Vakhtang (Buba) Kikabidze, a Georgian singer and actor universally loved across the former Soviet Union, has died at the age of 84, drawing the curtain on an era.
Georgian cinema has been enjoying a renaissance, becoming a darling of the international independent film world. But it’s also running into political problems at home.
The Ministry of Culture issued a new statement responding to international criticism of an earlier announcement that it intended to “remove” Armenian “forgeries” from churches on its territory.
The minister of culture said that a working group will be set up to identify what he called “Armenian forgery” from churches, putting into practice a pseudoscientific theory that denies the churches’ Armenian origin.
For the most part, pro-government forces did not sympathize with the protests, but they also didn’t like the idea of Russia and Armenia getting involved in suppressing them.
Many object that the CSTO didn’t aid Armenia when it asked for help, and pointed at the irony of the current government coming to power as the result of street protests.
The Russia-led security bloc will be sending peacekeeping forces, the first time in its history that its collective security provision has been exercised.