The remote, Muslim-majority region is often seen as separate from the rest of Georgia. But increasingly, Pankisi residents share the same frustration as other Georgians: an overbearing, unresponsive state.
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.
Protesters are demanding the resignation of the interior minister, but he may be too indispensable to the real power in the country: Georgian Dream chairman Bidzina Ivanishvili.