Translated material
Grape front
Georgia fights for harvest to spite Russia
The Rtveli grape harvest has begun in Georgia. Due to the Russian ban on the supply of Georgian alcohol, the traditional festive atmosphere this year was replaced by militarized surroundings and vocabulary. “Russia has declared war on us in the wine sector, and we must act as if in combat conditions,” said Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli. He is appointed responsible for ensuring that the wine-growing peasants of Eastern Kakheti, disappointed by the closure of the traditional sales market, do not fail the rtveli. This year it is planned to harvest 150-160 thousand tons of grapes in Georgia, in the past there were over 200.The prime minister will be assisted by, as President Mikheil Saakashvili puts it, an “economic combat headquarters,” which opened in Kakheti on Sunday. The President of Georgia personally arrived to inspire the Kakheti people to do great things and presented them with two hundred tractors. The headquarters included the ministers of defense, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor General, who are responsible not only for the harvest, but also for ensuring that Georgian businessmen buy grapes. The authorities asked every major businessman to purchase at least 10 tons.
Some businessmen have already responded to the authorities' proposal. Among them is the President of the Federation of Georgian Businessmen Badri Patarkatsishvili, who said that he was going to "feast well" on your own wine. The country's president set the task of saving the harvest, recognizing that it is impossible to make a profit in the current conditions - in the past, up to 90% of Georgian wine exports were intended for the Russian market. “If we survive such a situation this year, next year I promise that there will be no problems at all in the sale of wine and grapes,” assures Mikheil Saakashvili.
The Georgian leader believes that the current Rtveli will be a response to “certain forces” in Russia, who decided that this is “the last autumn when it is possible to once and for all suspend the process of unification and strengthening of Georgia”, and in order to achieve this goal “announced an embargo on Georgian wines, Borjomi, vegetables and fruits." Mikheil Saakashvili is confident that this plan has been thwarted. Moreover, "in 2006, Georgia's economic growth will be twice as large as Russia's, despite its oil revenues." “Georgia was recently ranked 137th in terms of a favorable environment for business development. We immediately jumped over a hundred steps and rose to 37th place, ahead of many developed countries. I am confident that we should enter the top twenty in this ranking, if not the top ten,” the president said.