The President joined the reservists

Mikheil Saakashvili spends his vacation in a camp near Ossetia

38-year-old Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili (pictured) joined the reservists. As the head of his administration, Georgiy Arveladze, stated, the commander-in-chief of the Georgian army “will not occupy a command post in voluntary service, but will do everything that is required of a reservist.”

During Soviet times, Saakashvili served two years in the border troops. Since yesterday, he has been in a camp in Osiauri in the east of the country, where he will undergo 10 days of retraining. Back in July, the president said that he decided to spend his vacation this way because it would be “a good page in his biography.”

From the very beginning, the revolutionary authorities paid increased attention to the country's defense capability, which is understandable in the context of violated territorial integrity. The military budget is steadily growing. This year, defense spending will amount to $350 million - under former President Eduard Shevardnadze, such figures could only have been dreamed of by the military. A separate article is the preparation of the reserve.

The President has already sent many ministers and deputies to training camps, who were trained along with ordinary reservists in several camps. After which he unexpectedly visited them, accompanied by Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili, raised the alarm, participated in forced marches and ate reservist rations (Georgian newspapers wrote that “off-ration” khinkali were especially popular in reservist camps). Now the president will go through the full course, as he can be calm about his subordinates: before going on vacation, Saakashvili cited an article from the influential Economist magazine, which believes that Georgia has the most successful government in the post-Soviet space.

Reserve battalions began to be formed with the participation of officials and deputies in 2005 under the auspices of the National Guard. A parliamentarian from the ruling United National Movement, Alexander Shalamberidze, told Vremya Novostey that he was “proud to have been trained in the same camp where the president is now.” According to him, “American friends” are helping Georgia to prepare its reserves. “It was not easy for us to get out of the habit of civilian life, to get up at six o’clock, run throws, shoot at the range,” recalls the deputy. - But everyone needs it. And the participation of the president in this process, with the political leadership’s firm commitment to a peaceful settlement, only stimulates an increase in the level of defense capability.”

The camp in Osiauri, as Boris Chochiev, first deputy chairman of the government of the unrecognized republic of South Ossetia, told VN, “is located in close proximity to the zone of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict. We were generally against its opening. We know that Mikheil Saakashvili is there now. Well, let's see where this all leads."

Mikhail VIGNANSKY,