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Hans Gutbrod

@HansGutbrod

Dec 27, 2025

one future season of #WhiteLotus should really be set in #Georgia.

It would fit the trajectory of the first three seasons: places with a strong & deep character and culture that people come to relax & chill -- but which hold in store a major & even fatal dislocation. 1/

I just watched White Season 3, set in Thailand (after the previous in Maui & Sicily), which I again thought was excellent, very well observed, and truly hilarious. (I get the quibbles but I only watch one TV series a year, and so why not just enjoy it for its best.) 2/

you'd have so much to work with -- the landscape, the visuals, the food, the exoticism (for an internationalaudience), the music, which in last season it spliced in well from Thai music also. 3/

Read 9 tweets

Hans Gutbrod

@HansGutbrod

Nov 9, 2025

great museum, absolutely worth a visit -- the newly redone Merab Kostava House Museum, above Rustaveli Metro.

Here is a guy who struggled for Georgia's freedom all his life. There are several reasons why you should really go see it. #Georgia 1/

To start with, it's splendidly done, and so easily accessible. 2/

It gives a great sense of how Kostava was interested in the world & good reminder at present moment, in European literature (interesting books on shelves, Mann and many others).

Kostava was a writer, critic, musician, teacher, translator, activist -- and national hero.

Read 10 tweets

Hans Gutbrod

@HansGutbrod

Sep 29, 2025

one of reasons why I am less-than-impressed with appointment of Alexander Kartozia as #Georgia's ambassador to Germany -- he was Minister of Education from 1998-2003, at a time of rampant corruption.

This was not a little bribe here and there, as in Armenia or...

some contexts.

Corruption then was robbing families & students. Robbing their money & robbing them of their education.

Great academics, like Alexander Rondeli? They were pushed OUT of universities, as they got in way of a purely criminal enterprise.

A generation grew...

that could just buy their grades without ever turning up.

By contrast, honest kids often could not get into prestigious departments. The effects of this still felt until present day.

The Law Faculty of TSU, in particular, was a center of this problem.

rferl.org/a/1101308.html

Read 8 tweets

Hans Gutbrod

@HansGutbrod

Feb 2, 2025

if you follow #Georgia, you have heard about the beatings in especially designated mini-vans -- not in the heat of an arrest or maybe subduing, but afterwards, deliberate & systematic.

And here you can see this for yourself, as it happened this evening by Tbilisi Mall. In four parts.

Here you see just after arrest. 1/

On next video, you need to look closely -- you will see the man in the van thumping someone, it's a clear hitting motion.

It even seems you can hear it. Almost all of these riot police wear tactical gloves, i.e. ones with hardened knuckles.

In this context, these gloves are not for protection, but to inflict injury.
@Giorgi_Gogia
@robinwagener @Mikiashvili_M

This is about 60 seconds later, at 19:08, you see six (!) men leaving the van, after they have been busy inside -- and if you look closely, you see the detainee in green anorak still holding his hands up, in a protective motion.

To anyone looking, it's clear what has been happening here: subdued detainees, sitting, beaten by multiple men. This fits exactly with the reports. 3/ @dolidze_anna @KShoshiashvili @terjehelland

Read 5 tweets

Hans Gutbrod

@HansGutbrod

Oct 27, 2024

A tiny clique in charge of the ruling party has stolen Georgia's European future. They stole that European future in good part by bribery, intimidation, direct violence, and some manipulation of the voting process.
The tiny clique also took that future away by overwhelming many voters with their dystopian vision of the world -- a vision that has nothing to do with Europe.

Where the vote was comparatively free and fair, in parts of Tbilisi's capital, the opposition parties clearly won. 1/n

The evening of the vote, we could see two starkly contrasting realities -- two exit polls, sponsored by the opposition, that put the opposition parties clearly ahead. While I am cautious/skeptical about exit polls, these polls closely tallied each other.

You can of course believe that these efforts coordinated to represent a manipulated reality. I tend to believe that overall they likely represent the actual will of the people. 2/

there are several additional items re the plausibility of these exit polls.
1. Edison in the past seems to have gotten GD results fairly aligned. This chart is doing rounds in Georgia right now, showing actual GD results (yellowish) and Edison exit poll (blue). It is not to scale, but you see the big discrepancy is *now*. I quickly checked this also, and found similar results, see the screenshot.

2/ Edison tanked UNM in comparison to C4C, even though they are typically assumed to be funded by one of UNM's main donor.

Read 8 tweets

Hans Gutbrod

@HansGutbrod

Aug 4, 2024

The implementation rules of so-called transparency law in #Georgia have been released – I previously called it a “repress anyone you want law.” That is what it is.

(Let's not forget all the shills who misrepresented the law, too.) 1/freiheit.org/south-caucasus…

Organizations have to submit declarations this summer. The requirements are retroactive (!), reporting for 2023.

The reporting is *transparently* designed to overwhelm organizations. The declaration Excel form has twelve (yes: 12) worksheets.
2/

On income, orgs will have to submit details that in the past you were never asked to keep.

On your donors, you need to submit income and all material benefit. You got a bit of furniture donated? Technically, that is material benefit. 3/

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