AUSSTELLUNG: Aserbaidschan – drei fotografische Positionen in Dresden, 6.9.-3.11.2013 (kulturaktiv.org)

 

Chingiz Babajew
Sevinj Aslanova
Fakhriyya Mammadova

(kulturaktiv.org) Zwischen Erdölboom, kaukasisch-orientalischer Tradition, modernem Selbstverständnis und post-sozialistischen Erbe zeigt diese Ausstellung eine Fotoschau aus Aserbaidschan; einem Land, das sich gern als Brücke zwischen Ost und West sieht. Die beteiligten Künstler Chingiz Babajew, Sevinj Aslanova und FakhriyyaMammadova verstehen es, die vielen Gegensätze auf ironische und leicht provokante Weise zu dokumentieren. 

Ein zentrales Motiv sind Finger und Hände. Auffallend ist auch die häufige Verwendung von Hochzeitsmotiven, vielleicht dem zentralen Moment der aserbaidschanischen Gesellschaft, die wesentlich aus ihren familiären Verbindungen schöpft. Die Bilder atmen dabei eine nüchterne Ästhetik jenseits von Kitsch und Romantik. Kein Märchen aus Tausend und einer Nacht – sondern Bilder aus einem ganz realen Land.

Die Ausstellung ist vom 06.09. – 06.11.2013 in der GALERIE NEUE OSTEN zu sehn. Die Vernissage findet am Freitag, den 06.09.2013 ab 19 Uhr statt. Eintritt frei!

Die Idee zur Ausstellung entstand im Rahmen des Projekts Transkaukazja, an dem einer der Künstler – Chingiz Babajew – im Juli bereits in Deutschland zu Gast war. Unter dem Titel „Border – Key – Neuropa“ hatten er und dreizehn weitere Künstler aus dem Kaukasus und aus Deutschland Landart-Objekte an der Neiße zwischen Görlitz und Zittau geschaffen.

GALERIE NEUE OSTEN
Bautzner Straße 49, 01099 Dresden
Tel. Kurator Matthias Schumann +49-179-5420175
Öffnungszeiten:
Montag bis Freitag 10 – 17 Uhr und nach Vereinbarung

RADIO: Margwelaschwili ist neuer Präsident Georgiens (srf.ch)

(srf.ch) Mit Georgi Margwelaschwili wählt Georgien einen Vertrauten von Premier Bidsina Iwanischwili zum Präsidenten. Dieser erhält dadurch praktisch uneingeschränkte Macht.

Mit Sekt und Autokorsos feiern die Anhänger der georgischen Regierung den Sieg ihres Kandidaten bei der Präsidentenwahl. Auch das Lager des scheidenden Amtsinhabers Michail Saakaschwili gratuliert.


Der frühere Bildungsminister Georgi Margwelaschwili hat die Präsidentenwahl mit dem absoluten Mehr gewonnen, wie die Wahlkommission in Tiflis bekannt gibt. Der Vertraute von Regierungschef Bidsina Iwanischwili leitet nun den ersten demokratischen Wechsel an der Staatsspitze ein.

Uneingeschränkte Macht für Iwanischwili

Die Abstimmung galt als wichtiger Test für Iwanischwili. Der Milliardär hatte die Parlamentswahl mit seinem Sechs-Parteien-Bündnis "Georgischer Traum" vor über einem Jahr gewonnen. Es zwang die Vereinigte Nationalbewegung Saakaschwilis in die Opposition. Mit der Wahl seines Vertrauten zum Präsidenten bekommt er der Regierungschef nun praktisch uneingeschränkte Macht.
Der neue Präsident wird künftig nur eine repräsentative Rolle spielen. Den nach der Wahl tritt eine Verfassungsänderung in Kraft, die die wichtigsten Machtbefugnisse auf das Amt des Regierungschefs überträgt. Experten warnen vor einem neuen Machtmonopol. 

Ein zuverlässiger Politiker 

Laut SRF-Korrespondent Peter Gysling haben die Georgier mit Margwelaschwili keine Person mit grosser Ausstrahlung ins Präsidentenamt gewählt.
«Das Volk hat heute vor allem sein Vertrauen ausgesprochen gegenüber dem politischen Wechsel im Land.» Viele Georgier hätten genug von allzu charismatischen Persönlichkeiten, erklärt Gysling weiter. Die Georgier wollten keine Führerfiguren, sondern zuverlässige Sachwalter und Politiker.

Mehr zum Thema

• Peter Gysling: «Georgien hat noch einen weiten Weg vor sich»
• Hoffen auf den «Georgischen Traum»
• Der Abstieg eines einstigen georgischen Hoffnungsträgers

COMMENT: So Long, Saakashvili. The Presidency That Lived By Spin -- And Died By It. By Thomas de Waal (foreignaffairs.com)

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Philip Gordon, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasian Affairs, stop in front of a ferris wheel as they walk through the streets of Batumi, June 5, 2012. (Saul Loeb / Courtesy Reuters)

(foreignaffairs.com) Georgia's reputation for charm has long preceded it. Travelling in the Soviet Union in 1947, the writer John Steinbeck heard Russians repeatedly evoke the “magical name of Georgia.” “They spoke of Georgians as supermen, as great drinkers, great dancers, great musicians, great workers and lovers,” Steinbeck wrote at the time.

It was the singular achievement of Mikheil “Misha” Saakashvili, elected Georgia's president in 2004, to have elevated his country's capacity for charm into the centerpiece of a grand strategy, one designed to secure power in Georgia by winning over the West in general and the White House of George W. Bush in particular. As was inevitable, the strategy eventually failed. Only a year ago, Saakashvili fully expected that he would win parliamentary elections and that his team would stay in power almost indefinitely. But defeat in the October 2013 parliamentary vote and a spate of revelations since then about abuses committed by his government have sent his popularity into a tailspin. A poll commissioned last month found that 57 percent of Georgians dislike Saakashvili; only 15 percent of the country approves of his job performance. After dominating Georgia for nine years, Saakashvili has still been head of state for the past twelve months, but in practical terms he has been virtually irrelevant.

