S. and Puerto Rico relationship and it’s certainly not the U.S. and Cuba relationship.  Maybe the U.S. and Missouri or Michigan relationship… So there is that side to it.  But I would also say that with all the violence that we’ve seen over the last week or so on this issue, no Georgian soldier has fired a gun or dropped a bomb on Russian territory, or any foreign territory.  That’s a point that’s worth keeping in mind here.

Me: It could get lost.

LM: I think it has gotten lost.

Me:  So then what about from the Russian side?  I remember at the GFSIS conference, Pavel Felgenhauer was talking about the build up of railroad troops.  Has this been somewhat premeditated on the Russian side?

LM: I think they had a response ready to go and that they were smart enough to wait for an opportunity to get to where they could at least get half support, or at least get some wiggle-room so that the people that don’t really want to challenge them on this don’t have to.

Me: And what about the closure of Russian bases in Georgia that was scheduled for later on this year.  Could that have had an impact on any motivation on their part?

LM: It’s all part of the picture.  It all feeds into that “wow, Georgia’s leaning to the west, we’re going to lose them” notion.  Now, I think the relationship between Russian and Georgia is a deep complicated historical one. A colleague I talked to yesterday made a lot of sense when he said that Russia views Georgia as its nutty little brother who needs to be held in line every now and then.  And Georgia views Russia as an enemy.  So that relationship is really different.  But it is really complicated.  I also think that whether or not we agree with how Russians feel, we have to recognize that they do, and they will feel this way.  We knew with Kosovo independence that this was going to happen. And we probably should have known when we went into Iraq that this was going to embolden people.  Now anybody can say that this is a threat, and this is the precedent, and preemptive war and all this nonsense.  So that certainly complicates the issue.

However, there also are some other things going on.  Georgia is a sovereign state –albeit one about which the United States has dramatically overstated its democratic progress, albeit one that has turned entirely to the United States for its security, albeit one that is capable of saber-rattling and bellicose rhetoric, but one that has certainly shown no threat to its neighbors, one that has in recent years wrestled to integrate minorities into their population, though not always perfectly,  has been invaded by a powerful neighbor.  That’s not good.  Now when we say that’s not acceptable, I am troubled by that because that implies that Dick Cheney is the determinant of what’s acceptable and what’s not and I don’t think that we should go down that path.  But the fact that we may have lost the ability to go down that path shouldn’t mean that Georgia suffers for that.

Me: I’d actually like to go back to the point you were mentioning about imperfect democratization.  I’m  wondering if there’s any danger to what’s getting lost in the picture of in terms of Russia being portrayed as the big Soviet bully and Georgia is this tiny democratizing…

LM: …plucky little pro-West nation

Me: Exactly.  You know, the day I arrived in Georgia, Parliament had convened on a Saturday morning without opposition.  They’ve moved the energy regulator to Kutaisi.  Is there any danger to this?

LM: I think that the problem is this: there’s a broader issue of U.S. policy towards Georgia since the Rose Revolution on issues related to democracy.  I’ve addressed this extensively in my book, I could probably talk about that to the point of boring your readers beyond any reasonable place.

Me: We’ll direct them to the book…

LM: So maybe I won’t go down that path.  But, I think that what happened in the last four years was that instead of viewing the Rose Revolution as an important step in the right direction, we viewed it as the consolidation of the Georgian democracy.  Suddenly is goes from this semi-democratic kleptocracy to Switzerland on the Black Sea, which is, of course, a dramatic overstatement.  But the problem with that, as I view it, is that as we talked about Georgian democracy as if it were this great thing, we undermined our credibility.  And while the United States was the only important country really talking, by 2007, about Georgian democracy as if it were still great, we were also the only country that really recognized the extent of the Russian threat.  The problem is, that if you lead with democracy is perfect, people switch off and say, “this is propaganda.”

Clearly the thing to get into now is, what do we do to stop Russia from pushing as far into Georgia as it wants to?  That’s the overwhelming international priority now in terms of what we can do on the ground, what our leadership should be doing, what European leadership, Georgian leadership, Russian leadership, should be doing.  That’s the issue we face in the world right now with regards to this conflict.  We should be clear on that.

But as we take a step back and say, “how did we get here?” we need to answer these questions because Russia very much wants this to have a kind of demonstrative effect in the region and we need to think about our own demonstrative impact of our work in the region.  I would argue that the Georgian state which is now under attack from a neighboring state is weaker than it needed to be because of a lack of democracy over the last four years.   And I think that there’s going to be a tendency in Georgia to now say, “we need to be more authoritarian.” No.  That’s completely the wrong direction.

Me: And that actually leads into one of my other questions which is, what does Misha do now?

