IS THE BEAR GETTING ITS CLAWS INTO GEORGIA AGAIN?

It was all so promising thirty years ago. The Soviet Union had collapsed and Georgia, formerly known as the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, at last became free. Last Tuesday, Georgia’s parliament passed what many people are calling the “Russia Law”, fearing history is about to turn full circle and once again the country will be in the grip of the Russian Bear.

- JOHN DOBSON

This tiny country of just 3.7 million people, straddling East Europe and West Asia, has been inhabited since prehistoric times, hosting the world’s earliest known sites of winemaking, gold mining and textiles. It is also the birthplace of one of the world’s most notorious dictators, Joseph Jughashvili, better known as Joseph Stalin—“man of steel”, who ruled the Soviet Union for thirty years. Many believe that Stalin is Putin’s role model and that Putinism is simply an updated version of Stalinism.

Georgia was one of the fifteen countries which emerged from the collapsed Soviet Union in 1991. As Britain had no embassy in Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, diplomatic services were provided from the embassy in Moscow where I worked at the time. The two-hour Aeroflot flight from Moscow to Tbilisi was always a challenge. There were rarely any seat-belts available and some passengers stood for the duration of the flight as all seats were filled. Even the on-board toilets were usually unavailable as passengers, desperate to make the journey, had purchased them directly from the pilots so they had somewhere to sit. Nevertheless the prospect of visiting Georgia always generated a frisson of excitement. It was not just the gorgeous countryside or the breathtakingly beautiful coastline, it was also the generosity and friendliness of its people. Every person we met was pleased to see us and excited about the prospect of joining the free world after seventy years of subservience to Moscow.