But for Saakashvili, it always seemed that the pursuit of Western celebrity was just as important as maintaining popularity at home. In some sense, the bigger question is not why this pursuit failed but why it lasted as long as it did. And that is a question only Saakashvili's enablers in the West can answer.

PR STRATEGIST IN CHIEF

If it is hard to disentangle myth from reality in assessing Saakashvili's political legacy, that is because he intentionally blurred the lines between Georgia’s political reality and his own PR efforts. Much of Saakashvili’s presidency was a rebranding exercise along the lines of Tony Blair's “Cool Britannia” campaign in the 1990s.

The popular Rose Revolution, which Saakashvili led in November 2003, was real enough. It swept the regime of his former patron Eduard Shevardnadze from power. Two months later, Saakashvili became the youngest head of state in Europe, and he appointed one of the youngest governments, eager to try a series of state-building reforms.

But thereafter, Saakashvili himself was only intermittently involved in the day-to-day business of government. His chief responsibility was to serve two roles: ideas man and chief salesman for his reforms. Saakashvili accepted the role with enthusiasm, tirelessly promoting the idea that, thanks to the Rose Revolution, Georgia had undergone a “mental revolution,” that Georgians had managed to transcend their history and join the West in one sweeping political and psychological transformation.

Needless to say, this message was appealing to many Westerners, especially to political and media elites who were hungry for what might be described as an “anti-Russia,” a post-Soviet success story. (And Vladimir Putin duly did his part in helping promote the message by vigorously opposing it.) Saakashvili gave generous access to Western media, and in particular to publications such as the Financial Times, The Economist, and The Wall Street Journal, which they repaid by giving lavish attention to his government's economic reforms. Saakashvili may be the only person to have twice been the subject of the “Lunch with the FT” column.

Saakashvili's most fateful courtship, however, was not with the media but with a fellow head of state: George W. Bush. When Saakashvili came to Washington in February 2004, he did everything to ensure that it would be love at first sight. Visiting the White House, he told an enthusiastic audience in his rapid fluent English that, as a former George Washington University student, this was a “most special homecoming.” An hour before his first Oval Office meeting with Bush, Saakashvili is said to have been hastily studying the State of the Union speech that Bush had delivered a month earlier. When Saakashvili, in his private meeting with the president, repeated verbatim some of the phrases about freedom and democracy from that speech, Bush and his team listened in rapture. Starting at that moment, it seems, Bush concluded that Saakashvili was “our guy.” In public comments afterward, Bush told Saakashvili, “I'm proud to call you friend.”

Saakashvili perfectly fit Bush's preferred image of a transformative leader: he was young, fluent in English, familiar with the vocabulary of reform and democracy, and, not least, ready to back U.S. foreign policy goals in Afghanistan and Iraq. They were also impressed by his commitment to nation-building in Georgia itself. The first years of Saakashvili’s presidency were a great success story. In short order, he eliminated most of the country's Soviet-era bureaucracy, ushering in a new policy force, traffic police, and tax and municipal authorities. Low-level bribe-taking was stamped out. Everything from the school system to the look of the national flag was overhauled.

But the Americans seemed to be unbothered by the fact that Saakashvili's style of leadership was much more authoritarian than his liberal rhetoric. His government's modernization efforts were imposed top-down, with increasing brutality and disregard for large parts of the population. Saakashvili's interior minister, Vano Merabishvili, served as the president's enforcer-in-chief. Merabishvili rightly earned praise for a crackdown on Georgia's powerful organized-crime lords. But the machine he built turned Georgia into a police state. Heavy surveillance became routine. The law enforcement agencies’ net was cast so wide that Georgia’s prison population per capita became the largest in Europe -- and those statistics concealed thousands of people living in limbo due to a corrupt plea bargaining system that threatened to result in their imprisonment at any moment, even absent a trial. Inside the country's prisons, the government practiced institutionalized torture, including the rape of inmates by prison guards.

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

By 2007, Georgia had a large constituency that felt marginalized or left out of the Saakashvili project. Western European governments had also become more skeptical. But most of Saakashvili’s supporters in the United States, as well as those in central and eastern Europe, stayed loyal.
American support served to insulate him from some of the domestic criticism -- but eventually it proved to be his undoing. Although Americans and Georgians had adopted the habit of using the word “ally” to refer to each other, there was never a formal alliance between the two countries. Saakashvili allowed his judgment to be skewed by his glowing testimonials from the Bush White House.

Saakashvili's miscalculations were tragically exposed in August 2008, when war broke out with Russia over Georgia's breakaway province of South Ossetia. We now know that the war was triggered by Saakashvili's decision to attack the South Ossetian town of Tskhinvali in a doomed attempt to reconquer the province by force, only to provoke a massive -- and well-prepared -- Russian assault on his country. Saakashvili probably believed that if he captured Tskhinvali, the United States would back him against Russia. In an interview with the BBC about the war, he tried to explain his reasoning: “Hopefully the international community would wake up and see -- we concentrate efforts, we get some kind of reversal.” We have yet to learn whether this was a blind guess or based on private assurances from supporters in Washington. Certainly, senior officials told him not to try the military option. Back in 2005, Bush himself had told Saakashvili that if he went to war with Russia, “the U.S. cavalry isn't coming over the horizon.” And once the war was underway, the United States duly did nothing to intervene.