LM: I think that there’s this awkward situation where a guy gets elected president in 2004 in what is I think broadly, undoubtedly a free and fair election, albeit a completely uncompetitive one.  But you know I was there in that election, I’ve observed a lot of elections, we’ve all read the reports and I used to say in 2004 that the Georgian President was elected more fairly than the American one, until the reelection of Bush.  2008 is a different story.  You have one of these elections where the consensus view of the international community once they’re speaking honestly is “well he probably bumped his vote up to get out of the run-off but he would have won that run-off anyway.”   I think that’s actually right.  Not great for democracy, obviously, but does that undermine his credibility, his legitimacy as a leader?  Well, it undermines his mandate.   But I think that, no, he’s still the legitimately elected leader.  But then you have a dramatic event that changes everything– this invasion– that’s precipitated by an extraordinarily stupid decision by the President.

So, on the one hand, Russian demands of changing Georgia’s leadership– If I were Georgian, I would say, “you know what, that’s not how Georgia changes its leadership.  And that’s not how the world should work.”  Now critics would say, “that’s exactly what you did around the world.”  Again there’s a false parallelism there.  And we shouldn’t have done that.  But, well let’s just say, if Georgia’s human rights abuses were even in the same ballpark as Iraq’s, maybe we should have. And maybe when there are widespread human rights abuses neighboring countries can step in and change the leadership.   But there are better ways to do that than we’ve done.

But that’s not the case in Georgia anyway.  I think that right now what the message the Georgian people should send is that this is about Georgia not Saakashvili and that, “we choose our leaders, thank you very much, Mr. Putin.”  And the message the Americans should send is that, “we’re not saying Saakashvili is perfect.  We’re saying he’s the leader of Georgia and he should stay the leader of Georgia.”  Now, if I were Saakashvili, I might be tempted to rethink whether it makes sense for me to be the leader of Georgia, whether that’s the best thing for Georgia.  I would not rethink that now.  Now’s not the time.  Now he’s president and he’s got to get his country out of this mess.

Me: And do you see any risk in him heading in a more authoritarian direction?

LM: It depends. I think there’s several directions in which Georgia can go.  One depends on Russian aggression.   Before this, I was on the phone to a Georgian here in the United States who is in tears and taking calls from here family and before that a Georgian in Tbilisi saying, “we know there are tanks coming here, we know there’s still fighting going on.”  The woman I was speaking to in Tbilisi is Magrelian and her family is in Zugdidi and says the Russian troops are still there.  And that’s not even in the newspapers in the West. And Zugdidi is in Western Georgia, it’s not in Abkhazia.

So the first question is when do they stop?  In a month, is Georgia a post-conflict place where it has this very weak national leadership because the international community has to rebuild the physical, social, economic, and political infrastructure?  I really hope not.  I hope for the sake of Georgia that that’s not the case.  But if it is, then I think we’re back at square one.  If the fighting stops tomorrow–and by stops, I mean really stops, not just Medvedev says it stops–then I think this question is really relevant.  And it’s going to be a temptation.  There’s going to be, I think, three forces in Georgia.  One is that bedlam has occurred. Even if it stops today, there’s still social disruption, anarchy.  A second is that we, the government are going to go back to the well of authoritarianism and hyper-nationalism to rebuild our support.  Which is not a great option.  And the third is to hold leadership accountable.  How that will play itself out is something we have to watch very closely.

Me: Going back to South Ossetia and Abkhazia– how do you see things going there?

LM: In the best case scenario, realistically, Saakashvili wrote off Abkhazia when he did this because even if a miracle had occurred and he held South Ossetia, Russians were going to redouble their efforts in Abkhazia.  And I think they’ve done that.  The end game in the frozen conflicts in these two regions has, in my view, always been this:  Georgians needed to buy some time.  I would have said this a month ago.  Georgians needed to buy some time to use that time to essentially make Georgia a more appealing place to be than Russia and then go back with another proposal of a structure that might work. I think the Abkhaz and South Ossetians are smart enough to know exactly what happens to minority groups in Russia.  However, they [the Georgians] did the opposite.  They sped up the clock.  And now, I think that that although the Russian claims of widespread acts of genocide are, I think, overstated in South Ossetia, I think it is fair to say that South Ossetians are not exactly buoyed by the notion of becoming part of Georgia and I think that’s probably, almost certainly true of Abkhazia.

Now, another piece of this that has not come up at all is Samtskhe Javakheti and the real larger minority presences in Georgia are in what we are now calling Georgia proper.  The satellite dishes there are pointed to Moscow, as opposed to Tbilisi– not even towards Yerevan.  And if I’m the Russians, that’s the front I open up.  And that would really be devastating.

Me: Do you think there’s any risk of that?

LM: I always believe there’s a risk of that.

Me: In terms of U.S. Georgia relations now– it seems that the U.S. response was a bit more muted than perhaps the Georgians would have liked and I wonder how that proceeds from here?

