Tbilisi: The foundry of reform

Joshua Kucera 5/25/07

Part four in a series

Not long after I get to Tbilisi, I'm driving with a group of Georgians when a young policeman flags down our car. OK, this is it, I figure: I'm finally going to see the corruption for which Georgia is famed. I get out my notebook to record the details of the shakedown we're about to suffer. The driver pulls over and the officer walks up to our car. But when he sees that it's full, he waves us on. It turns out he was just looking for a ride.

I ask Sopho, a Georgian freelance journalist who's with me in the back seat, if police often stop cars for bribes. "No, not anymore," she says. "Not since the Rose Revolution."

In the last Transparency International rankings of corruption perception, Georgia was the 65th most corrupt country in the world, still more corrupt than Mexico and Serbia. But just two years before it was 8th on the list. There are plenty of forms of corruption, some of which still plague Georgia. But to have virtually eliminated highway bribery in less than four years is remarkable.

Decreasing corruption is just one of the impressive achievements of the new government that took power in the Rose Revolution. The Georgian government led by President Mikhail Saakashvili has worked aggressively to transform the country's economic culture, making it easier to open a business and loosening labor laws. The reforms have not escaped international attention, as the World Bank named Georgia the top reforming country in the world last year.

These changes are being carried out partly on their own merit. But the fear of Russia and desire for protection from the West inspires Georgia to push onward, even when the changes may prove painful. "The Americans have a very good approach: they support the strong one. They help you if you are capable, if you are doing something, if you are motivated. And this is fair," says Alexander Rondeli, a prominent Georgian political analysts and an occasional advisor to the government. He has picked me up in his red Nissan SUV and driven me to a French-Georgian bistro. I protest that I have dinner plans later, but he insists that I eat anyway, and orders me some fried cheese and a tradition bean dish called lobio. "I have to do this," he says. "We Georgians are captive to our hospitality."

He explains that Georgians fear that if they don't show themselves as worthy of American and Western help, the West will abandon them to fall again into Russia's sphere of influence. "One friend told me: ‘Alex, I don't want to be with the Russians, but we have no other way, we have to stay with them, it's inevitable.' I said, no, it's not inevitable. I believe in my country. We will do everything it takes to show everyone that we don't want to be alone. And if we do that, we'll be supported."

So far, it's working. Although US assistance was forthcoming before the Rose Revolution, it has expanded markedly since then. A massive new US embassy sits on the outskirts of Tbilisi, hosting representatives from 21 US agencies that are helping Georgia's government with the reforms and handing out $170 million in aid this year – close to 10 percent of the total Georgian government budget. Before I came to Georgia, one US policymaker in Washington told me, "There are good guys and bad guys, and Saakashvili is a good guy."

Meanwhile, tension continues to mark Georgian-Russian relations. Last year, after Georgia expelled five Russians for spying, Russia deported hundreds of Georgian citizens living in Russia and banned imports from Georgia. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Russia sees Georgia as a threat both to its lucrative monopoly on natural gas exports to Europe – rival pipelines are opening up that connect the Caspian Sea to Europe while bypassing Russia – and to its remaining influence in its former southern territories in the Caucasus and Central Asia. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Bring it on, says Kote Gabashvili, the chairman of parliament's Committee on Foreign Relations. "Generally we're very thankful for the [Russian] embargo," he says. "This country can not sit and wait and it might be good to destroy old customs. We're developing new markets, and that requires us to improve quality. Last year, Norway bought 60,000 bottles of Georgian wine!"

He says the government also encouraged wealthy Georgian businessmen to buy grapes from vineyards and make their own wine to help the industry while the new markets are developed. "People realize that this is the chance we have to defeat Russia," he Gabashvili. "Before this spy situation, 70 or 75 percent of Georgians said we need to be in NATO. Now it's up to 90 percent." [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Gabashvili, a former ambassador to Germany, says the reforms are paying off. "Six years ago, NATO thought we were a joke country," says Gabashvili. "We're not a joke anymore."

The energy around Tbilisi is striking. Normally, the young, educated people I meet in post-communist countries work for a foreign business, or a western NGO. Here, it seems like most of those types of people I meet work for the government and they have an energy that is, even to a cynical journalist, inspiring.

Levan, a young hipster lawyer for the government agency that is working on overhauling the pension system, says he regularly works until 3 am. A group of charmingly earnest twentysomethings, Lela, Maka and Archil, take me out one night to an outdoor café for beers and fruit salad. Lela, who works for the Ministry of Education, tells me about a radical reform the ministry undertook to make the process of university admissions less corrupt, and by all accounts it's working. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Their approval of Saakashvili is contagious. They joke about how he loves to go to public openings of fountains around Georgia, and how he claps like a little boy when the fountains start up. "We like having a young president who is enthusiastic," Maka tells me. "You can tell he enjoys it."

The activity is visible around the city, too. The State Museum of Georgia and the Museum of Georgian Art are both closed for extensive renovations, and the towering Hotel Iveria, once full of refugees from Abkhazia, is now gutted and will soon be a Radisson. (The Radisson paid the refugees to get new homes.) There is a striking number of pregnant women and babies, an indicator that people are hopeful about the future.

But there is also a striking number of video poker and slots salons in Tbilisi, which suggests hope in nothing but chance. Pensions for elderly Georgians have barely gone up since 2003, and are now a mere $21 USD a month. Factories are being privatized and closed, and bloated bureaucracies have been slashed. This, of course, has consequences: About 11,000 police officers around the country have been laid off, as has more than 90 percent of the faculty at Tbilisi State University.

