It is shameful and absurd not to find a common language

There are no more than 50,000 ethnic Russians left in Georgia. Before perestroika was introduced, there were at least seven times more - up to 350,000. But they began to leave on a mass scale from 1991 onwards, because of the slogan "Georgia for Georgians" that was being implemented in the country.

Then Russians and non-Russians - Armenians, Greeks, Azerbaijanis, Ukrainians and others (nowadays representatives of more than 120 nationalities live in the country), - and even Georgians themselves began to leave because of the numerous economic and political cataclysms which have afflicted their little homeland with distressing regularity.

How are the remaining Russians getting on here now? We have spoken about this with Nikolay Sventitsky, president of the international cultural and educational union "The Russian Club" in Tbilisi and director at the Griboedov Russian Academic Theatre in Tbilisi.

"Since the August war life for everyone - both Russians and Georgians - has got harder. Here there are economic problems, as well as political and psychological ones. Nobody has confidence in what tomorrow may bring. I'm constantly wanting to take somebody to court for this attack on people's mental health - my own and that of my relatives, friends, all the people living in this country.

But I just don't know who the defendant would be. I'd like to call both Russia and Georgia to account. I'm not a politician or a lawyer, and I can't give political assessments of these events. But as a cultural figure, I can say the following: we, two nations of the same faith, two neighbouring countries, can't find a common language between us - and this is just shameful and absurd."

"Have attitudes towards Russians changed?"

"In Georgia even the August events and the wave of hostility towards the Russian government that has followed have not given rise to anti-Russian sentiment. There have been some isolated incidents when one neighbour has exploded at another: "clear off back to Russia where you belong, why are you bombing us..." Such things could also have been heard in the early 1990s, when a wave of nationalism swept across the country.

But I'll repeat that these are just isolated incidents - both now as they were back then. And occasionally in Russia too, Caucasians are called "black..."

But, thank God, there is no discrimination in Georgia along ethnic lines. Yes, there have become fewer Russians, just as people speaking Russian generally. Yes, Russian is now almost a foreign language. Since the August events we haven't been watching Russian TV stations.

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