LM: It’s a real wake-up call for the Georgians.  I think the last year or so has been a real wakeup call for the Georgians.  The first time I saw George Bush Highway, I said perhaps to Saakashvili, “what’s President Clinton or Obama going to say about that in 2009?” I don’t think he liked that.  I don’t know if I said it to him. I may have.  But I certainly said it to everyone else in the Georgian government.  But the last time I was there someone had thrown an egg at Bush’s face.  Now, that’s just one Georgian. But I think that Georgian opinion towards America is changing anyway.  If you look at the American media on this, late last year Georgia stopped being described in the American press as a friend of the United States but as a staunch ally of the Bush White House.  That’s not where you want to be, right?  To go back to an early analogy, you need to have relations on both sides of the aisle.  Now, in fact Georgia does.  That’s the irony.  They do have support on both sides of the aisle, but they didn’t play it that way.  And I think the United States didn’t play it that way either with Georgia.  Just being deaf, and offensively deaf to some of the criticisms domestically.  So Georgian happiness with the United States was eroding anyway.  It wasn’t a crisis or anything like that.

Now I think what they’ve seen is the real wake-up call of just how much America can do for them.  I think many believe, rightfully, that the United States would like to help.  But I think they’re aware that there’s a whole world out there, that the world is not just Georgia.  Or that Georgia is not the center of the world, which is really a counter-intuitive thought for many Georgians, and that a U.S. – Russia policy–and this is the hard part–it encompasses a lot of different issues of which Georgia is only one and not the most important.  Now, broader issues of Russian influence in the region, that is more important.  But even then we have a very limited number of tools here.  So I think whereas Georgia is not going to become anti-American, and the American government is not going to say we want no part of Georgia, there is going to be what could turn into a positive development which is that the Georgian side realizes, you know, we can’t pack up and move to the Caribbean somewhere and become an island.  And we have to recognize this and recognize the limits of what the U.S. can do for us.  This doesn’t mean pushing Georgia to capitulate to the Russians– but it does mean, to not put too much faith in someone that just can’t help, not that it doesn’t want to.

For the U.S., beyond Georgia, this is a real lesson that we aren’t the hyperpower we think we are.  Now, anyone in 2008 who still needs an invasion by Russia to figure that out probably doesn’t have their eye on the ball too much anyway, but I believe there are people who don’t.  We are very much seeing the limits of our ability here.  And it’s not just that we’re overextended in the Middle East and Afghanistan,but it is that there are countries that are not just militarily strong enough, but that there are also countries with enough economic and political influence that really picking a fight with them would be a mistake.  This means that we are very much in a different world now and we are going to have to think about that.  I think the thinking about that will happen in the next administration.  I don’t see this administration really moving in that direction.  But the next administration is going to have to think about that.

Death on the Quest for Truth

Unsurprisingly, news coverage of the fighting in Georgia has been a confusing case of “he said, she said,” as conflicting reports over cease-fire violations and occupation of cities such as Gori buffet followers of the conflict both in Tbilisi and thousands of miles away.  Major network coverage was slow to arrive on the ground in Tbilisi and for quite awhile my best source of news was following the Facebook status updates and wall-to-wall messages of friends still in Georgia.

Eventually the journalism has started to catch up to the events, and the events with the journalists.  Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili pointed out the attack on the BBC news reporters about two days ago.  Unfortunately, this was not the only such attack.  Several journalists have already died, including Dutch cameraman Stan Storimans, who died in a bomb attack on Gori.  Reportedly, two others have been killed.  My understanding is that they are the companions of American journalist Winston Featherly who was wounded in the leg in South Ossetia and has reportedly just been released after being held by the Russians for several days with very little news on his whereabouts.  The other two journalists, reportedly Grigol Chikhladze, head of Alania TV and Alexander Kimchuk, head of the Caucasus Press Images Agency were apparently shot at a roadblock.   Supposedly, one more unnamed Georgian journalist has also been killed.

With most Americans being accustomed to the relatively sanitary and premeditated reporting from Iraq, what with embedded troops and proper equipment, the high casualty rate of journalists during these five days of fighting serves as a reminder that finding the truth that lies between conflicting reports requires intrepid individuals who truly are risking their lives.

Stay tuned as I should have a post up tomorrow that will be an interview about the current situation with Columbia’s Lincoln Mitchell. It has become clear that even with supposed cease-fires (and apparent violations) this situation will continue to unfold over a much longer period of time.

Photo #1: An bombed apartment building of a friend of a friend in Gori.  The man who took the photo lost neighbors, including a pregnant woman, in the bombing.

Photo #2: Winston Featherly being interview on Russian television.

Update from İstanbul

Reading between the lines–or lack thereof– has been my own way of piecing together what’s been going on.  Emails to friends still in Georgia at last knowledge have rarely been replied to, either reflecting on how they feel about me or what’s going on in Georgia.  Selfishly, I hope the latter…

With reports from my friend İan that the U.S. embassy is evacuating non-essential staff and their families, and the recent news that one of my friends who had tickets to İstanbul from Batumi  (on the Black Sea Coast) for last night but is now in Athens, my guess is that the mad scramble to leave for many has begun.

That said, several of my ex-pat friends remain in Tbilisi out of a sense of loyalty, adventure or other.  Truth be told, I wish I were there with them.

