Guests Dunbar, Jonas, bye Kvirikashvili, Otsneba and government hullabaloo, more Khorava wrangling, protests fizzle, not public anger, Machalikashvili goes off, Platform statement, Marneuli mayor charged with torture, Mountain road, UN res, Izoria in Brussels, Montenegro, speaker in Kiev, Bulgaria speaker visit, Tsulukiani and LGBT comments, March of Georgians case, marshutka deaths, shepherd detained, Abkhaz solution, paraglider donnybrook, Starbucks, UNICEF report, Civil.ge 100 years ago news, JAM on Metro, Indigenous Outsiders on Ajara mosques, Cambridge event
TBLPOD.com
A discussion in English of the week in Georgia (the one near Chechnya not the one near Alabama) Don't know what a podcast is? Don't worry, just click on it and listen. კეთილი იყოს თქვენი მობრძანება! თუ ინგლისური იცით, დააჭირეთ ისარს და მოისმინეთ კვირის საინტერესო ამბები
Don't know what a podcast is? Don't worry, just click on it and listen. That's it. Nothing scary about it.
კეთილი იყოს თქვენი მობრძანება! თუ ინგლისური იცით, დააჭირეთ ისარს და მოისმინეთ კვირის საინტერესო ამბები.
THINGS TO READ
**Civil.ge has a fun new historical project to mark the 100th anniversary of the Georgian republic, in which they report the events of 1918 in “real time.” Link: https://bit.ly/2JM0S6U
**JAM News covered the recent Tbilisi Metro strike from the workers’ perspective. Link: https://jam-news.net/?p=106263
**OC Media wrote about the challenges faced by South Ossetian youth trying to build a cultural and artistic movement in a region blocked off from almost everywhere except from Russia. Link: https://bit.ly/2y6AtQ1
**Chai Khana wrote about surviving the food crisis of the ‘90s. Link: https://bit.ly/2k6ggQx
**Mashallah News wrote about the architecture and photography project “Indigenous Outsiders,” which is working to document Adjara’s old wooden mosques. Link: https://bit.ly/2HKrZxy
**Tsarizm.com photographed Batumi’s fish market, the Melkimoria. The formatting of the page is odd, but the photographs capture the essence of a small and aging fish market. Link: https://bit.ly/2HIPd7j
First, enjoyed this week’s podcast as always, but was great to hear Will and Jonas.
In terms of the economic growth issue, and breaking down the numbers, a fair number of indicators say things are getting better for normal people rather than solely benefiting the richest. In the last two years, we saw the first decline in food insecurity on Caucasus Barometer since we started asking about it in 2011: http://caucasusbarometer.org/en/cb-ge/NOMONFD/. The number of durable goods and prevalence of ownership has also increased, and people’s ability to purchase food and clothes rather than food alone has increased as well: http://caucasusbarometer.org/en/cb-ge/ECONSTN/. This suggests that the economic growth we’ve seen in recent years is helping build a middle class. This is despite a rough neighborhood for economic growth.
None of this is to say that the grinding poverty experienced in Georgia, particularly in rural areas, is acceptable. It is to say that there has been real progress for normal people in the last three years.
On a bit of a data nit pick, GDP per capita isn’t over 10,000 USD (referencing a claim in the podcast). That’s PPP. Actual GDP is a little under 4000 USD per capita. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=GE. That said, the fact that the economy has grown in real terms and PPP is up is another sign of things getting better.