The war also exposed the limitations of personal charm and brilliance. Foreign interlocutors said that they were both thrilled and exhausted by Saakashvili’s tendency to launch into monologues. One Western interlocutor said, “After you’ve had a discussion with him, you need to lie down. You need a drink.” Observers noticed that Saakashvili’s decision-making procedures were haphazard, and that he was negligent about maintaining a record of his government’s deliberations. Indeed, most of the government's decisions were made by a small group of advisers -- most of whom were younger than Saakashvili himself, who was only 41 in 2008 -- in meetings held after midnight (which, incidentally, meant that the Georgian government worked more or less on Washington time). Saakashvili’s informal system could not cope with the strain. Among the reasons that the Georgian military is said to have been unable to hold its lines was that it was receiving orders via cell phone, rather than via any standardized chain of command. After only five days, Georgia inevitably accepted its humiliating defeat by the Russians.

Saakashvili’s impulsive, abrasive style won him passionate admirers, but also a long list of enemies, ranging from many of his former ministers to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Sometime after 2008, an important addition to this list was Georgia’s richest man, Bidzina Ivanishvili. Thanks to indignation against the Russians’ bullying tactics, Saakashvili rode out the storm of the August war. But discontent was growing, and Georgians eventually rallied around Ivanishvili, who had earlier supported Saakashvili’s government and funded many of its projects but had, for reasons not yet fully apparent, angrily broken with him.

The last two years in Georgia have been dominated by a grudge match between the two men. Saakashvili first tried to do everything in his power to destroy Ivanishvili by attempting to withhold his Georgian passport, strip him of his assets, and stop his media outlets from broadcasting. Since he won the election in October 2012, Ivanishvili has done his best to destroy Saakashvili, trying to defund his presidential apparatus and having a number of his allies arrested.

GEORGIA ON THE MIND

It is to Saakashvili’s credit that, although he is no democrat, he was sufficiently conscious of his legacy to allow Georgians to experience the political change they so clearly wanted. Over the past year, Georgia has become, for want of a better word, more Georgian. It is simultaneously more democratic, more open, more nationalistic, and more Christian Orthodox. It now looks as though Saakashvili’s “mental revolution” was mostly a mirage. His much-touted de-Stalinization campaign was a case in point: its defining act was the removal of the huge statue of Stalin from the dictator’s hometown of Gori, but it was done without any public discussion, and masked the unfortunate reality that Georgians respect the memory of Stalin. (A poll, commissioned by the Carnegie Endowment last October, revealed that 45 percent of Georgians still had positive feelings about the dictator.) Now the people of Gori want to put the Stalin statue back up again.

In practical terms, the results for the new government have so far been mixed. It has made progress in tackling some of the problems Saakashvili left behind. The judiciary is being strengthened to make it free of political control. The media is far more diverse. Parliament is lively and no longer a rubber stamp for the president’s fiats. The government has facilitated much greater movement across the border with Abkhazia and has reached out to South Ossetia. But the new government lacks some of the competence of its iron-fisted predecessor. Growth rates have slowed, and Georgia’s biggest socio-economic problems, unemployment and rural poverty, have stayed at the same levels, despite Ivanishvili’s promises. Some policy changes, however long overdue, have also created new problems. A much-needed prison amnesty, which reduced Georgia’s prison population to more civilized levels, has also pushed up the crime rate. Worryingly, there have also been a number of nasty episodes of bigotry and violence against national and sexual minorities, who felt more protected by the pro-Western Saakashvili.

This week, Georgia acquired a new president with fewer constitutional powers, the former university rector Giorgi Margvelashvili. Ivanishvili is also about to step down as prime minister. As a result, Georgia will soon have two leaders, a president and a prime minister, who have almost no name recognition outside the country. But it is still unclear what will become of Saakashvili himself. The main issue now is whether he will be prosecuted upon stepping down as president. That question obviously depends on whether the prosecutor’s office can put forward evidence that is seriously incriminating. But fundamentally, the question is political. Ominously, Saakashvili’s enforcer, Vano Merabishvili, is now in detention facing criminal charges for his actions while an officer. There is a loud constituency in Georgia that would support the arrest of Saakashvili as well. That view may be shared by many in the government, including, perhaps, Ivanishvili himself.

They should be fully aware, however, that the arrest of Saakashvili would blacken Georgia’s reputation abroad. Many Georgians have cooled on Saakashvili’s charm, but it did earn him friends in countries with whom Georgia's new government will need to maintain good relations. Like it or not, Saakashvili’s successors will have to live with the fact that Saakashvili's renown will still outstrip their own, at least for the foreseeable future. Given all that, their wisest course would probably be to quietly appreciate the irony that Saakashvili's pursuit of foreign fame was likely both the source of his undoing and his final saving grace.

More by Thomas de Waal

LITERATUR: Techno der Jaguare. Die junge georgische Literaturszene. - 03.11.2013 · 00:05 Uhr - Von Mirko Schwanitz (dradio.de)

(dradio.de) Die aus Georgien stammende und auf Deutsch schreibende Autorin Nino Haratischwili wurde für ihren Roman "Mein sanfter Zwilling" von der Kritik als "neue Heldin der deutschsprachigen Literatur" gefeiert. Und Tamta Melaschwili ist in diesem Jahr mit ihrem Roman "Abzählen" für den Deutschen Jugendliteraturpreis nominiert. Nur zwei Namen, die zeigen, dass Georgien nach langen Jahren der Dunkelheit und verlorener Kriege auch literarisch im Aufbruch ist. 

Eine neue, ebenso lebendige wie vielstimmige Literaturszene hat sich heraus gebildet, die wortmächtig gegen die Schatten der Vergangenheit anschreibt. Allerdings gibt es gerademal eine Handvoll literarische Übersetzer, die Texte aus dem Georgischen ins Deutsche übertragen können. Der Weg hinein in die europäische Literatur ist für Georgiens Autoren steiniger, als für Autoren aus anderen Ländern. Doch sie sind dabei, das zu ändern ...