Georgia, Russia and S. Ossetia, Round 2

I have no idea when I’ll next be in İstanbul, but instead of riding the ferries and enjoying the remarkably beautiful weather in a country I love, I am holed up in an internet cafe trawling the internet for any information about another country I love. I suppose it’s true that love makes you do funny things.

Not surprisingly, information is slow to come and when it does it is often fraught with errors (eg the reported attacks on Tbilisi that CNN seemed so keen on have yet to materialize). However, this is to be expected when it seems that many of the major networks and reports are coming from Moscow, not Tbilisi. The importance of on-the-ground information should never be undervalued. I’ve found Facebook to be a surprisingly good source of information as I can at least track my friends somewhat as they correspond with each other about the recent events– however I’m still anxious for concrete information about what is going on with them.

Here is the link to the article about Russian railroad troops–referring mainly to Abkhazia. It was written less than two weeks ago and is eeriely accurate about the events to come. I encourage you to at least skim it (or read the last couple of paragraphs).

One of my friends still in Georgia will be blogging about the crisis (I hope!) at this page.

And bringing in U.S. politics: the other week one of my bosses was criticising Obama’s speech in Berlin as being too conciliatory towards Russia. I defended it as the strategic positioning of a candidate, not the policy of a president. However, it is quite interesting to note the different statements on the conflict by McCain and Obama. McCain clearly singles out Russia and calls on them to withdraw. Obama, however. stops short of naming Russia and merely calls for an end to hostilities. The only concession he made was the respect of Georgia’s territorial integrity. I’ll be deciding my presidential vote on many issues, but on this one I have to say McCain 1, Obama 0. My boss was right.

Here are some other good links about what’s going on. This short interview with regional expert Zeyno Baran gives a quick FAQ if you can get past the somewhat oddly worded questions by the Azeri interviewer. And this article addresses several of the political issues surrounding the conflict. It’s worth noting that the U.S. and EU were both against Georgia taking any action as it would have negative consequences for Georgia’s NATO bid. And seeing as how Russia doesn’t want Georgia part of NATO, the roadside attack on the Georgian policemen that supposedly ignited this most recent round of fighting seems rather convenient…

And just to put a face on things– feel free to check out my first post with the picture of the kind Georgian couple who took me in while I was waiting for my train. Their son who was toastmaster that night at dinner was about to join the military for his required service.

Georgia, Russia and the S. Ossetia/Abkhazia Game

Wow, I’ve never had quite so many people message me on g-chat as I did in the past few moments… nor as many inquiries about where I’ve been and what’s going on.  So, without further ado and subject to revision, here is my story and my take on what’s going on.  Bear in mind it is one opinion and opinion only.  The best I can do is encourage people to read as much about this (and other!) unknown places as possible…

I am writing from İstabul.  Amazingly enough, a few weeks ago I booked my tickets for departure from Georgia yesterday, putting me far away (for better or for worse) from the action and wondering what, exactly, is going on.

Here are some quick thoughts:

1) South Ossetia is tiny– population about 70,000.  It will never be a country on its own.  That said, much of the population has loyalty to Russia.

2) None of this tension is new.  In fact, much attention has been devoted to Abkhazia, another breakaway republic.  Russia has, interestingly enough, been building up its railroad troop presence and access to that region for quite some time now.  Railroad troops are what the Soviet Union used to move around as the railroad structure was far better than roads (more on this later when İ can find the citation and specifics).  A couple of days ago İ was sitting in the beer garden with my friends and talking about the German and American (I believe) missions that went to S. Ossetia in recent days as fighting escalated.  It has only come to the attention of the wider world today.

3) Energy is key.  U.S. and U.K. involvement will (rightly) be portrayed as securing critical Caspian energy supplies.  The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline transverses Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey providing vital diversity to world energy supplies.  Even more importantly, the Caspian gas resources (both Azerbaijan’s as well as Kazakhstan’s and Turkmenistan’s) provide vital alternatives to Russian gas supplies for Europe.  Destabilizing the region is well within Russia’s interests.

4) However, Russia is well prepared.  Due to a very open investment regime promoted by Europe (for all former Soviet republics) and Georgia’s own laissez-faire policy, many key energy assets are in Russian hands.  And Russian hands often have ties to Russian government.  Already many European governments, skeptical of the strong ties between the Russian government and Gazprom (Russia’s current President Medvedev was recently Chairman of Gazprom’s Board of Directors) have nixed deals that involve Gazprom gaining a controlling share of strategic energy assets.  The possibility of Gazprom taking over Centrica in the U.K. comes to mind (and the U.K. is fiercely open market).  The Russian government also holds (I believe) a controlling share of the company.  Gazprom itself has controlling shares of other companies, energy and other…

5) Russia already has a controlling share in Georgia major electricity transmission lines.  Furthermore, Georgia relies on imports for 70% of its energy needs, a large majority of that coming from Russia.  Of domestic electricity production, the largest hydropower plant, Enguri, is on Georgian territory, but the distribution is, I believed, controlled by Ahkhazia which is de facto Russia.  Again, I need to verify all this because İ wanted to write quickly, but I’m fairly certain this is the case.

