today, EthnoFest in #Tbilisi (alas only realized it happening late afternoon), with plenty of great things you can get if you
-- enjoy #crafts
-- want to support local business, or
-- are thinking abt gifts already
Below some of my favourites. 1/n
This won the overall prize (congrats!!!) & was my favourite: fairly simple, evocative of #Tbilisi & #Batumi#architecture, nice #lighting addition somewhere in a flat, neat product. 2/n
The table cloths -- they really have established themselves as a product, I saw two companies, not entirely sure what the difference is. Here is Old Supra. 3/n
Weird Fishes -- one of the funniest bits, maybe not exactly a permanent fixture, but still what a fun idea. 4/n
wooden #toys! GeoStyle Wood Art. Nice, simple, modern stuff that kids may like. (In my view, all plastic import toys could be banned. The world wld be better for it.) 5/n geostylewoodart.mystrikingly.com
Zaza Gatenashvili Borjghali wooden boxes & crates. Gorgeous stuff. Great to see that craft still being practiced. 6/n
Igrika design, with Georgian letters, patterns, also cloth & tablecloth. 7/n facebook.com/igrika1/
Pachkoria family, ceramics, I have some of these already, nice design, cups, soap bowls, lots of stuff. 8/n homofaber.com/en/discover/di…
Funduki, who used to be (or are?) at Fabrika with slippers, in v nice design. They also have bags and other clothing. 9/n instagram.com/funduki/?hl=en
Many of these, btw, will be at IWA Xmas Bazar, early December, if you want to buy direct. Will share when know details.
And yes, nice to support local businesses. All of this supported by @TbilisiCity@usingeo@UKinGeorgia@EUinGeorgia & others. END
what goes on in #Georgia right now is best described as a coup: "an unlawful seizure of power", in this case by a small clique under direct instructions from BI who in his paranoia has become a kind of Macbeth of the Caucasus. 1/
Constitutional order is sidelined to follow paranoid ravings and on April 29 we heard Macbeth in Tbilisi having his go at the ghost of Banquo, sitting in the empty chair. (BI's obsession is the spectre of Credit Suisse as global war party.) 2/ read:
As Stephen Jones put it, "In his April 29 speech before a crowd of state employees and citizens bussed in from Georgian provinces, Bidzina Ivanishvili [...], declared war against the Georgian people." 3/ eurasianet.org/perspectives-i…
one good person wrote he shared recent Jacobin article on the NGO law bc he found it refreshing & "offering a different perspective". Draws lots of Likes and Retweets.
If you don't know much else about #Georgia, you will read about "hyper-political NGOs". 1/
...and this will be a dominant feature stuck in your mind.
Yes, if you are a corrupt regime that has been massively robbing from people of Georgia, those who even merely *highlight* that fact are "partisan" & "hyper-political", and you will seek to eliminate them.
Here... 2/
you see just one such listing of the public allegations.
Let those numbers sink in: 30+ MPs, 30 ministers & deputies, 13 judges -- and that is what is known!
This is the good work of @Transparency_GE -- which the government is seeking to snuff out. 3/ transparency.ge/en/blog/allege…
sectors of all the countries we looked at.
There was zero politics to the claim at the time, there was just genuine reason to be proud, as @Transparency_GE @EPRC_Georgia @IDFIGeorgia had been real leaders (unprompted) when we first looked at them. 2/ @ISET_PI @PMCGofficial
There were some structural reasons for this -- Georgia was an enthusiastic member of @opengovpart from 2011. @g_kldiashvili from IDFI had led a (then) one-man insurgency, very successfully, for more open archives from mid-2000s (hating UNM, incidentally). 3/ @GilbreathDustin
yesterday at the #Tbilisi Art Fair -- ran into various friends, and saw some things I really liked.
Here the Hive, where various artists could showcase their work. 1/
here "Kobi", George Kobiashvili, with strong symbolism, and lots of detail, and a v expressive rendering of the figures. 2/
Maya Baratashvili, also fair young artist, born 1984, this already sold, "Being Liza", I found this evocative, the overall vibe. 3/
fantastic tour of modernist #architecture in #Yerevan with Ruben Arevshatyan, two days ago, at end of "Soviet Legacies" conference. Will post a few things I learned about this great city that I did not know before in this thread, over next days.
What a guide!
#Armenia
so much to see in a fairly compact space -- and modernism as a defining characteristic in that city, with Alexander Tamanian being more to #Yerevan that Georges-Eugène Haussmann arguably was to Paris. 2/n
One surprise, but logical: apparently Tamanyan's idea for #Yerevan opera was highly contested by left / proletarian architects. Too 19th century, what function would it serve, they wanted something more stridently modern. Tamanyan prevailed, work started 1930, opened in 1933. 3/n
Armaz Akhvlediani and Ana Natvslishvili, opposition deputies, propose banning most fireworks -- to reduce injuries (40 hospitalized in January), many under-18, plus mass deaths of birds. 1/
I really hope this goes through -- and have a big centralized firework, rather than people feeling that their wedding is not complete if it doesn't also have big outdoor bangs. 2/ 1tv.ge/news/ana-nacvl…
international research is quite interesting -- and Vox summarizes it as "teenage boys are idiots" -- good case for keeping them safe, via more restrictions (found this via @FindPolicy ) vox.com/science-and-he… 3/