Tamaz Murgulia

Utterly ashamed beyond redemption.
Georgia was given the greatest opportunity in history, the most favorable circumstances, and Georgians willingly flushed it all down the toilet. We don't have a future. Nor does the nation that allows this to happen deserve one.

You should be, we all should be. If our opposition had been really scared in the spring, things might have turned out differently. But people weren't scared enough.

It was unimaginable, even in 2022, that the oligarchic, anti-human, anti-intellectual blight and brain rot that has taken over russia would take over most of the world, but here we are.

Georgia and even Ukraine will be neither the biggest nor the last downfall of this new age.

It seems that the West has had its black swan event, just not everyone has realized it yet. This is how Musk and the catastrophic cascade of events caused by his acquisition of Twitter will go down in history (if there is anyone left to write it when the dust settles).

I think the only way to even have a chance is to risk life, and I don't blame people for not being ready for that.

There's nothing left to do. It's over. The resistance isn't ready to actually resist and do anything outside of the everyday meetings on Rustaveli. And honestly, with the exception of Ukraine - I have never seen this playbook not work. No one really knows how to fight it.

The next two months will see a crushing of protest and dissent in Georgia on a scale that none of my friends thought possible here. That's the price of electing the wrong people to power and then looking the other way, comforted by your visa-free travel to Europe.

I wonder how long before our Chichirakli declares that the Global War Party and the Deep State are so powerful that even Trump couldn't do anything and fell under its influence? And GD is the only ultimate planetary-scale resistance fighting against these all-powerful people!

The next 4 years will be the worst since the war started in 2022. For the world, for Ukraine, for small and struggling democracies like Moldova, for countries within russia's reach like Georgia. But not for Orbans of all kinds, whose rise in the EU we will also witness.

Meanwhile, the great purge of the state apparatus continues. It seems that they are firing all those who dared to speak out clearly against or even ambiguously on social networks.
The pressure they can exert is far greater than that of us peacefully protesting in the streets.

A few minutes into 2025, as we stood on Rustaveli, happy and among friends, a girl tapped me on the shoulder and handed me this postcard. It says "We wish you a Georgian star on the EU flag"

I wanted to thank you, but you disappeared into the crowd

I will keep this simple gift

And here's my New Year's wish:
God, Santa, Cthulhu, anyone, in 2025 please make this prediction a laughable and ridiculous fear of a pessimist fool. Prove me wrong for once, please.

Salome Zourabichvili is the only legitimate president of Georgia.

And probably the last. In 2025, the regime will solidify the turn from the West to USSR2.0, where Georgia will take its place as a satellite of russia, like Belarus.

Remember these days. Remember what we lost.

I know everyone (including me) is in a good mood after yesterday and the day before, but the grim reality is still with us: it looks like business (as I predicted) has sworn allegiance.

Am I the only one who thinks that our hairy weasel is too quiet today?
No briefings, no "barely 3000 people", no nothing...

My president

What's been happening here for 25 days straight is admirable, and yesterday's spirit - well it's just unlike anything I've ever experienced in my life, and I'm so grateful to witness it all firsthand. But my prediction stands: unless something changes this won't lead to a victory

You'll probably laugh, but Secretary General of Council of Europe Alain Berset has just charlesmicheled us all over again.
Is there any ball that European bureaucrats won't drop? If you can't help, at least DON'T MAKE IT FUCKING WORSE, you meaningless clerks!

Unpopular opinion: sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, are at least 4 years too late, and can't hurt either GD or Bidzina at this point. They love the comforts of Western life, yes, but the power and finances that they are usurping can easily make up for it

Here's the thing: if there's enough resistance in the country, the regime can't stay authoritarian, it must and will spiral into dictatorship. Authoritarianism only works when people accept the deal (at least for the time being).

You got to be kidding me...

In a few months, the people in the streets of Syria will likely find that on the ruins of one toppled dictatorship, another is rising (and not "freedom," as they had hoped).

And the world will only wrongly learn that evil can only be fought and defeated by a greater evil.

Austria alone might have been a mistake. Austria and Finland - that's probably an emerging rule. Which means the EU doesn't give a shit, but will suspend visa-free travel anyway for the sake of their PR image.

Fuck you. Really, fuck you very much.

one can always hope, but I don’t believe in any positive outcome.

And this will be cemented on 29 December, when the president is supposed to leave the premises of her residence. This would also trigger protests, but by then even the protesters will be taking to the streets to clear their consciences, not to achieve what they know is impossible.

Moreover, there are no signs of cracks in the state institutions: one or two defections don't count, the only massive demarche came from ambassadors, but that's far from enough.
Given that we haven't seen any sanctions or even harsh words from the West, I think it's fair to say that it's over.

I'm a realist. I see what's happening, I've been observing the same processes a while ago twice, and from that knowledge and point of view: there is no other way. People here are not ready for the revolution, the the whole oppression apparatus is captured and leaves no hopes for switching sides.

Again, you can build the institutions, but their integrity comes from the people who work there. Corrupt (or bribe, or threaten) them, and the institution becomes a shell, and an extremely dangerous one.

no, the decision is final, there is no higher court to appeal

Citizen and activist Dodi Kharkheli was arrested near her daughter's kindergarten. She is an active critic of "Georgian Dream" and regularly participates in protests. The official reason for her arrest remains unknown.

#GeorgiaProtests