PODCAST: In Georgien endet die Ära Saakaschwili. Giorgi Margwelaschwili gewinnt Präsidentenwahl. Von Gesine Dornblüth, Tiflis (dradio.de)

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(dradio.de) Zehn Jahre stand Saakaschwili an der Spitze der Südkaukasusrepublik und hat sie mit seiner Exzentrik durch Höhen und Tiefen geführt. Der Tiefpunkt war der Krieg mit Russland 2008. Sein Nachfolger wird Giorgi Margwelaschwili aus dem Lager seiner Gegner.

"Es lebe der Präsident, Giorgi", rief die Menge bereits am frühen Abend. Da hatten die Wahllokale in Georgien erst eine Stunde geschlossen, doch schon die ersten Prognosen sahen Giorgi Margwelaschwili, den Kandidaten der Regierungskoalition, weit vorn. Der künftige Präsident, 44 Jahre, lange im Universitätsbetrieb und bis auf ein paar Monate als Bildungsminister politisch unerfahren, bedankte sich als erstes bei seinem Ziehvater.

"Ich möchte mich bei einer für mich sehr wichtigen Person bedanken, einer Person, die für mich eine Autorität ist und dies immer bleiben wird: Bei meinem Freund Bidzina Iwanischwili. Bidzina hat den Sieg im letzten Jahr geschaffen, Bidzina hat uns geeint, und durch diese Einigung hat er den jetzigen Sieg ermöglicht. Vielen Dank, Bidzina, dafür, was du für unser Land getan hast."

Der schwerreiche Bidzina Iwanischwili ist seit dem Sieg seiner Koalition, dem Georgischen Traum, bei den Parlamentswahlen im letzten Jahr Premierminister. Der Wahlsieg seines Kandidaten ist ein persönlicher Triumph für ihn, denn Iwanischwili war vor anderthalb Jahren in die Politik gegangen, um Noch-Präsident Saakaschwili und dessen Partei von der Macht zu vertreiben. Im Unterschied zu dem eher exzentrischen Saakaschwili und dessen Umgebung gibt sich Iwanischwili eher bieder, er führt das Land wie ein Unternehmer.

"Ich sehe hier in der Menge viele unserer Abgeordneten und Minister. Hier steht unsere Regierung. Das sind ganz normale Leute, wie du und ich. So bin auch ich immer gewesen, und danach habe ich meine Regierung zusammengestellt."

Iwanischwili und große Teile seiner Regierungskoalition sind allerdings auch extrem konservativ. Bei den Wählern kommt das offenbar an.

Der scheidende Präsident Saakaschwili trat am Abend vor die Kameras - und gab sich staatsmännisch.

"Wir müssen die Meinung der Mehrheit akzeptieren. Ob wir damit einverstanden sind oder nicht - so sind die Regeln der Demokratie. Wir achten die Gerechtigkeit und die Meinung der Mehrheit."

Saakaschwili hatte Georgien in einen Krieg mit Russland geführt und zuletzt stark autoritäre Züge entwickelt. Nun nimmt er für sich in Anspruch, den Weg Georgiens zu freien Wahlen geebnet zu haben. Tatsächlich verlief die Wahl bemerkenswert frei und fair. Die zahlreichen Wahlbeobachter stellten lediglich eine geringe Zahl von Verstößen fest. Auch der Wahlkampf war weitgehend fair verlaufen. Der unterlegene Kandidat, Davit Bakradze aus dem Saakaschwili-Lager, gratulierte denn auch dem Wahlsieger - auch das hat es im unabhängigen Georgien bisher nicht gegeben.

"Jeder vierte Wähler, der heute zu den Urnen gegangen ist, hat die Nationale Bewegung gewählt. Also mich. Wir haben bewiesen, dass wir die wichtigste oppositionelle Kraft im Land bleiben."

Der neue Präsident, Margwelaschwili, wird über wesentlich weniger Macht verfügen als sein Vorgänger. In Kürze tritt eine Verfassungsreform in Kraft. Georgien wird dann eine parlamentarische Demokratie. Alles in allem eine positive Tendenz, sagt Rusudan Tabukaschwili, Analystin beim Institut für Kaukasusstudien in Tiflis.

"Dieses Wahlergebnis bedeutet, dass es erst mal ruhiger wird im Lande. Dass die Regierung und die Opposition das machen, was ihnen zugeschrieben ist, und nicht einander beschuldigen werden. Das werden die weiter machen, aber nicht in der Form, wie es bisher gemacht worden ist."

Am außenpolitischen Kurs Georgiens wird das Wahlergebnis wenig ändern. Georgien ist Teil der östlichen Partnerschaft der EU. Premierminister Iwanischwili hat stets verkündet, an der Westintegration Georgiens, die Saakaschwili eingeläutet hat, festzuhalten. Der künftige Präsident Margwelaschwili wird sich dem unterordnen. Er hat zugleich angekündigt, das Verhältnis Georgiens zu Russland, das Saakaschwili stark strapaziert hat, weiter zu verbessern - auch das in Absprache mit Iwanischwili.

DOK FILM FESTIVAL: Hungrig nach Geschichten. Das 1. Dokumentarfilmfestival in Tiflis. Von Jana Demnitz (dradio.de)

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(dradio.de) Die ersten Auswanderer kehren nach Georgien zurück und wollen etwas in ihrer Heimat bewegen. Ein Zeichen des Aufbruchs ist das kaukasische Dokumentarfilmfestival, das erste überhaupt in der Region. Auch ein deutscher Film war im Wettbewerb.

Plakat zum Dokumentarfilmfestival (Bild: Jana Demnitz)

Verkündung des Siegers im voll besetzten Filmtheater an der Rustaveli Allee im Zentrum von Tiflis. Der erste kaukasische Dokumentarfilmpreis geht an "Igrushki" - ein Film über das Katz-und-Maus-Spiel zwischen Kuscheltier-Verkäufern und Polizisten an einem Bahnhof in WeißrusslFilmand. Die Jury begründete ihre Entscheidung damit, dass es der litauischen Filmemacherin mit einer originellen Geschichte gelungen sei, das schwierige und zum Teil absurde Alltagsleben in dem diktatorischen System zu zeigen.