I don’t feel qualified to write about issues of sovereignty as this is a sticky issue and I know little about the history and current climate of the breakaway republics.  However, I do feel that I know enough to write that, quite obviously, these republics are being used in a larger geopolitical game by Russia and Georgia.  And Russia has aims that exceed the area of the Caucasus.

Hopefully more to come later.

The Little Things: Take Two

Sadly, my laptop crashed the other day, meaning that my computer’s two week vacation before its trip to the mac hospital in New York means that my internet access is even more sporadic, and my blogging as well.  Plus it means no pictures…

But, the lack of easy access to internet has forced me out of my home office on the quest for internet.  In the process, I’ve had ample opportunity to soak in the little things that contribute to the unique characteristics of Tbilisi and Georgia.

Without further ado, the little things, in no particular order:

1) Sporadic use of videos.  Inexplicably, there’s a large screen mounted outside above the entrance to one of the metro stations that seems to be constantly playing a movie.  There’s no sound, I’ve never seen people watching it, and I have no idea what the movie is.  This by itself is rather amusing.  Taken together with the several buses that have small flat screen tv’s hanging at the front of the bus, it’s downright bizarre.  Even more bizarre is that not all buses have these tv’s.  And those that do seem to always be playing a nature show about the Arctic.  Several times I’ve seen what looks like a cute little siberian husky puppy playing in the snow.  All of this leads to many questions.  Why do certain buses get tv’s?  Why the same show?  And why the Arctic?  Do they show movies of the desert in the winter?  Is this a form of climate control?  Can’t they just turn on the a/c?

2) Stickers.  Once I get photo access again, I will show a picture of the lovely flower-burst shaped stickers that adorn phones, clothes, and wallets of hip young Tbilsi-ans.  Yep, I could pass for a Tbilisi high-schooler.  Not all are flower shaped, however.  Some are just large colored circles.  I have no idea how or when this fad started, but I did meet one guy who always has handful of stickers and apparently it’s his family’s business.  It’s surprisingly fun.

3) Crossing oneself repeatedly when passing churches.  Not everyone does this, but it’s hard to go on a bus ride without at least several people crossing themselves several times when the bus passes by a church.  And there are a lot of churches in Tbilisi.  Interestingly enough, I saw a woman cross herself today but I didn’t see a church anywhere, only McDonalds.

4) Crazy drivers.  This applies to Georgia as a whole and is not one of the little things I like.  I know lots of people have made claims to city X or country Y having the craziest drivers ever.  I feel like I’ve been around enough to confidently say that Georgia takes the cake on this one.  For example, during one doozy of a rain storm, all the cars on the highway were driving at their normal (fast) speed, despite the fact that the entire road surface was turning into a large puddle.  And despite the fact that there were several accidents–one of them particularly bad– on the road. 

5) Multi-purpose sidewalk use.  Jane Jacobs would cringe to see some of Tbilisi’s wide sidewalks used as…. more space for cars!  Yep.  Just because you’re on the sidewalk doesn’t mean you’re not safe from crazy drivers.  They’ll pull right up onto the sidewalk to park their car, which usually means maneuvering between pedestrians, large decorative flower pots, trees and other things one typically finds on the sidewalk.  The best part is that if you get in their way, they’ll give you a look like you, the pedestrian, are doing something wrong.

6) The earnest police officers.  I’ve never seen them outside of their police cars, but when they’re in them, they seem to take their job very seriously.  They have this great loudspeaker that they use when chasing cars or trying to pull them over.  I’m not sure how effective they are, but it would be great if they are actually helping to curb crazy driving.

7) Trees.  Sometimes when I’m walking around Tbilisi I feel as though I’ve been transported to a magical city in the woods.  Because it really somehow feels like you’re in the woods sometimes, with these tall fir trees blowing in the breeze and pine needles on the ground.  I’m so used to always being in cities at sea level by the water, that this is a new, enchanting locale. 

8 ) Phone etiquette.  I’m not sure what current phone etiquette is in the workplace in the U.S., so perhaps this one is off base.  But I’ve been surprised and amused by the accepted practice of answering a phone call in the middle of a meeting.  The best part is that it’s done in a very covert manner, with the talker covering his or her mouth and part of the phone while talking into it, like maybe if the phone isn’t visible, no one will know they’re talking on it…

9) Fans.  The old-fashioned kind that one can fold and unfold.  Just about every middle-aged woman seems to have one.  And I wish I did too when I’m riding the bus. 

10) Extreme matching.  I have no idea how they do it, but lots of girls here somehow manage to find shoes and accessories in the same exact material and shade of bright green, yellow, pink… Belt, earrings, shoes, hair accessory. 

11) Used  Books.  Are for sale everywhere– by most of the underpasses used to cross the street.  There are so many books– in Russian and Georgian.  Literature, art books, language books, old maps.   You name it. 

