Peace and the Georgian Dream

Impressions from Tbilisi, Summer, 2025

Georgian Dream chair Irakli Gharibashvili during final campaign rally in Tbilisi [Photo Credit: By Jelger Groeneveld - CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=155142965]

In early June 2025, I traveled to Georgia to attend the Tbilisi Forum on Peace and Sustainable Development. My only previous visit to Georgia had taken place in the mid-1980s, when it was still a republic within the USSR. I was curious about many things: how much it had changed, how its culture was holding up, what was the truth about the protests and the political situation there more generally.

When I arrived at the Tbilisi airport I was taken directly to the Iota Hotel, located a few blocks from Liberty Square, though I would later transfer to the nearby and more luxurious Paragraph Hotel, where the conference was to take place. Odd as it may seem, I found my time in the Iota Hotel to be an extremely important part of my experience of Tbilisi. The hotel has certain qualities and virtues that point, potentially, to a better future for Georgia as a whole.

Iota’s interior design has nice, clean lines and an absence of decorative clutter – in other words, it is modern. At the same time, the pervasive use of wood, metal and stone, along with the hotel’s balanced, human-scale proportions, lends to the whole a rooted, classical feel. A few steps from the reception desk one comes across a well-lit staircase with wide, stone steps bordered by a weathered steel banister. I nearly always took this attractive staircase, instead of the nearby elevator, to my fourth-floor room. A modern building design that recognizes that people have legs! Who would have thought!

At breakfast time, the hotel restaurant puts out plates of local fresh fruits, berries and cut vegetables; local fresh-made breads, traditional milk products, a simple lobio (a Georgian salad made with beans), plus the usual omelets and coffee, among much else. Everything one actually needs, but also nothing that one does not need (for example, no annoying American pop music). The many local products brought to mind the relationship between a thriving city and its nearby more or less self-sufficient, diversified farmers (or ‘peasants’ in the language of J.S. Mill and even Simone Weil). It is also this kind of symbiotic relationship between the city and its rural periphery that the urbanist Jane Jacobs emphasized as the key to an economic life oriented to human well-being. Later in my visit I was delighted when a young member of the Georgian Dream party asked me if I knew about Jane Jacobs.

When I stopped by the Iota Hotel restaurant one afternoon to get myself a cup of tea, I happened to notice water on the floor. The large-ish puddle was right in front of the hot drinks counter at a spot where customers were likely to walk. I pointed the puddle out to the staff member standing behind the counter. He nodded, adding: “Yes, I know,” but made zero move to clean it up. I found his refusal to be rushed – aside from being hilarious – relaxing. Apparently, people don’t rush around here all the time like us Americans. Our first thought would have been: there’s a lawsuit waiting to happen! His thought must have been: ‘Any fool can see that there is a puddle on the floor, they’ll walk around it.’ I think it is the Greek Orthodox theologian Timothy Patitsas who has written a lot about the centrality of καιρός, or ‘unhurried time,’ in a rightly ordered city.

The City

When I visited Tbilisi in the mid-1980s, i.e., during the waning years of the Soviet Union, I genuinely fell in love with the place. I decided it was the Italy of the USSR. The wine, the outdoor cafes, the feeling of comparative abundance, the hospitality, and, most of all, the happiness and warmth of the many people I met, it was all irresistible. What I recall of the city center was a charming mixture of Eastern and Western (Baroque and Rococo) architectural styles. If there were any gray Soviet-era buildings in the mix, they didn’t stand out.

Today’s Tbilisi has more wealth than back then, and certainly more cafes and small shops – all of which is to the good. The charm of the old skyline is now marred, to my taste, by a few incongruous modern buildings wrapped in reflective black glass.

Tbilisi has a great many churches, many of them ancient. A professor of philosophy at the university of Tbilisi with whom I spent a very pleasant afternoon walking around the old town explained to me that all, or nearly all of these churches are now functioning and well attended.