Artchil Khetagouri (Bild: Jana Demnitz)

Tausende Besucher hätten sich die Filme aus Frankreich und Jamaika, aber auch aus der Kaukasusregion angesehen, sagt Festivaldirektor Artchil Khetagouri. Nach mehr als 20 Jahren im westlichen Ausland kam er vor eineinhalb Jahren nach Tiflis zurück und rief das Festival mit ins Leben.

Artchil Khetagouri: "Georgier, Armenier und Aserbaidschaner wissen mehr über Deutschland und Frankreich als über ihre eigenen und ihre Nachbarländer. Es kommen nun sehr viele Menschen, um sich die Filme aus diesen Ländern und auch aus Russland und der Türkei anzuschauen. Ich habe die Hoffnung, dass sie vielleicht ein wenig ihre Meinung ändern, wenn sie diese Filme über die jeweils anderen gesehen haben."

Der Kaukasus ist immer noch eine Konfliktregion. Das Verhältnis zwischen Georgien und Russland ist nach dem Fünftagekrieg im Sommer 2008 immer noch angespannt, und der Konflikt zwischen Armenien und Aserbaidschan um die Region Bergkarabach ist auch nicht gelöst. Dokumentarfilme über soziale Probleme und das Alltagsleben seien deshalb enorm wichtig für die Menschen hier, sagt Artchil Khetagouri. Das Fernsehen sei für die meisten immer noch die Informationsquelle Nummer eins, sagt er, es zeige aber kaum kritische Dokumentationen.

Im internationalen Wettbewerb lief auch der deutsche Beitrag "Nach Wriezen" - ein Abschlussfilm von Studenten der Filmhochschule in Potsdam. Drei junge Männer werden darin nach ihrer Haftentlassung auf ihrem Weg in ein geordnetes Leben begleitet. Filmemacherin Jana Dugnus stellte den Film in Tiflis vor:

"Die Beschäftigung mit dem Leben von Häftlingen, was nach ihrer Entlassung passiert, das ist etwas, was dem normalen deutschen Bürger wahrscheinlich nicht so betrifft und wo er sich wahrscheinlich auch nicht die Frage stellt, was passiert mit denen eigentlich. Weil das ist in dem Sinne eine kleine Gruppe von Menschen. Und man denkt wahrscheinlich auch oft, das hat der Staat schon irgendwie im Griff, die machen das schon. Und das ist, glaube ich, jetzt ein Punkt, der den Festivalmachern wichtig war."

In Tiflis ist der Film leer ausgegangen. Dennoch seien die Menschen hier sehr interessiert an der Geschichte gewesen, sagt Jana Dugnus. In Georgien ist Resozialisierung bisher wenig bekannt, obwohl es ein sehr aktuelles Thema ist. Mit dem Machtwechsel im vergangenen Jahr wurden auf einen Schlag mehrere 10.000 Menschen aus den Gefängnissen entlassen - ohne soziale Betreuung oder staatliche Hilfe. Die Menschen hatten Angst, dass viele wieder straffällig werden könnten.

Unterstützt wurde das unabhängige Filmfestival vom Goethe-Institut in Tiflis. Für Institutsleiter Stephan Wackwitz ist es ein Zeichen dafür, dass sich das kulturelle Leben in Georgien wieder erholt und an alte Zeiten anknüpft:

"Ich meine eben auch vor allem dieses wahnsinnig interessante Leben der 20er-Jahre, der frühen 20er-Jahre. Aber auch nach der sowjetischen Invasion war ja Tbilisi eigentlich so eine Art Hot Spot fast weltweit, weil hier die ganzen geflüchteten Avantgardisten aus der Sowjetunion auf die symbolistischen Kollegen und Kolleginnen trafen. Und es ist überhaupt eines der kulturell aktivsten Länder, das ich bisher so kennengelernt habe."

Wie erhofft, kamen die meisten Besucher auch in die Sektion Kaukasus, in der Filme über den letzten Drahtseilkünstler in Armenien gezeigt wurden, über einen Flohmarkt in Tiflis, wo Menschen alles Mögliche verkaufen, um etwas Geld zum Überleben zu verdienen oder über ein kleines russisches Mädchen, das in Aserbaidschan zum ersten Mal einen Teil ihrer Familie kennenlernt. Die Menschen seien hungrig nach solchen Geschichten, hieß es am Rande des Festivals.

Homepage des Dokumentarfilmfestivals in Tiflis

KONZERT: Ethno Jazz Band "ZumbaLand" in München - 23. November 2013

Am Samstag, den 23. November organisiert der Georgische Verein in Deutschland e.V. mit Hilfe des Konsulats eine gemeinsames Konzert der Ethno- Jazz-Band "ZumbaLand" in München.  

Das Ziel ist die Förderung der georgischen Kultur in Deutschland zu erleichtern, sowie die Förderung von talentierten Künstlern in Europa.

Münchner Künstlerhaus 
Lenbachplatz 
880333 MünchenBeginn: 20.00 Uhr

Das Ticket kostet 20 Euro,
ermäßigt für Schüler, Studenten und Aupairs 15 Euro.

Vorbestellung und Ticketverkauf:
reservation@satvistomo.de
oder 0176 22640247, 0179 8219886

Tickets im Vorverkauf erhalten 10% Rabatt auf jedes gekaufte Ticket.
Der Vorverkauf endet am 10. November.  

Die bis dahin verkaufte Anzahl an Tickets ist entscheidend, ob das Konzert stattfinfet.  