12) Boarding the bus.  Instead of paying as you get on, as is custom in many places, here you pay when you disembark.  Not that interesting, but just one of those things that make a place what it is.

There are plenty of things that make Georgia Georgia.  I’ve been lucky to have two months to discover just a handful of them– enough that make Georgia special, and difficult to leave.

Two Weeks Late, Some 4th of July Thoughts…

I’ve been a bit of a delinquent writer of late.  In addition to a rousing schedule of work and gym, I’ve added back-to-back weekend trips and met some other ex-pats, primarily Americans and Europeans (though also people from Nepal and Nigeria) living and working in Georgia.

Between these newfound friends and becoming more involved with the nature of my work here, I’ve noticed two rather important themes that resonate with the 4th of July, “contemplate the United States” theme. Patriotism is an odd thing for me– in the U.S. it seems to typically amount to mobs chanting “USA, USA” at music or sporting events and wildly flying flags without really contemplating the meaning behind it all.  

In a recent op-ed in the New York Times, William Kristol mentions his 4th of July ritual that involves reading the Declaration of Independence.  How many people, I wonder, actually do that on the 4th of July, or at least take the time to contemplate what it means to be an American?  I certainly don’t.  For me, 4th of July means hiding from loud noises and eating burgers.  So in the end, it winds up being a bizarre birthday party, more Santa Claus than Jesus, less about patriotism and more about celebration.

To me, it seems that one of the best actions we can take to get back to the meaning behind the celebration is to leave the country.  Inevitably, conversations with others will crop up about American culture, values, and ways of doing things– and vice versa for whichever country your friend is from.  I’ve found it a great way to learn not only about another country, but about the US as well.  Why do so few Americans travel? What are the benefits and drawbacks of trial by jury?  Why did you vote for Bush twice?  

I’ve found that answering these questions shapes my own identity as an American and makes me see the U.S. in more nuanced terms–not necessarily as an inevitable superpower devoid of culture, but as an experimental nation, like any other, that has a unique set of legal, geographic, and historic circumstances that contribute tremendously to the nation’s character.  There’s a decent chance that I’m slow to come to these realizations that others have had without leaving the country.  But personally I’ve always found that in addition to making me more of a “global citizen,” traveling makes me more of an American as well.  

Lesson #2 is about fighting for your country.  If fighting for your country means promoting the value of, dying for, or killing for your country, the military does not have a monopoly on that phrase.  Let me be clear– joining the military is a scary, uncertain proposition that could result in death.  It is a tremendous sacrifice that brings with it a unique set of demons.  Yet there are many others who take similar risks for similar purposes and I think there’s a danger in not recognizing the many parts that are needed for a functioning democracy.  Certain journalists, aid and NGO workers, diplomats and political activists are all actively promoting and defending the values of their country.  

Take my bosses, for example.  These Georgians are working around the clock on pushing Georgia to smarter energy choices–because smarter energy choices in the short run means solidifying the democratization process in the long run by decreasing reliance on Russian gas and moving closer to NATO. And dying to preserve and promote the values of your country?  Since the start of the Iraq War in 2003, 129 total journalists have been killed of roughly 1,200 max who were stationed there, or roughly 10%.  If 10% of the maximum number of troops stationed (roughly 200,000) had been killed, that would be 20,000 lost troops, either American or others.  Killing for your country is a topic that is beyond the scope of this blog post.  I’ll leave it as a personal decision, but one that should not be taken lightly.  My point is that fighting for your country takes many forms.  Letting military service monopolize that phrase does a disservice to the others who are also risking their lives and promoting the values of a democracy that demands sacrifices from many sectors.

When I return in three weeks, it will be with a better sense of my own identity as an American, and with a better sense of the sacrifices that are required from many parts of society to fight for a better and secure country. And though you might not find me reading the Declaration of Independence next 4th of July, you can rest assured that while I’m hiding out from the loud sounds of fire engines, fireworks, and celebratory cannon fire, I’ll be appreciating the unique history and character of the United States (if I’m not an “ex-patriot” at the time)…

When the Lights Go Out

Back in the day (meaning as recently as a few years ago), Tbilisi was known for its punctual power outages. On most days, from what I’ve heard, you could expect at least one extended moment where the perpetual hum of electricity-powered activity is silenced. Fortunately, that situation has improved with the rehabilitation of some hydropower plants and improvements to transmission.

However, not all kinks in the system have been worked out, and I’ve experienced a few outages since I’ve been here.  My routine is the same– with no more internet, I (can actually) concentrate on work I can do in Mircosoft Word and other programs that don’t use the internet.  And then when my computer battery finally drains away, I head out on to the street to see what’s going on.