Modern Tbilisi also contrasts with its Soviet-era version by being more materialistic. Expensive western name brand stores occupy the prominent spots downtown. The Paragraph Hotel where I stayed during the conference, though impeccable and extremely hospitable, was luxurious almost to the point of excess (the toilet seat in my room looked like the control panel of a fighter jet and I never figured it out – I was afraid to even touch it). I noticed many drivers showing off by speeding around in their fancy cars. One comes across the ‘massage’ parlors and drinking establishments typical of many American city centers.

A high point for me during my stay in Tbilisi was seeing the opera Daisi (Sunset) in the stunning Moorish-style opera house on Rustaveli Avenue. Not since viewing Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov at St. Petersburg’s Marinsky Theater have I so enjoyed an opera! The music by Paliashvili, the staging, dance, singing, the story – all were of stunningly high quality and very moving. The themes in Daisi overlap, to a certain extent, with those in Godunov. In both, tragedy and foreign invasion transpire against the backdrop of a profound and enduring Orthodox Christian faith.

Conference, Conversations

Since I’ve chosen the ‘notes from a diary’ genre as the format for these reflections, I will restrict myself to sharing only a few of my own contributions to the Tbilisi Peace and Sustainable Development conference. I won’t attempt any kind of overview. A proper treatment of this impressive conference, in both its formal and informal sessions, would require writing an entire book. Suffice it to say that I was thrilled to be in the company of scholars from all over the world that I greatly admire, and thrilled to get the chance to meet some of them – for example Alexander Mercouris, Ian Proud, Amb. Jack Matlock, and Glenn Diesen -- for the first time in person.

The central theme of my presentation during the conference was liberalism’s hostility to the idea of limit. The ‘liberalism’ to which I was referring, I tried to make clear, is an ideology to which virtually all Americans belong, regardless of whether they think of themselves as being on the left or on the right (a point about Americans emphasized, incidentally, by the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, author of the seminal work After Virtue). The so-called neocons, I said, are not, as some suppose, a fringe movement, and they are certainly not Marxists. They are, to the contrary, liberals. What sets them apart is their militancy as liberals. Were the neocons to be somehow miraculously excised from the American body politic, the idea of limit would not of itself reappear, and neither would the idea of ‘restraint.’ Why else would there be such unanimity in the U.S. Congress, and in the mainstream U.S. press, in support of every new war? Sadly, neoconservatives are flesh of flesh of America’s liberal civilization, and in their eagerness to destroy every rival civilization, the neocons differ only in degree from the rest of the American mainstream.

My explanation as to why liberalism as an ideology rebels against limits went something like this. Liberalism, firstly and most importantly, reverses the traditional relation between means and ends. For liberalism, means themselves have become the end. But a means, as already Simone Weil noted, by definition has no limiting principle.

Now, this whole matter of means and ends causes much confusion and helps explain why so many are convinced of an organic linkage between Marxism/Trotskyism and the neocons. Trotskyists, we know, justified the use of evil means in pursuit of their (Marxist, utopian) ends. To be sure, liberalism, like Trotskyism, is a revolutionary doctrine, but its revolutionary spirit stems from its own distinctive ethical stance – the one I just described, which pursues the unlimited increase of means. These ‘means’ may take various forms: money, military force, rhetoric. The salient fact is nonetheless that liberalism ultimately transforms everything, including every good thing, into a means. Lately, it has been also transforming entire countries into such means.

At the conclusion of my short presentation, I made mention of D.C. Schindler’s book, Freedom from Reality, as an excellent source for anyone interested in digging deeper. I tried to share an insight from Schindler about how the liberal re-definition of freedom (which re-definition is what ultimately explains liberalism’s reversal of means and ends) can easily transform each of us from within, as it were, at the subconscious level. If that is true, then this means that the effort, in Georgia, to protect its national cultural legacy and traditions must not be viewed merely as a matter of protection from external foes. The quest to remain Georgian also entails carrying out an honest examination of one’s own philosophical presuppositions. Those who, in 1991, were leaving behind communism, the architect Christopher Alexander once noted, may have thought that they were gaining freedom. What they were entering in fact was “a money-centered world.”