Bitte unterstützen sie die Vorbereitung und die Umsetzung dieses Projektes !

ART PROJECT: The presentation of the meetings of Jörg Herold and his Georgian working group artists / 30.10.2013/ 18:00 (geoairresidency.blogspot.de)

for Georgian version please scroll down

Goethe-Institut Georgien
Sandukeli 16, 0108 Tbilisi
30.10.2013 / 18.00

German language with Georgian Translation

(geoairresidency.blogspot.de) The presentation of the meetings of the German/Georgian  (German artist Jörg Herold and his Georgian working group) artists. The empirical data of the life of the Caucasian Bear.

Bear hunting still happens in some parts of the world, despite it being banned. One of these regions is the Caucasus. According to estimates about 1000 to 1200 bears live here. Only few organizations are concerned with the problem on the spot. 

The information about bear population, shooting quotas do not exist which is an ideal environment for hunting without any restrictions. Jörg Herold with the project 'The Last Bear' tries to raise awareness. Together with the Georgian artists, the historical documentation was created; the journalists and animal protection activists were interviewed about bear hunting. The concept of treating the bears was formulated artistically into a social problem.

გერმანულ / ქართული (გერმანელი ხელოვანი იორგ ჰეროლდის და მისი ქართული სამუშაო ჯგუფის) სახელოვნებო სამუშაო შეხვედრების შედეგების პრეზენტაცია. კავკასიური დათვის ცხოვრების, მისი მონაცემების და დოკუმენტების ემპირიული ჩანაწერები.

გოეთეს ინსტიტუტი, საქართველო 

 ზანდუკელის ქ. 16, 0180 თბილისი 

30.10.2013 / 18.00

გერმანულ ენაზე, ქართული თანგმანით

მსოფლიოს მცირე ნაწილში, აკრძალვის მიუხედავად თუ შევხვდებით დათვებზე ნადირობის შემთხვევებს. ერთ-ერთი ესეთი რეგიონი კავკასიაა. სავარაუდოთ აქ 1000-1200 დათვი ბინადრობს. მხოლოდ რამოდენიმე ორგანიზაცია თუ ზრუნავს ცხოველთა დაცვაზე. ნადირობის კვოტები, ერთად თავმოყრილი ინფორმაცია, უწყვეტი დოკუმენტაცია  დათვების პოპულაციაზე არ არსებობს. იდეალური სიტუაცია თავისუფალი ნადირობსთვის.

იორგ ეროლდი თავისი პროექტით “უკანასკნელი დათვი“ ცდილობს პილოტური სამუშაოს ჩატარებას. ქართველ ხელოვანებთან ერთად შეიქმნა ისტორიული დოკუმენტები,  მოხდა ჟურნალისტების და ცხოველთა დამცველების გამოკითხვა დათვების ნადირობასთან დაკავშირებით და მხატვრულად იქნა ფორმულირებული დათვებთან მოპყრობის კონცეპტი, როგორც საზოგადოების პრობლემა.

DISPATCH: Are Georgia's Elections a Sign of Mature Democracy? By Paul Rimple (foreignpolicy.com)

(foreignpolicy.com) Or, after two years of bitter political feuds, maybe there's more trouble brewing in the Caucasus.

TBILISI, Georgia — October 27 marked a major turning point in Georgia as people calmly elected an obscure philosopher, Giorgi Margvelashvili, president with a conclusive 62 percent of the vote. It was the first time in Georgia's history an incumbent was replaced by the ballot and not by revolt.

The election of Margvelashvili, representing the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party, has effectively closed the chapter on the Saakashvili era, a decade of lightning-speed reform and economic progress at the cost of an increasing authoritarianism that applied justice selectively and harshly. This change could not have been possible without the intervention of the enigmatic Georgian billionaire, Bidzina Ivanishvili, and his GD party.

In October 2011, Ivanishvili held his very first press conference in his $50 million Tbilisi mansion after announcing his decision to enter politics and challenge President Mikheil Saakashvili's monopoly on power. I had hoped to learn how the former recluse was different from every other Georgian messiah who promised to save the country only to get deposed in the end, but I never got the chance. The event instantly digressed into a ludicrous fracas of 200 journalists fighting over a microphone and shouting caustic questions about the billionaire's Russian connections and his pet penguin.

My chance came the day before parliamentary elections in 2012 at a private home in an east Georgian village, at a dinner table overflowing with food, sitting across from Ivanishvili, who had just finished his last round of campaigns. Between bites of sumptuous Kakhetian fare, he spoke obliquely of judicial reform and ethnic tolerance and sounded off bluntly about Saakashvili's failures. In the end, I didn't learn much about the man, except that he intended to build democratic institutions without a concrete plan. For Georgians, that breath of fresh air was enough: his party won.

For Saakashvili and his United National Movement (UNM), it was a shocking loss. Misha (as Saakashvili is commonly known) swallowed his pride and acknowledged defeat, marking Georgia's first ever democratic transfer of power. But with a year left in his term, the lame duck president was forced to share an uneasy period of cohabitation with Ivanishvili and the GD, a loose coalition of individuals bent on destroying Misha's legacy.

The tumult of the past year was underscored by the indictments of some three dozen UNM officials, including several former ministers, most notably Vano Merabishvili, former interior minister and prime minister. Meanwhile, some ministers have escaped abroad, like former justice minister Zurab Adeishvili. Many of Georgia's Western partners criticized the political nature of these arrests, yet Ivanishvili maintained he wasn't settling scores -- he was restoring justice and bringing democracy to the country.

Back in Ivanishvili's futuristic mansion, one month before this year's presidential elections, I asked him if he wasn't trying to destroy Misha.

"Why should I destroy? I'm not a sick person. They are destroying themselves. I like to build," he replied.

