Dear Readers:
You may have heard of the anti-Russian riots (over the last couple of days) in Tbilisi, Gruzia. To help elucidate what is going on, I have this piece, by reporter Darya Rynochnova. Quick backstory: On Thursday highly organized spontaneous riots broke out in Tbilisi as mobs of Saakashvili supporters, waving Gruzian and Ukrainian flags, attempted to pull a “Maidan” and overthrow the government of President Salome Zurabishvili.
The pretext was the visit to the Gruzian Parliament of a Russian delegation, headed by Communist Party Parliamentarian Sergei Gavrilov. In the course of his visit, Gavrilov committed a well-planned yet accidental faux pas, when he was accidentally-on-purpose invited to sit in the wrong chair. The chair of the Parliamentary Speaker – haha!
Blood in the streets of Tbilisi: This is what happens when violent mobs are allowed to run amok.
Gavrilov knew that it was the wrong protocol, not to mention bad optics, but he didn’t really know what to do, and was too polite to object, so he simply sat down in the sacred chair. Nothing like this had ever happened before, since that fatal day when Boris Godunov plopped himself down on Tsar Fyodor’s throne!
Whereupon all heck broke loose in the streets of the Caucasian republic. Violent Titushki belonging to Saakashvili swarmed all over the city, attacking cops and setting shit on fire, as is their wont. Initially the Gruzian riot cops didn’t know what to do either, they started retreating and allowing the violent criminals to grab their clubs and shields away from them.
Fast forward to Friday. Fortunately, firmer heads prevailed, balls were grown, and the Gruzian Internal Ministry, led by Georgiy Gakharia, ordered/allowed police to repel the violent demonstrators. Maybe some lessons were learned from the Ukrainian Maidan after all! Namely, that if the forces of law and order allow criminal street Nazis to do whatever they please, then it never ends well.
All of this, of course, is the work of Oppositionist forces, led by Saakashvili and other “pro-European” political parties. Who are bent on overthrowing the present government and returning themselves to the Sacred Trough by hook or by crook. These elements learned their own lessons from Maidan: Namely, even if they command only a small minority of the population (experts estimate around 15-17% combined support for all of these extremist parties), they can still take over the government if they behave boldly and aggressively, employing extreme violence as necessary.
Although individuals like Gakharia showed admirable firmness in dealing with these criminals, the Gruzian government as a whole is weak and shaky, unsure of itself, and its very first impulse was to cave in and appease the violent protesters. Hence, a series of forced resignations of government officials following the riots.
Zakharova: “Au contraire, Ma cherie…”
Zurabishvili: “Occupier bitches!”
In addition, President Salome Zurabishvili has exposed a fatal weakness and lack of leadership during this crisis. Which is the lede to my “Catfight” theme. Instead of lashing out at the Saakashvili goons trying to overthrow her, Salome erupted with criticisms of Russia. Although the disorders were clearly the handiwork of sneaky-snake European governments, not to mention the Ukraine, Salome chose to believe that “Russian Fifth-Columnists” and other pro-Russian provocateurs were behind the violence: “The splitting of our country and society, and this internal rift benefits nobody except Russia. This is the handiwork of Russia and its sophisticated weaponry. Russia is our enemy and occupier!”
Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, lashed back on her Facebook page with her usual verbal irony. The previous day she had creatively reamed out Russia’s Caucasian neighbors for “dispelling that old myth of Gruzian Hospitality.” Now she directed her sharp tongue against Salome herself:
“Well, look who’s winning here! Don’t worry, the so-called Occupier is in retreat, leaving your country and taking your tourist industry with it. [Alluding to President Putin’s decree ending Russian tourist flights to Gruzia, since he could no longer guarantee the safety of Russian tourists there.] Ma cherie, all that you needed to do during this tragic yet routine moment of Gruzian political collapse, was to come out on your balcony and say that you guarantee the safety of the streets of Gruzian cities. Using your authority as President. Authority that was granted to you by the people. You needed to come out in person and make such a statement. Instead you started just shucking and jiving, singing the old song about the Occupier. Who got to you?”
Awful Avalanche 
Sadly, all one needs do these days as a post-communist country is label Russia “The Occupier” and declare it to be an enemy in order to bring warm approbation from the western press and western leaders. There’s a lesson there, though, because it rarely brings much else. The USA is usually happy to throw a couple of million into the mix, but others are kind of tight with the purse-strings and they sort of expect you to do it yourself; money dispensed lately has come from the IMF in the form of ‘loans’, and they actually expect them to be paid back.
I would have thought Georgia would have learned its lesson from the basically nothing it got from the west in return for Saakashvili’s bold lunge at Tskhinvali – maybe a couple of new schools, there was a recent discussion in which Georgia was bitching about how little it got from the west and how quickly it was forgotten, but I can’t recall now where I saw it. The irony is that this most recent upheaval is almost certainly the work of western regime-changers, and certainly not Russia, which stands to gain nothing by yet another riot in Tbilisi.
Some countries, unfortunately, are just slow learners, and Ukraine and Georgia still imagine they are going to be welcomed into NATO. There are already plenty of excuses for the west to go to war with Russia if it ever musters up the nerve to try it, and it does not need an Article 5 provocation from either of these poor countries, which would otherwise give the EU budget such a shitkicking it would never recover.
Ironic also is post-Soviet countries like Poland doing the Occupier Strut and bad-mouthing Russia, while from the other side of the mouth begging for American occupation in the form of bases and soldiers. Poland would be delighted to be occupied by Uncle Sam, doubtless under the impression that a stream of American gold would pour into state coffers. Take comfort in those dreams, Poland.
Georgia is slowly digging itself out of the hole it fell into when the Russian trade embargo with Georgia was imposed – just in time for it to be re-tightened, perhaps. From “Trading Economics”
Georgia’s increasing trade deficits are a by-product of Russia’s trade embargo. Georgia has failed to diversify its exports and relies heavily on agriculture and low value added resource exploration.
https://tradingeconomics.com/georgia/balance-of-trade
Georgia’s principal exports are metals and alloys, cars and wine. It’s top export destination remains Russia.
https://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/geo/
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Georgian food is crap, their wine is sugary catpiss and so far as I can tell most of them look like Quasimodo’s Sicilian cousin. I don’t know what the hell Russians ever saw in the place, but it’s well past time they kicked this misplaced affection.
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