After my presentation, I had the good fortune of making the acquaintance of N.*, a Georgian professor of philosophy who approached me to learn more about the book by D.C. Schindler I had mentioned. We struck up a conversation and ended up, several days later, walking around the city together, all the while discussing our mutual interests. At the outset of our walk, we stopped by a bust of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin which stands in a park near the Paragraph Hotel. I asked if there was any chance that it would be removed, as has happened recently in Ukraine, as a way of ridding the county of ‘Russian influences.’ “None whatsoever,” was his reply.

N. mentioned that he was struck by an answer I had given in response to the question an audience member had asked about how Georgia, a country for whom the Orthodox Christian faith is central to its identity, could find a place for itself in a wider world which views Orthodox Christianity as something alien. In my response I suggested as a model the concept of Europe as it was understood by the founder of Russian philosophy, Vladimir S. Solovyov (1853 – 1900). The Russian philosopher held that the idea of Europe, in its essence, is constituted by the combination of Christian revelation and Greek reason. The former instantiates the concrete good in its fullness by means of a revelation, in other words, in the person of Christ. The latter, because it speaks a philosophical, rational language, is accessible to all. I also put in a good word for Simone Weil who, in her writings, insisted that Greek thought was a premonition of the Christian revelation.

“A Europe so defined,” N. told me, “is exactly what attracts us to Europe, and it is in this sense that we have always thought of ourselves as Europeans.” This is why Georgians like him are attracted to European literature, including secular literature, which they have always associated with something sane and reasonable. And of course Georgians had long assumed that their deep roots in Christianity also signified that they have a rightful place in Europe. It is only recently, N. continued, that these same roots of Georgian culture have suddenly been viewed, first of all by the Europeans themselves, as something allegedly outside of and in contradiction with what is still called ‘Europe.’

N.’s work as a professor brings him into contact with students at the college and, on occasion, at the high school level as well. He told me that he sometimes enters into debates with teenagers on the controversial topics that lately have been roiling Georgian society – by way of example, debates over the law passed last year on the registration of foreign agents. Georgia’s so-called Foreign Influence Transparency Law, which went into force in August 2024, required the registration of NGOs that receive 20% or more of their funding from foreign sources. At the time, the law set off a wave of street protests. As it happens, N. told me, many of his students come from families whose parents receive good salaries at these same NGOs. Given that circumstance, it is hardly surprising that many of them were completely hostile to the new legislation!

What appeared to bother N., however, was not so much the fact of their opposition to the law as their refusal to listen to any amount of analysis, their resistance to hearing any arguments put forward by the other side. They would simply declare over and over again: ‘It’s a pro-Russian law!’ Such an argument, for the students, was deemed both sufficient and final.

N. would nonetheless persist in trying to have a rational conversation. As he explained to me, he would say: “OK, all that is fine; but now let’s take a look at the actual language of the Georgian legislation, and let’s compare it to analogous laws not only in Russia, but also in the United States, and let’s see how they all compare …” But only rarely did such conversations get him anywhere, and the students would fall back on the repetition of slogans. Words such as ‘Europe,’ ‘Democracy,’ and ‘America’ would often have the power of magic incantations, particularly among the high schoolers even if, not infrequently, they would struggle to explain what these words represent. Such ideological fervor among Georgia’s young people was a theme which repeatedly came up whenever I had serious conversations with Georgians about their country’s political atmosphere. The general assumption seemed to be that this politicization of Georgia’s youth was to a great extent the result of the presence of some 20,000 foreign NGOs (!) in this country of only 3.7 million people. According to several interlocutors, some of these NGOs had received training in the rhetorical and ‘non-violent’ direct action techniques of carrying out ‘peaceful revolutions’ after the manner of the famous Serbian OTPOR movement.

Might these recent Georgian street protests and even rebellions be nonetheless legitimate? I have no way of knowing what percentage of the charges and criticisms leveled at the ruling Georgian Dream government are valid or invalid. It would be surprising indeed if any government anywhere was found to be without fault. My impression, based, to be sure, just on this one trip, was nonetheless that the people affiliated with Georgian Dream are reasonable and reasonably constructive, whereas the NGO sector and protestors seemed, at times, dishonest and were, in general, perhaps more prone to tearing things down than to constructive creativity.