In 2010, the Saakashvili government amended the constitution to increase the prime minister's authority and decrease the president's. Because the constitution prohibits the president from serving more than two terms, most people here thought Misha would simply change chairs to remain in power. But GD crushed such speculation when they took over parliament and elected Ivanishvili prime minister in 2013. But it's a position the billionaire apparently doesn't want.

In September, Ivanishvili reiterated a campaign promise to leave politics and enter civil society after elections. Next week, he will name his successor. This will leave the country in the hands of his party, a loose coalition of liberals, conservatives, and ethnic nationalists. Georgia will become the first former Soviet nation governed by a parliament and not ruled by a strong executive. And it's a move most Georgians were against.

"That's because when people look at things they like to hang all the responsibility on one person," Ivanishvili said. "But every single person needs to share the responsibility in order for society to evolve. Having a messiah is detrimental to a society. The longer I stay, the worse it will be."

Critics worry that parliament will fall into chaos upon Ivanishvili's departure or, conversely, that he will simply keep pulling the strings from behind the curtain. Others, like Lincoln Mitchell, a scholar at Columbia University's Harriman Institute and former unofficial advisor to the prime minister, believes that Ivanishvili is betting that institutions are stronger than people. However, he has no doubts that the billionaire will continue to be involved behind the scenes.

"I think most Georgians know that and are OK with that. It is extremely difficult for the political class in Georgia to understand that things are not as volatile as they were a year or two ago. The institutions are stable," he says.

Well, stable of a sort. Lawmakers have raised eyebrows by discussing laws to ban the sale of ribbed condoms and fine officials who don't speak Georgian well enough. But they have also passed laws to protect the independence of the judiciary and to ensure more transparency in media ownership.

When it comes to minority rights, however, the disparate parliament has seen some internal conflict. When several dozen Georgian Orthodox Christian priests led a mob of thousands to attack a handful of gay rights activists demonstrating against homophobia, GD Chairman David Saganelidze blamed the activists for the violence that ensued and demanded they be punished. GD coalition member and parliamentary speaker Davit Usupashvili of the Republican Party, however, condemned the attack.

Usupashvili also spoke out against the forced removal of a minaret in a southern Georgian village in August, while much of the government kept silent. This was the latest in a series of anti-Muslim crusades that have occurred across the country since the deputy head of parliament, the GD's Murman Dumbadze, lead a protest against the construction of a mosque in the western port city of Batumi last year before parliamentary elections. Yet, Ivanishvili, the first politician to say "sexual minorities are equal members of society," asserts that Georgia is an inherently tolerant country.

"This [intolerance] is all artificially amplified by Saakashvili," he said abstrusely. "When the cohabitation is finished, there won't be a problem."

That might be so, but there will still be xenophobes and homophobes in parliament, like in every other country in the world. What remains to be seen is how well Georgia will be able to protect minority rights. In his report, Thomas Hammarberg, the European Union special adviser on constitutional and legal reform and human rights in Georgia, noted the country's shortcomings in protecting the rights of religious, ethnic, and sexual minorities.

But the issue that will really determine parliament's future is jobs. Officially, Georgia's unemployment rate hovers around 16 percent. Realistically, it is double that. In a September 2013 National Democratic Institute (NDI) poll carried out by the Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC), jobs were the top national concern; some 46 percent of the population consider themselves unemployed and looking for a job.

Ivanishvili offers no answers here, only that he spends most of his time working on the "challenges" of job creation and the economy.

Under Saakashvili, the economy soared to an average GDP growth rate of 6.1 percent between 2004-2012. But in the first half of 2013, it plummeted to 1.8 percent. Critics were quick to blame this plunge on the government's wobbly transition process, yet foreign direct investment didn't just drop in Georgia, it fell across the entire region in 2012. Moreover, local business leaders are worried the government's recent policies like liberalizing the labor code and forbidding foreigners from buying agriculture land are keeping investors away.

On the bright side, in June, Russia lifted its 7-year embargo on wine, mineral water, and fruits. This is particularly good news for winegrowers in eastern Georgia, who are reporting the most successful season in years. According to the Georgian Wine Agency, July exports were 43 percent higher than last year, a spike almost wholly attributed to Russia. But establishing economic ties with Russia, which occupies roughly 20 percent of Georgian territory poses some existential problems, particularly when it is putting up barbed-wire fences through Georgian villages. To this thaw in relations with Moscow, Ivanishvili shrugs his shoulders, saying it's not his fault Saakashvili got suckered into war.

"It's important for any small country to not provoke a big neighbor," Ivanishvili advises. "We can't attempt to change Russia, but we can save our state by taking the correct steps, which we are doing."

Meanwhile, Saakashvili argues publicly that you cannot "normalize relations" with an occupier and is livid that Ivanishvili would even consider joining the Kremlin's Eurasian Union project, in reference to comments the prime minister made on the initiative in September. In a televised statement, the president accused Ivanishvili of "breaking the main taboo of Georgian politics."

Ivanishvili retorts that it's plain nonsense. "As a state, our strategy remains European and NATO integration. That is very clear. Who knows what the Eurasian Union is? I don't think the Russians even know," says Ivanishvili. "All I said was that we are closely watching this formation process. I stress, if it does not come into conflict with our strategy, why shouldn't we discuss it?"

And, perhaps, time for more sober discussions on all things have arrived. With Saakashvili packing his bags and returning to his apartment in central Tbilisi and Ivanishvili preparing to step down, we may see an end to a bitter rivalry between two forces of Georgian politics that polarized the political landscape since Ivanishvili first announced his challenge in 2011. On Sunday, David Bakradze, the UNM's unobtrusive presidential candidate, gracefully congratulated his opponent Giorgi Margvelashvili's victory -- a mature gesture we are unaccustomed to seeing in Georgia, a country now putting the era of larger-than-life leaders behind them.

