Tbilisi on the eve of elections - stadium versus square

The parliamentary campaign in Georgia has reached its climax - the government and the opposition are competing to see who can gather more people for a rally. The opposition is winning so far. Meanwhile, there are rumors among the people that President Saakashvili is a madman and a drug addict, and his rival Bidzina Ivanishvili breeds penguins and is friends with thieves in law. People still don’t really understand who to vote for. Meanwhile, there is only one day left before the elections.

Saakashvili, stadium and chacha

It seems that Mikheil Saakashvili with his “United National Movement” has followed in the footsteps of Vladimir Putin with his “United Russia”. For the largest performance of the party in power before the parliamentary elections on October 1, a stadium with a capacity of 60 thousand people was chosen. It is located next to the train station, so on the way to the rally you smell the strong smell of urine. Then it gives way to the sour smell of chacha. The entire stadium is packed: seats, steps, field. Some people, at least, are not completely sober. A drunk to the point of insanity, an elderly man in a hat and sneakers at the stadium feels right at home - drinking from a bottle of Coca-Cola (which, it seems, is not her at all) and kicking sand with his sneakers in the hole in which track and field athletes usually land. Everyone also smokes right in the stands and on the field. In Russia this would be impossible, but try to ban something for a Georgian. This is probably why access to the stadium was made as easy as possible. If in the same Luzhniki there was serious control, then here it was possible to go even onto the field, within a shot’s distance of the podium, where the country’s top officials were speaking, without any problems. True, it was not easy to get out. The gate, similar to a cattle pen, that led from the street to the field, was closed for half of the meeting - everyone was allowed in, no one was allowed out.

It was believed that this was not so much a rally as an election congress of the “Nazis,” as some here call the president’s party, and the bulk of the people should be from Tbilisi. “Everything is simple here: those with white skin are from Tbilisi, those who are not, that means they were brought from the regions,” my Georgian friends explain to me. I look around - there are not enough people with light skin. Suspicions intensify when from the balcony of the stadium I see many, many empty minibuses. Friends say that people were specially brought in, and that there are at least a hundred more minibuses on the embankment. Although, of course, there are those who sincerely love the president, and there are quite a lot of them. Everyone calls themselves residents of the capital. “Misha is great, Misha rebuilt everything for us, now you walk the streets like in Europe,” Georgy told me. “No, I haven’t been to Europe, but it seems to me that everything is like that there.” Georgy walks around the stadium in sweatpants and a white T-shirt with a red heart. These were handed out at every turn by young people who looked like activists of the Russian Nashi movement (the red and white color scheme exactly matches). Everyone could also get signs with the number 5, the number of the “United National Movement” on the ballot paper.

The entire top of the Georgian government spoke at the rally, but Prime Minister Vano Merabishvili (the former head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who has a fairly successful fight against corruption) and, of course, Mikheil Saakashvili, who looked younger with the help of hair dye, were especially loudly welcomed. Saakashvili was uncompromising and developed the main theme of compromising evidence in recent days - if not he and his party, Georgia will again find itself in the hands of thieves in law, and in the very next days. And it doesn’t matter that none of those with whom I spoke had heard about the thieves for a long time. The president is confident in the victory of his party: “I am appealing to the thieves in law who are watching us on TV. Hand over your tickets, no one is waiting for you here.” He called those gathered at the stadium “brothers and sisters,” and they liked it. People chanted deafeningly: “Misha!” The chants did not last long; groups of people began to leave the stadium without waiting for the end of their leader's speech.

Ivanishvili, Freedom Square and popcorn

A couple of hours after the pro-presidential rally at the stadium ended, cars with blue flags with the number “41” sticking out of their windows and hatches began driving around the city—this number on the ballot went to the opposition coalition “Georgian Dream.” “Misha’s guys made a mark, we should mark this too,” jokes my friend, film director David. Residents of Tbilisi say that cars of opposing parties sometimes even chase each other and compete to see who can honk louder and longer.

The rally of supporters of billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili and almost the entire Georgian opposition occupied another place that was significant for the country’s authorities - Freedom Square. Mikheil Saakashvili spoke on this square in 2004 during the Rose Revolution. True, at that time there was no multi-meter gilded St. George the Victorious by Zurab Tsereteli. However, the thousands of people gathered in the square, filling all the neighboring streets, looked more impressive than a packed stadium. There were more of them, well over 100 thousand. Ivanishvili was able to put on an excellent show - the impression was only enhanced by the grandmothers selling popcorn on Rustaveli Street. Repeaters and screens were installed along this street for those who could not get to the stage. A memorable part of the show was the distribution of multi-colored party T-shirts - people literally besieged the cars in which these T-shirts were transported, stretched out their arms and pushed their neighbors.

Ivanishvili, unlike the president, immediately made it clear that only he himself could be the star of the rally. Moreover, football player Kakha Kaladze and former Georgian Ambassador to the UN Irakli Alasania (first places on the coalition’s electoral list) were in Kutaisi that day at a similar rally. No one spoke before or after the billionaire. He himself appeared almost unnoticed, but he waved his hand to those who stood closer to the stage, like Princess Diana to her subjects. The billionaire's mood was briefly shaken by a video camera with a propeller that appeared above the square. When Ivanishvili’s security noticed this camera, a couple of big guys immediately covered the boss. This despite the fact that it was already half hidden by bulletproof glass.

Ivanishvili’s speech was emotional and categorical. But, since he spoke Georgian, I will quote from the GHN agency. "No one was scared, no one backed down in any city where we were. And today we come together again to once again support each other. Once again to celebrate and tell the whole world - look, despite the terror, intimidation and propaganda, they couldn’t break us. We are together, and we are preparing for victory,” said the opposition leader. According to him, those who came to the rally “cannot be turned into slaves.”

The opposition considers the fact that not everyone in Tbilisi speaks Russian to be largely the fault of President Saakashvili. As well as the fact that citizens of the country still require a visa to enter Russia. Solving this issue is one of the billionaire’s many promises. “Everything is the same for us, we are baptized in the same way,” says elderly Guram, a rally participant. “I remember how I flew to Moscow for 30 rubles, and now we have become enemies.” Some people believe that Ivanishvili will be able to fulfill his promises. “He spent two billion to restore all the theaters and museums in Tbilisi,” explains Tamara, a middle-aged woman with blue mother-of-pearl on her eyelids. “Of course, I’m for him now, and if Ivanishvili doesn’t win, then I’ll go out to the square again and be stand here until the last moment." The cult of personality of the oppositionist is not yet as strong as that of the president. At least, if at the stadium people chanted “Misha!”, then at the square “Sakartvelo!” (Georgia - PublicPost). But they were still in no hurry to leave before the end of the leader’s speech.

Many of my friends in Tbilisi, if they vote for Ivanishvili, will only do so not to vote for Saakashvili - they are afraid of falsifications. Fraud, they say, is possible - both if people do not come to the polling stations, and if they spoil the ballot by putting a “smiley” in all the boxes. The president is accused of saying that the current Georgian democracy is a “façade.” Behind the shiny windows of Ermenegildo Zegna and Swarovski on Rustaveli you can see real, cracked, like those old women with popcorn, Tbilisi courtyards. They talk about medical equipment being transported from one newly opened hospital to another, about the fact that the courts are still dependent on the state, and corruption has been defeated in the lower circles, while at the top it is thriving. The billionaire is considered a swindler, and they joke that the “Georgian Dream” is not about politics at all, but about “wine, khinkali, and women.”