I can’t couch my opinion here as certified fact, and yet it nonetheless seems to me that the NGOs’ claim that the Georgian Dream party did not win last year’s elections – that they could only have won by somehow cheating -- is extremely unconvincing. Georgian Dream has maintained its popularity and repeatedly won elections since 2012. Until the party started disagreeing with Western foreign policy preferences, there were no claims in the West that these victories were illegitimate; only afterwards, when their opinions began to diverge. What is more, throughout this period the country of Georgia has consistently recorded positive economic growth. The most recent World Bank statistics I could find are for 2023, which recorded a GDP growth rate of 6.7%. As best as I can determine, the corresponding figure for 2024 was even higher. Furthermore, as several of my interlocutors in Tbilisi emphasized, it was hardly to be expected that the Georgian Dream party would, last year, suddenly lose a large block of voters simply because they firmly rejected the kind of confrontational policy that has led to war and the nearly complete destruction of Ukraine!

One Georgian Dream politician told me that their party’s policy was not in any respect anti-American. To the contrary, Georgians in general are very pro-American, and he in particular was very much so. All they ask, he told me, is to be left free to determine their economic and trading policy in such a way as to best serve the interests of Georgians. It hardly seems a radical stance, whereas the opposition refrain of ‘but that is pro-Russian!’ strikes me as irrational and childish.

I found reason to believe, furthermore, that the opposition NGOs were being dishonest when they described their protests – the ones that took place in late 2024 and early 2025 – as entirely peaceful. The impression I received, at any rate, from my conversations with local eyewitnesses is that the protests were, to the contrary, often violent. Among those eyewitnesses, as it happens, was a Georgian priest, Fr. A., whom I met through mutual acquaintances, and with whom I had a long, friendly conversation over coffee after I attended the liturgy at his church. As it happens, there is a Georgian orthodox church located directly across the street from the Georgian Parliament building on Rustaveli Avenue where the protests took place. Over the past more than year, Orthodox priests and parishioners have, as a result, been eyewitnesses to the protests as they transpired. They shared with Fr. A. what they observed.

What most struck these observers was the very large quantity of fireworks deployed by the protestors -- deployed, moreover, as an offensive weapon. They noticed that these salvoes of fireworks continued at extremely frequent intervals -- at least 10 salvoes per minute – and that this continued hour after hour over the course of weeks and even months. Such a large volume of fireworks would cost far more than locals could have afforded on their own. The burning cartridges would sometimes crash through the parliament building’s windows, starting fires inside. Worse still, the protestors also sometimes fired fireworks cartridges point-blank into the protective cordon of police, very seriously injuring dozens, and causing at least one policeman to permanently lose his eyesight. “This is was what the opposition press and the foreign mass media were calling ‘peaceful protests’!” Fr. A. concluded, indignantly.

When, during these same protests, police, fed up with the assault, tackled several of the protestors and arrested them, the opposition press howled in outrage. ‘How can they treat peaceful protestors that way! This is not democracy!’ According to some of the parishioners I spoke with, it was common knowledge that the protests were fueled by the NGOs, and that these organizations get their funding from such groups as USAID, the EU, and George Soros affiliated groups. Another parishioner I spoke with recalled an overheard conversation between two Tbilisi teens some weeks ago while riding in a bus. One teen asked the other whether he was going to the protests that afternoon. ‘No,’ came the response. ‘They aren’t paying anymore.’

When I was in Tbilisi for the conference this June, the protests in front of the parliament building were a quiet affair, mostly active on the weekend, and they never involved more than a few hundred people at the most. Like others in my delegation, I was startled to see some of the protestors boldly holding EU and US flags. It didn’t seem very subtle, especially given where their funding is apparently coming from.

Georgians and Russians

I want to briefly recount two incidents that, upon later reflection, struck me as revelatory of the relationship between Georgia and Russia.