The government also has its share of detractors. I get a haircut from a barber in a rough-and-tumble market next to the Didube bus station in Tbilisi. When I say I'm American, he responds "America is bad." Why? I ask. "Because you are with Saakashvili," he says. "He's a thief." A disheveled woman walks by the shop, shouting.

The cosmopolitan Georgians I spend most of my time with – the very people who are driving these reforms – don't seem too worried about people like my barber. There is a controversy now in Tbilisi about renovations of the city's exotic, but collapsing, old architecture. The government is imposing a tax on people who live in historic districts to help pay for the renovation of their homes. Irakli, a young developer I meet in an artsy café in one of these crumbling districts, defends the gentrification policy. "If people can't afford it, then they should move out and allow people who can pay to keep up the buildings to move in," he says.

Rondeli, too, is unsympathetic to those left behind. "The countryside is mostly Soviet riff-raff; you can't expect anything from them," he says. "The Soviet Union left us all these leftovers, incapable of doing anything.

"In this country, Bolsheviks were exterminating people who were active, and helping drunkards and incapable people. This was the Bolshevik principle: to filter up the worst people because it was easy to control them," he says. He doesn't mention it now, but earlier he told me that he had family members who perished during the great terror of the Stalin era.

"I don't want to sound merciless but the old generation deserves what they have," he says. "They were participating in this corrupt Soviet state, and now they have to pay for it. They will tell you ‘we had no other choice,' and I understand that. But it happened. The government should help the people socially, but the government has no resources to help everyone whom the Soviet Union made incapable and impotent."

Rondeli acknowledges that there is dissatisfaction with reforms, but he adds that the discontent is being fanned by Russia. "Social discontent is a serious concern, and this is the leverage Russia is calculating against Georgia, to make people oppose the government in big numbers. This is the only thing that could spark something. Russia is creating this image and creating propaganda, they're saying "Look at what you've gotten from Western democracy."

A Western diplomat I speak to acknowledges that the economy needs improvement but denies that political discontent is widespread, pointing to same polls that Gabashvili mentioned about the country's overwhelming desire to be in NATO. But the same poll also shows that unemployment is by far the greatest concern for Georgians. Asked what is the most important problem facing Georgia, 63 percent gave answers relating to the economy like unemployment, salaries and pensions. Only 21 percent mentioned security issues such as the separatist territories and tension with Russia.

Other people dismiss my questions about social problems, saying people are not badly affected. Maybe they're right. The poll shows 73 percent of Georgians are optimistic about their country, and that only two percent of people report having to pay a bribe in the last 12 months. One opposition rally I go to, where Labor Party politicians call for Saakashvili's resignation and rail against the low salaries and pensions, is sparsely attended, mostly by old men in threadbare suits (a button on one man's jacket pops off spontaneously just as I'm standing next to him).

At least among Tbilisi's intelligentsia, there seems to be a consensus in favor of the government's reform and westernization policy. "There are many things I don't like about Saakashvili, but in general he's doing what I want," says Teona, a 35-year-old archeologist in Tbilisi, echoing the opinion of many I speak to here.

She grew up in Abkhazia where her father was director of a hydroelectric plant, and she takes me to a place that boasts "Sukhumi-style coffee," made in a sort of oven lined with sand. Sukhumi is the capital of Abkhazia, which along with South Ossetia broke away from Georgia in the early 1990s. Getting back these territories is a top priority for Georgians, even those who didn't grow up there.

"I miss it so much," Teona says of Abkhazia. "I dream about it and I have no right to visit there. I want the Abkhaz to feel as comfortable there as I do – but we can never say it's not Georgia," she says. "Losing these territories is like a cancer, our country can't really succeed until we get them back. I can't explain why this is, but I feel it," she says. [For additional information see the Eurasia Insight archive].

The most important thing for the government to do now, she says, is to cement Georgia's place in the West. "Personally, we're against the war in Iraq," she says. The Georgian government has just decided to more than double its troop commitment to Iraq, to 2,000 soldiers, becoming the largest per capital contributor of troops to the US-led coalition. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. "But we want to be in NATO and we want to have the United States as a friend, we need American help so we're doing whatever we can for them."

The specter of Russia explains, to a degree, why people are united. "The problems that appeared in Abkhazia and South Ossetia did not have anything to do with ethnic problems – it's all about Russian empire," Teona says. "Yes, Georgians made mistakes, and we didn't act correctly toward ethnic minorities. And Russia took advantage of this situation."

Teona mentions the ongoing political drama in Ukraine, which in 2004 also seemed to break free of the strong grip Russia had held on it. But the reformers who took power after that country's Orange Revolution have fallen out, and the government there collapsed. Teona says it's an object lesson for Georgia. "We have to keep this government four more years to get results," Teona says. "What's going on in Ukraine now is not good – they think fighting all the time is democracy. But we need to solve the problems with territory and then we can have these struggles."

Only one time in Georgia am I asked for a bribe, and it is in territory that the Georgian government doesn't even control. At the border with Abkhazia, visitors have to walk through a pit of sawdust that allegedly has some disinfecting powers. On my way out of Abkhazia, the guard manning the pit asks me for $1. I laugh it off, and so he laughs too.

Editor's Note: Joshua Kucera is a Washington, DC,-based freelance writer who specializes in security issues in Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Middle East.

Posted May 25, 2007 © Eurasianet