Tbilisi is unfazed by the outages.  The stores along Chavchavadze Avenue, a main shopping drag near which I live, haul out their well-used generators and life continues for some, albeit at a slower pace.  I’ve learned to avoid the supermarket during blackouts, as the lack of register means that all transactions are handwritten; the line builds rather rapidly.  I’ve also learned to pay even more attention when crossing the street.  It seems that drivers along the four-lane streets take the outages to be less a lack of green light than a lack of red…

For me, blackouts have an air of festivity to them, a break from the normal routine.  I remember quite fondly the blackout that engulfed much of northeastern North America in 2003.  I met new neighbors, spent the time off from work in Tompkins Square Park with thousands of my nearest neighbors and their blissful dogs, and slept on my New York City roof for the first time to avoid the heat.  

Yet, that blackout came with an economic cost of $6 billion.  That’s about  $250,000,000 an hour, if you take the average length of the blackout to be 24 hours.  Transportation shut down– trains weren’t running, gas stations weren’t pumping; offices emptied– no computers, phones (cell phones had a notoriously tough time due to the volume of calls), air conditioners, elevators; restaurants lost food to lack of refrigeration.  It quickly became apparent how much of what we do is reliant on electric power.

Experiencing intermittent blackouts in Tbilisi is a reminder to me that though there’s an air of holiday about, there’s a real economic and social cost to these blackouts, especially for a developing country.  It is no wonder that my friend George reports from Pakistan that electricity infrastructure is one of the most important issues there.  Without it, it’s near impossible to get anything done in today’s world–and not being able to rely on it slows both physical and mental momentum.

So, the next time you surf the internet, heat food in the microwave, pump gas, pay by credit card, make a phone call, walk through an automatic door, take the elevator to the 3rd floor, make coffee, set your alarm, put groceries in the refrigerator, charge your cell, pda, ipod, or computer, or leave the light on for someone coming home at night it might be nice to remember, just for a moment, that these activities that have become so commonplace for us are unreliable luxuries at best and non-existent at worst for many in the world.  

Furthermore, these activities come with both benefits and costs.  The benefits are reflected in the economic losses caused by the 2003 blackout– without them, the world in which we know how to operate rapidly shuts down.  The costs are the price of that electricity– minor, perhaps, until multiplied by all the gadgets and all the people in the world who would like them as well.  Generating the electricity to power those gadgets will require ingenuity, in the face of carbon-emission restrictions and increasing costs of fossil fuels.  

While I will still enjoy the change in routine that the occasional blackout brings, I think I will also now appreciate the meaning behind the absence of electricity– that often it is increased demands that are being put on the supply and the distribution, and that those problems will need to be solved with more generation and a better transmission system.  In the meantime, keep hauling out those generators…

Food!!!

Drumroll, please… it’s the long-awaited, much-anticipated post on Georgian food!  I’ll do my best to illuminate some classic courses, with the knowledge that there’s still so much out there to try.

My first encounter with Georgian food was back in St. Petersburg when my friends and I frequented the Georgian restaurants there in a quest for some spice in a land of dill and sour cream (well frequented until the wine incident—let’s just say that it’s always a good idea to have a bottle of wine opened at your table…).  First impressions were great—what’s not to like about cheese bread and spicy shashlik (kebabs)?

And it’s even better in Georgia.  Friends who have been to Georgia or have eaten Georgian food sent me off with the instructions to “eat some khachapuri for me.”  It seems every country has its version of bread-and-cheese dishes, from gözleme in Turkey, to Swiss fondue (and let’s not forget about the orange-cheese filled pretzels that are sold in New York).  Georgia was not content to let it rest with that. Though Georgia serves a basic version of bread with cheese (seen in the last picture in the top left corner), khachapuri comes in many varieties, with one of the most well known being from the Adjara region, near the Black Sea.  A fresh, eye-shaped piece of dough with cheese in the center is cooked and topped with a fried (but not crispy) egg and a whole hunk of butter.  I was instructed to mix the egg in the center around with the cheese, turning “fried egg” khachapuri into “scrambled egg” khachapuri.  Delightful.  I would also like to point out that I took one for the team today and went out for this Adjara Khachapuri only to get pictures for my eager readers.  The hard-to-see drink in the background is ???? – I have no clue.  All I know is that it is traditionally served with khachapuri and tastes a bit like chocolate cream soda.  Together the two form a compete amino acid.

Another delectable Georgian dish, and one of my staples since I discovered the frozen variety, is khinkali.  Khinkali is a dumpling that is stuffed with a spicy meat concoction and boiled.   Khinkali is one of those food items that requires a special way of eating—with hands, not fork, knife or spoon.  True khinkali eaters grab it by the knob on top and are able to eat the dumpling without spilling any of the liquid inside.  Best enjoyed with beer.

Shashlik is another legendary treat of the country and region.  In Georgia, the shashlik, which is like a kebab (usually pork, beef, or lamb) can be grilled plain or in spices.  The shashlik in this picture was the latter type and enjoyed (unusually) for breakfast as we missed dinner the night before due to a hike that went on until, oh, midnight….  Never go hiking without a headlamp.  You never know when you might get lost.

