Jewish people have been living in Georgia for centuries. Their big locations took place in most of cities and in rural areas. After reestablishing of Israel, most of them started to migrate from Georgia by the first chance. In thirty years most of Jewish settlements become empty. As a result of this big migration, only few cities remain with Jewish population. Those, who refuse to follow others, have their reasons.
authors
Zurab Balanchivadze
Zura Balanchivadze, 27. Works as a Social Media Manager. He is interested in arts and in social issues. In his fields of expression (painting, writing, taking pictures) he tend to emphasize daily documentary events. He often try to focus on details that can be generalized to tell the whole story.
Author's stories
Those Who Decided to Remain
Starting from 1926 to 1940, in the USSR, the ‘pickpockets’ formulated a so called brotherhood, which soon started to increase and become more powerful. Later, the institute of high-status criminals or criminal authorities appeared. They started to gain influence over others, in prisons as well as in the rest of the country. By the time of the Soviet Union’s demise
Black Criminals Of The 90’s
What similarities did Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia have in the '90s? This retrospective photo story depicts the household items of the 1990s, most of which, were novel for these newly independent countries at the time, but outdated today.
Made In The ‘90s
She was forced to leave her home twice. Now, Matsi Lvoveli could never imagine, that her life would be connected with enamel. Nowadays she’s an employee of “Ikorta”, a social enterprise, and her handicraft from Tserovani is quickly gaining popularity.
Longing for A New Reality
The day for Nana Mutoshvili starts with watering her plants. It is a silent, regular ritual she’s been loyal to for 16 years. The vases sit on the gated windows of Pankisi valley’s only library, in Jokolo, one of the six villages making up the gorge in eastern Georgia. In a land of militants, Natasha, as everyone calls her, is a “book guard,” as she’s been fighting to keep a small library alive.
The Librarian of Pankisi
Dangling over steep slopes and gorges or suspended over apartment blocks and churches, cableways are a common view in Georgia. The rope roads were developed in the 1950s as Soviet civil engineers struggled to navigate the sometimes challenging geography of mountainous towns, like the mining hub of Chiatura, or hilly cities, like Georgia’s second biggest city of Kutaisi. In some cases, the transport solution was aerial. Kutaisi’s cable car was built in 1961 on one of the hills of the Gora district - and it has hardly changed since then.
Obsolete But In Charge - The Only Cableway In Kutaisi
Since the 1930s hued mosaics have illustrated the Soviet life - from governmental buildings to large apartment blocks, from train stations to gargantuan factories, the tiny, colorful fragments portrayed the beautiful life and the bright future that the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was creating, for the people and through the people. Those times are long gone and those collages are fading, like the memory of the life they portrayed.
Fragmented Ideology, Georgia’s Soviet Mosaics
In Georgia, as elsewhere in the relatively traditional South Caucasus, schoolteachers often view questions about sex as an embarrassing topic better left to students’ parents. An unofficial taboo exists against delving into them in public.
Teaching safe sex in Georgia
The Dom Kultury, a sort of community recreation center,was a common sight in villages, towns and cities across the whole of the Soviet Union. They first appeared in the 1930s, acting mainly as platforms for mass propaganda of the socialist project-in-the-making. From the 1950s, though, they morphed into venues for culture and recreational activities, featuring cinemas, concert halls, dance studios, art workshops, theaters and music rooms, and often a library.
Reinventing Georgia's Soviet Houses of Culture
Welcome to the ezo, the Georgian courtyard. The word for neighbors in Georgian is mezobeliwhich literally translates as “persons who share a yard,”an ezo. Walking into 4 Letim-Gurji, the visitor enters what resembles an outdoor, communal living room for numerous families.
The Tbilisi Ezo: A Neglected Communal Space
It was a conflict that displaced roughly a quarter of a million people and killed an estimated 10,000-15,000 more,deeply scarring Georgia’s national psyche. Yet, more than 25 years on, Georgian history textbooks barely mention the brutal 1992-1993 war between ethnic Georgians and Abkhaz over control of the Black Sea region of Abkhazia, leaving many young Georgians largely uninformed about a conflict that transformed their country. A disinclination to delve into a defeat could partly explain that neglect, yet pragmatism appears to play a more immediate role. Students are not asked questions about the Abkhaz conflict in Georgia’s national entrance exam for university, so many high-school teachers and parents see little reason to spend extensive time on the topic. The amount of information provided in the roughly 12 different textbooks used for 12-17-year-olds varies from a couple of pages to several paragraphs, but mostly the war is only briefly described as part of the general chaos in Georgia during the early post-Soviet period.
The 1992-1993 Abkhaz War: For Young Georgians, Its History Has Begun to Fade
For some Georgians, obtaining drinking water can be a time-consuming, daily chore. “The water supply is old, and despite multiple rounds of repair, it doesn’t reach every family,” says Bela Gazdeliani, another resident. Some residents have wells, while others access neighborhood wells, but that water is “salty,” she adds. “Many residents have to drink distilled water.”