New Year’s is the main winter holiday in the post-Soviet world, after the communists took Christmas customs and melded them into the more secular January 1. But Georgia’s mekvle tradition long predates this shift.
The restoration has sparked arguments about whether the mosque should be considered “Persian” or “Azerbaijani,” and some locals question whether the Armenian-controlled territory should be rebuilding its mosques at all.
The Oscar-nominated “And Then We Danced” faced violent opposition from far right groups, and police were forced to guard theaters throughout the weekend.
From openhanded hospitality to fierce blood feuds, centuries-old customs are fading in Svaneti as the remote Caucasus highland becomes a trendy tourism destination.
The Georgian capital has become a stage set for a Hollywood action flick; some joke that the name of the film franchise is just driving as usual in the city.
Over the past several days Lake Sevan has turned an alarming shade of green. The algae bloom is a symptom of the dire, complex ecological situation around the country’s biggest body of water.
The host expressed what many Georgians – and Russians – feel, but many worried that it could unnecessarily escalate the ongoing crisis between the two countries.
Tbilisi’s Russian expat community disputes Moscow’s narrative of a surge of Russophobia in the country, but some say that the ongoing tensions have put them in a complicated place.