The labor migrants are trying to return home after losing their jobs in the coronavirus pandemic. Tensions are rising, and a protest on the border has been violently broken up by Russian police.
Today celebrated for blending classical music with Turkish folk tunes, Anjelika Akbar’s education was strictly Soviet, intolerant to non-classical styles.
Tbilisi may have refused to let the insult slide because Georgia’s coronavirus response has become an electoral platform for the governing party, which faces a parliamentary vote this fall.
This newest escalation of the history wars threatens to drag the Caucasus into the larger post-Soviet struggle over the memory of World War II that has poisoned ties between Russia and many of its neighbors.
The allegations are not taken very seriously outside Georgia's opposition, but they are taking on new life after Tbilisi terminated its contract with an American energy company.