 

Fresh, local produce is very common, and is very seasonal.  Though I can find bananas here and there, I’ve been foregoing them for the fresh apricots, cherries, and mulberries.  I’ve yet to find mushrooms, to my disappointment, and green onions have suddenly disappeared from all produce offerings.  I suppose that’s the trade-off.

 

Georgia has some great beverages including “lemonade” in pear, grape, and lemon flavors.  Another drink I like is fruit (such as apricots or strawberries) boiled with a lot of sugar, resulting in a mild sweet fruity drink.  Very refreshing.  Georgian wine is world-renowned (they even sell it at the wine store around the corner from me on 125^th Street in New York!).  Though it’s most often known as being sweet, they definitely make dry varieties.  And I’ve found that their semi-sweet varieties accompany dessert quite well.

Which brings me to the one downside—Georgia (in my humble and limited opinion) does not do dessert very well.  After Turkey, which is dessert paradise, crossing the border is a bit of a let-down.  Fortunately, Georgia is able to make up for this sad deficiency by importing excellent Russian chocolate and my favorite Turkish cookies…And given Georgia’s excellent location between the two countries, there’s a lot of overlap with food in addition to the dessert imports—piroshki (bread stuffed with potatoes, meat, or other fillings) like they have in Russia, and eggplant salad like they have in Turkey.

So though I’m craving a cup of chowdah, a good sandwich, and a chock-full-of-goodness American ice cream cone, I’ll content myself with the many tasty offerings that I know I’ll be hankering for in two short months.  

 

Directing Energy

One comment that I received multiple times from American friends and family in response to my coming to Tbilisi to work on renewable energy and energy efficiency policy was “we need that here.” Which got me thinking– what am I really doing here in Georgia, and wouldn’t my time be better spent working in the U.S., a country whose forays into renewables are most often left at the state level? How often have I cursed the streetlamps in Morningside Park, that seem to be perpetually on? How many times have I considered the myriad ways–small and large– to make my own building and my school’s buildings more energy efficient (again, the lights, perpetually on…)? And when I show up in Georgia, a country that derives the majority of its own electricity generation from the more environmentally acceptable hydropower and that shows remarkable restraint on an individual level when it comes to using lights, heat, a/c, hot water, etc (cars are not included in that mix…), that question becomes even more pressing. (Check out these graphs for georgia and the us1 that show how each country generates its electricity. Blue is hydro, purple is coal. Hydro is roughly 50% efficient, coal about 33%. The picture below is of one of Georgia’s hydropower plants.)

Aside from personal reasons including adventure, the chance to practice Russian, and good Georgian wine, is there a reason for me to leave friends and family to work in a country that by certain measures seems to far ahead of the U.S. in the renewable energy and energy efficiency sector? Yes, there is.

Policy, as I have come to realize, is created only in small part by the government. Sure, they do the final negotiating, trimming, and all-important voting, but the lead-up is done by other parts of society– by business, civil society, media, and public opinion. And true, the interests of those groups don’t always converge, and happen at different times in the process (or not at all, for some), but having those voices participate is essential to creating valuable dialogue about whether there is a problem and if so, how to correct it. A quick google search out of my own curiosity to see what is happening in New York regarding the Urban Heat Island effect and increasing the number of light colored roofs to reflect heat back into the atmosphere revealed several NGOs working on green roof initiatives, including one headed by a high school acquaintance. Interested in bike lanes? Check out Transportation Alternatives. For almost any cause, there is a group working to promote it and, as public opinion shifts (media helps here), a business able to profit. Universities and think-tanks help build the foundation with research. Together, these groups form a formidable phalanx that brings about change.

This system is weak in Georgia. For many reasons, including economic and political turmoil resulting from the collapse of the Soviet Union, Georgia lacks the business power, media freedom, and civil society to generate meaningful change. True, it takes awhile for these institutions to develop, Georgia has fairly liberal laws regarding formation of civil society groups, and as a non-Georgian speaker I am confined to the fringes of what is happening. But my experience with civil society development in Turkey showed that even with lots of international funding, either a mental shift is needed to inculcate empowerment among young people, or a cause important enough needs to come along (such as the high degree of civic organization in Turkey’s Kurdish areas). Right now, it seems that a lot of the business financing and civic development is being done with international help–USAID, KfW, EBRD, World Bank, etc– which is a good start, but is not yet at the level of (seemingly) spontaneous creation and integration that the U.S. enjoys.

The one commonality between the two countries? The political impasse. I alternate between frustration with New York State’s shooting down of both New York City’s proposed congestion pricing and bus rapid transit and what seems to be a similar disinclination to change the status quo here in Georgia (I hope to be proved wrong!). In the meantime, I’ll keep working for my USAID sponsored NGO, making the case for renewable energy and energy efficiency in a country that does, in fact, need work on in these areas for political, economic, and environmental reasons. And if politics is a universal truth, lessons learned here can always be applied back home…

All photos, except for the one of the hydro plant, were taken on a weekend hiking trip in the Borjomi region.