Political movements based on Shia Islam have faced an uphill battle, as both the government and mainstream opposition are devoted to a secular, pro-Turkic national narrative.
Georgians and Russians have not had such close contact, and on such a scale, since the breakup of Soviet Union. Now they are figuring each other out again.
Many outsiders have been calling on Georgia to take advantage of Russian weakness to reclaim its lost territories. But Georgians themselves aren’t having it.
The incumbent has come under fire for a controversial military deployment to Ukraine, and it’s not clear that a proposal to annex the territory to Russia will help him.
The president has reaffirmed the special place that the Russian language has in Azerbaijan even as a backlash against Russian culture has swept the rest of the world.