Tamada Tales

Georgia has become the first former Soviet state to legalize the consumption of marijuana. But travelers looking for an ex-communist Amsterdam shouldn't head there just yet, as a haze still surrounds many of the technicalities of drug use.

Love him or hate him, Georgia’s richest man Bidzina Ivanishvili is the main show in town. When he gives one of his lengthy, oracular media appearances, everyone seems glued to their TV screens to get a read on where he is taking the country.

Russia, the world’s biggest drinker of Georgian wine, has threatened to tighten control on alcohol imports from Georgia in a step many take as a political shot across the bow.

A high-profile sexual harassment scandal that has rocked Georgia's activist community has taken an unusual twist: The man being accused has asked a court to order two women to publicly announce that he is not – as they have previously claimed – a … male sexual organ. The demand, legal analysts say, is a first in the history of Georgian jurisprudence.

A man who once supplied intelligence to Russia also has been supplying clothing and gear to the Georgian army, according to a scandalous media revelation.

Georgia has arrested a Turkish man allegedly involved in the killing of a Russian pilot in Syria, an incident that led to a fierce row between Russia and Turkey in 2015.

Georgia and its breakaway territories have launched a tit-for-tat blacklist battle in an attempt to sanction individuals they blame for crimes against them.

Next time Matt Damon gets marooned on Mars, he may be whiling away his days sipping Saperavi instead of farming potatoes as he did so laboriously in the 2015 blockbuster, The Martian. Georgia, an ancient wine-making redoubt, is putting its best space science and viticulture minds together to develop grapes fit for growing on Mars.

Protests led by a murdered teenager’s father are set to continue in Georgia as negotiations with top government officials on June 4 failed to resolve the standoff.

The Syrian government recognized the independence of Georgia’s breakaway regions Abkhazia and South Ossetia in a gesture of thanks to its largest patron of late, Russia. Georgia responded by severing diplomatic relations with Syria.