GEORGIEN: Faire Arbeit, gute Konditionen: Fair Trees (gabot.de)

(gabot.de) Fair Trees hat im kaukasischen Georgien eine große Anzahl von Projekten initiiert, um die Arbeits- und Lebensbedingungen der dortigen Zapfenpflücker zu verbessern. Jetzt begleitet der dänische Ethnologe und Spezialist für Osteuropa, Martin Demant Frederiksen von der Universität Kopenhagen, die Arbeit von Fair Trees. Er bestätigte, dass die Spendengelder an den richtigen Stellen und langfristig sinnvoll für die Entwicklung der Region eingesetzt werden. Im georgischen Kaukasus wachsen die besten Nordmanntannen, aus deren Samen vor allem in Deutschland und Dänemark alljährlich abertausende von Weihnachtsbäumen aufgezogen werden. Seit der Gründung des Bols Xmas Tree Fund im Jahr 2007 ist die dänische Tannensamenhändlerin und Baumproduzentin Marianne Bols die treibende Kraft hinter der Idee, fair gehandelte Weihnachtsbäume für das Christfest anzubieten. Sie ist oft selbst in die Region Ambrolauri gereist und hat die wirtschaftliche und soziale Situation der Menschen dort kennengelernt. Fair Trees hat die Zapfenpflücker mit Sicherheitsausrüstungen ausgestattet, sie intensiv geschult und für sie Versicherungen abgeschlossen. Außerdem erhalten sie als Lohn das Sechsfache des üblichen Salärs. Die Kinder der Region werden regelmäßig medizinisch untersucht, die Grundschule ist mittlerweile renoviert und die Erneuerung des Kindergartens ist das nächste Projekt.

Diese Arbeiten werden von einem lokalen Gremium der Stiftung überwacht. Die Aufgabe von Frederiksen war es, einen wissenschaftlichen Blick auf das Geschehen zu werfen. Sein Ergebnis: Die Arbeit von Fair Trees entspricht voll und ganz den Regeln, die von der Internationalen Fair Trade Dachorganisation WFTO für alle Fair Trade Organisationen aufgestellt wurden. Da sind zum Beispiel alle Aktivitäten, die dafür sorgen, dass in Ambrolauri auch außerhalb der Pflücksaison Einkommensmöglichkeiten geschaffen werden. Die Renovierungen gehören dazu, weil nur lokale Handwerker den Auftrag bekommen und nur dort üblichen Baustoffe verwendet werden. Außerdem werden in dem fertigen Kindergarten anschließend vom Staat bezahlte Fachkräfte arbeiten.

Ein anderer, sehr wichtiger Punkt ist die Langfristigkeit der Projekte, wie sie durch die Gebäuderenovierungen veranlasst wurde. Eine faire Bezahlung gehört ebenso dazu wie gute Arbeitsbedingungen. Auch das Verbot von Kinderarbeit ist eines der Fair Trade Prinzipien. Fair Trees kann das für seinen Bereich garantieren. "Allerdings ist gerade der Einsatz von Kindern bei anderen Unternehmen in der Region immer noch gängige Praxis", stellt Frederiksen mit Bedauern fest. "Wir haben Fair Trees gegründet, damit die Zapfenpflücker in Georgien fair entlohnt werden und ihre Arbeitsbedingungen wesentlich verbessert werden können", erläutert Marianne Bols. "Und nicht nur das: Wir haben immer die Gesamtsituation der Menschen in der Region Ambrolauri im Blick."

2012 standen auf dem deutschen Markt erstmals Fair Tree Weihnachtsbäume zur Verfügung. Jeder verkaufte Baum erbrachte 67,5 Cent für die Fair Trees Sozialprojekte. Auf Anhieb konnten insgesamt knapp 40.000 Euro für Sozialprojekte im georgischen Kaukasus, gesammelt werden! "Das ist ein sehr schöner Erfolg, den wir in diesem Jahr wenn möglich noch toppen wollen", so Markus Schauer aus München, der die Produzentenbetreuung für den deutschsprachigen Raum übernommen hat. Seit der Gründung des Bols Xmas Tree Fund sind rund 100.000 Euro in das Projekt geflossen. Und es sollen in den nächsten Jahren noch weit mehr werden. Fair Trees hat das alleinige Ernterecht für einige Gebiete der Regionen in Ambrolauri, aus denen die besten Nordmanntannen stammen. Jede Familie, die sich zu Weihnachten einen prächtigen Fair Trees Baum ins Wohnzimmer holt, trägt damit ein bisschen dazu bei, dass es den Familien der georgischen Zapfenpflücker besser geht. (Fair Trees)

ANALYSIS: No. 55: Presidential Elections in Azerbaijan (css.ethz.ch)

Author(s): Rashad Shirinov, Shahin Abbasov, Farid Guliyev
Editor(s): Denis Dafflon, Lili Di Puppo, Iris Kempe, Natia Mestvirishvili, Matthias Neumann, Robert Orttung, Jeronim Perović, Heiko Pleines
Series: Caucasus Analytical Digest (CAD)
Issue: 55
Publisher(s): Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zurich; Research Centre for East European Studies, University of Bremen; Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, George Washington University
Publication Year: 2013

(css.ethz.ch) This issue examines the presidential elections of October 2013 in Azerbaijan. The first two articles provide an overview of the election strategies of both the ruling party and the opposition. Rashad Shirinov writes about the “stealth strategy” of the ruling party in which the incumbent, President Ilham Aliyev, did not campaign at all and the state-controlled media did not mention the opposition, leaving the public rather uninformed about the upcoming elections. Shahin Abbasov deals with the opposition, which for the first time managed to unite and participate in the elections with a broad coalition and a single candidate. Finally, Farid Guliyev analyses the meaning of these elections for different actor groups in Azerbaijan, concluding that, even though the outcome was predictable, the elections nevertheless fulfilled important functions for President Aliyev, the ruling party, and the opposition.

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