About a week into my stay in Tbilisi, while still at the Paragraph Hotel, I found myself disturbed in the middle of the night by recurring pains of a sort which, though not intense, made me nervous. I called long distance back to the U.S. to speak with an advice nurse available to me through my medical insurance. The nurse suggested I be seen by a doctor before attempting to travel back to the U.S. I immediately called the hotel receptionist to ask for help arranging a doctor’s visit, and despite the late hour -- it was nearly three in the morning -- the hotel staff took care of everything efficiently and kindly.

What seemed only a few minutes after my call, a hotel employee, accompanied by two nurses, rang at the door of my room. They said they wanted to make sure I was doing OK. To my great relief, both of the nurses, who appeared to be in their late 40s or early 50s, spoke Russian well. I invited them in, they took my blood pressure, asked a series of medical questions, and, in the end, having concluded nothing grave was going on with me, did their best to calm my worries.

Now, kindness is by no means a rarity among nurses, and it is entirely unsurprising coming from Georgians, well known as they are for their friendly nature. Nonetheless there was something distinct about the experience. As the three of us sat there chatting in Russian, I felt completely relaxed, as if I was chatting at home with my own relatives. Phony familiarity – the salesman who immediately addresses you by your first name – is off-putting, but this was something quite different. It was not a matter of word choice. No one, for example, made use of the informal ‘you.’ It was, rather, the inexplicable and yet completely palpable absence of that wall of separation that nearly always divides people in the West, a separation that makes people in the West feel lonely. Only later did it occur to me that this was the same sensation of being part of a unity that I have felt so often in the presence of Russians in Russia. I am sure it is not an influence of Russia on Georgia (nor the reverse). It is simply a cultural commonality. For the record, the onset of capitalism in Russia, post-1991, has tended to somewhat reduce that once-familiar spirit of unity there, but it has not yet disappeared and, who knows, may yet make a strong comeback.

Just a day after arriving in Georgia, as I was taking a stroll around the corner from Lermontov Street, a well-dressed older woman I happened to pass on the sidewalk asked me a question in Georgian. I quickly explained, in both Russian and English, that I don’t speak Georgian.

“Oh, you speak Russian!” she said, smiling. “Can you help me? I am looking for Lenin Square … as it used to be called, I think.”

It seemed logical that she must be referring to what is now called Freedom Square, which was located just a few blocks from where we were standing. I pointed in that direction, and offered to help take her there, if she wanted. I could see that her gaze was a bit unfocused, and the older woman, smiling and cordial as she was, was clearly in declining health.

She said that she didn’t need to actually go to the square, she just wanted to know where it was so she could get her bearings. Her friends would soon be coming to fetch her, as long as she was standing in the right place.

“I’m a bit going blind,” she added with a weak smile, as if amused at her own frailty.

I had no need to hurry anywhere, so I decided to stick around until her friends showed up. I explained that I wasn’t from around here, that I had just arrived from the U.S. She had thought I was from Moscow, and then added that she herself spoke Russian, German and some English, and of course Georgian.

“Languages are very important!” she said, adding that she liked Americans. Our conversation then turned to the distinction between ordinary Americans and the U.S. government, the latter having a tendency, I ventured to say, to make trouble everywhere.

At this she nodded, saying that the most important thing is peace.

Since we were already on the topic of politics, I asked for her opinion of Georgian Dream.

“I have many criticisms of politicians,” she said. “But I am grateful to Georgian Dream for preserving the peace.”

She then cautioned me to be a bit careful when addressing Georgians in Russian.

“Not everyone who speaks Russian will do so willingly,” she said. Some may not want to admit they know Russian, feeling it is not politically correct. And some ‘village redneck’ might even make a scene about it, she warned.

“But isn’t Georgian Dream aiming to gradually improve relations with Russia?” I asked. She replied that yes, they were starting to do so, and she approved of it, as it would help keep Georgia at peace.

Soon her friends appeared, looking a bit startled at her conversation with a stranger. She smiled at me warmly, stretching out her hand. I took it, and said, in Russian, “My name is Paul. What’s your name?”

“Nina,” she replied. She suddenly kissed me lightly on the cheek, then slowly walked off supported on either side by her companions.