TBILISI – Hundreds of thousands of Russians, many of them opponents of Vladimir Putin, have flocked to Georgia since the Russian invasion of Ukraine to avoid being conscripted into the Russian army. But as the government of the pro-Russian Georgian Dream Party tightens its grip on the tense Caucasan country many of the young dissidents are moving away from the dazzlingly beautiful Georgian capital.

 “It seems as if Georgia is becoming a little Russia,” Maria, a young Russian artist, originally from near Siberia, tells me in one of the many almost cheerful literary cafés that have sprung up for the emigré Russian community in Tbilisi.

  With its excellent food, fine wines and cognac, strikingly beautiful women and breathtaking mountain scenery and resorts for skiing and on the Black Sea, Georgia is a preferred gilded exile for opponents of Putin, many of them maintained by rich or middle class parents in Russia. First arrivals were young men dodging the draft who opposed Putin, then came others dodging the draft who approved of the invasion of Ukraine but did not want to fight.

 In a corner of the café there is a collection box for donations to help Ukraine. “Many of the laws that they have enacted here in Georgia such as the crackdown on NGOs receiving foreign funding and the anti-LGBQ legistlation recall what happened in Russia,” Maria continues. “That is why many young Russians are leaving for elsewhere in Europe.”

 Maria and her husband left Russia after much soul searching, to avoid his being called up, she tells Micol, my Italian colleague from Il Foglio, a fluent Russian speaker.  Together with another young artist, Lionel, they kindly offer to sketch my portrait.

 “We are always looking for models. The other day we sketched the barman at the café here.” The atmosphere here normally is relaxed and bohemian, as in a constellation of other cafés that have sprung up for the Russian community, together with anti-Putin newspapers and websites for the Russian diaspora.

 Not everyone from Georgia has welcomed the Russian influx despite its contribution to the economy. Graffiti on the streets of Tblisi in English warns against speaking Russian in the street. “Dear Ruzzian speakers,” says one written in blue and red paint, “STOP being so loud! TALK MORE QUIETLY. The only place where you’re welcome loud is your own country, to loudly PROTEST against your bloody Empire.”

 It is not unheard of for Russians speaking their language in the streets of the capital to be beaten up while other graffiti pays tribute to the Georgian volunteers who have been killed fighting with Ukrainian forces.

 Memories of the 2008 Georgian five day war with Russia, when Georgian forces were defeated and Russia grabbed a swathe of disputed Georgian territory, including Ossetia, while bombing civilian targets, still resonate. The battle in the country between the pro-European opposition parties and Georgian Dream, which also claims it wants to take Georgia into the EU, entered into a new phase with the election Oct. 26 that Georgian Dream claimed to have won resoundingly. The opposition and international observers spoke of widespread rigging and intimidation of public service workers who evidently were told they could lose their jobs if they did not vote for GD.

 International observers from the OCSE and EU also reported widespread abuses but cravenly stopped short, at a press conference presenting the results of their work, of acknowledging directly that the election was stolen.

 As the London Times correspondent Marc Bennetts, a veteran reporter on Georgia and former Moscow correspondent, told me, many Georgians openly acknowledge that Georgian Dream resorted to fraud and tolerate such corruption among their politicians, rather like the attitude of many people in Malta or Sicily. “They say that Georgian Dream didn’t need to cheat that much to win, so it was alright” he said, “the same could be said of Putin.”  

 While many young people opposed to GD also are suspicious of the traditonal opposition parties that held power before, the French-born Georgian President, Salame Zourabichvili, has emerged as a new leader of the opposition, stating flatly that the election had been stolen, though she provided no evidence.

 The following day we watched as the elegant 72-year-old addressed a crowd of some 300,000 people gathered in front of the Georgian parliament to protest what they claim are the irregular polls.

 The peaceful protests were the harbingers of others in December sparked by the government’s decision to suspend until 2028 the country’s accession process to the EU. Georgian Dream has ridden out similar waves of protest in the past but President Zourabichvili has added a new impetus by announcing that she will not stand down at the end of her presidential term on Dec. 29, on the ground that the parliament appointing her successor is illegitimate insofar as it is based on a fraudulent vote.

 The protesters firing fireworks and the occasional molotov cocktail at riot police in Tiblisi, braving water cannon, plastic bullets and savage beatings in custody or on the street, demand new elections amid fears that the polarisation could usher in a situation similar to the Maidan revolution in Ukraine in 2014 that caused scores of death and  heralded the Russian-back secession of Crimea and conflict with Russian-backed rebels.

 Donald Trump may have vowed to end the Ukraine war in one day but both the United States and the European Union may need to do much more in the coming weeks to prevent a new major crisis flaring up in the Caucasus region.

 jp