Dispatch – December 11/12: Crisis Tree

It’s December 11, 10 p.m., and it’s freezing on Tbilisi’s Rustaveli Avenue. The only thing harder than standing here is staying at home. I decided to start writing my Dispatch here, defying weeks of crisis-fueled writer’s block. 10 p.m. is when the turnout here peaks – long nights of dispersal have messed with our biological clocks. It is crowded now, with people scattered all over the country’s best-known street.

The quietest spot I could find is right in front of the parliament, somewhere between the building’s temporary iron fence and the memorial of the April 9, 1989 massacre, under the infamous row of surveillance cameras currently being targeted by soon-to-be-outlawed green lasers. But the street down there is now packed – demonstrators huddled together to listen to a charismatic speech by the energetic ex-nerd show host. “Elections! Elections!” – people can be heard chanting. There’s no stage, no music unless it’s the protesters break into singing a cappella – and some of them are doing it on a professional level.

Who brought a cake? Someone’s eating a cake.

It’s been two weeks since the announcement by the legitimacy-lacking Georgian Dream government to halt the EU accession process gave the long-harbored anger its much-awaited spark. Police violence on the first day of protests only added fuel to the fire, intensifying a crisis that, like all crises Georgia has experienced, has brought out the best and the worst in our society.

It’s been two weeks since the most intense protest – or resistance – movement in the history of independent Georgia began, involving all social groups and spreading to more than 35 towns and cities in this small country. For two weeks, we’ve been watching the police repression – more than 400 arrested, over 30 of them on criminal charges, hundreds beaten, over 80 – hospitalized, and the knocking on doors doesn’t seem to be stopping.

It was two weeks ago when the spring of our awakening, which had turned into the fall of our depression, suddenly exploded into the winter of our discontent.

Here is Nini and the Dispatch newsletter, walking on Rustaveli Avenue to see where this road leads.

Three things separate me from the dynamic rally down in the street: St. Nino’s Cross, a large and dark metal structure that has remained here since violent far-right groups put it up to mark their territory during the homophobic pogroms of July 5, 2021; a Christmas tree, or let’s call it a Crisis Tree, a tall and dark construction put up by the authorities in the early morning of December 8 in a small window between police crackdowns, titushki attacks, and repressions; and the April 9 memorial, the only one of these three references to violence that wasn’t itself part of the violence.

It’s not that the protesters aren’t working hard to win over the first two: you could see demonstrators hugging the big cross to protect themselves on days when riot police were pouring streams of water on them from inside the parliament. Since the day of its unsolicited installation, the Crisis Tree has been decorated with protest messages, photos of beaten activists and journalists, and darkly humorous mockery of Tbilisi’s fashionista mayor, whose high aesthetic standards hardly match the tree’s ugliness. Suspicious minds say it was deliberately placed here to smear the protests in case it “accidentally” catches fire, so demonstrators have taken quite good care of the monstrous construction.

A few days ago, however, there was a fire here: a coffin with the effigy of Bidzina Ivanishvili was ceremoniously set alight by those who hoped the performance would touch the nerve of the superstitious billionaire. It did touch the nerve of the clergy and some of the Orthodox community, who saw it as a satanic ritual after discovering what looked like the image of Christ carved into the coffin. These were largely the same people who had failed to see the likeness of Christ in the actual martyrs – the broken facial bones of beaten citizens – following the abuse that experts classify as torture. Eventually, curious observers tracked down the cheap coffin for sale on the Chinese Alibaba online market, while commentators with knowledge of theology argued the image on the wooden coffin could have no religious significance.

There is no police mobilization today. It’s been pretty peaceful here the last few days, which doesn’t mean the repression has stopped: people are disappearing from the streets, their families are spending nights tracking them down in detention centers across the country, and others are frantically tidying their homes in case the police comes to visit and “accidentally” finds fireworks or scam call centers in a bedroom drawer. Some dark vans have been spotted parked in Liberty Square, though. They could be “those” vans in which protesters, many of them “just kids,” as protesters are keen to point out, reported brutal beatings and harassment after being dragged in there for simply attending a rally. Other kids are facing years in prison on bogus charges.

The ambulances are back on the side streets. I have used their services twice in the past two weeks: a minor inconvenience considering what some of my colleagues have gone through. Both times, I ended up there because of tear gas poisoning. Once, I was slightly too distracted watching a riot policeman teaching his colleague on the spot how to fire gas canisters before firing them frantically into crowds. Not everyone was a good student – one protester remains in emergency after being hit by that capsule in the face. Or, perhaps this was the best student?

No reports of titushki attacks today, but still, no one in their right mind would venture into those side streets alone. The police are there: they may detain you or ignore you while a group of thugs beats the daylights out of you. But they will never protect you. Lone fireworks go up and are met with cheers, a reminder of the maddest days of the protests, when demonstrators fired them in response to violent police dispersals. Then, the government cracked down on their sale, then on the sale of protective gear, including helmets and gas masks.

You can still buy balaclavas at the protest site from street vendors selling flags, toys, and Christmas decorations. Soon, face coverings will be banned as well—not for the police, of course.

The days have been the same but different. As is the rule, the regions turn out earlier. By the time the crowds start to gather on Rustaveli Avenue for the evening rallies, Kutaisi has already produced another Ivanishvili effigy and given it a spooky tarot reading, a professor from Zugdidi has delivered her speech that would make any politician jealous, and the students of Batumi have once again shown that they are the bravest – and have paid a price for it. And there is always one small town that dares to wake up from years of political hibernation.

Rallies in Tbilisi usually begin with various smaller marches – often professional groups – arriving one after the other. By 10 p.m. the avenue is full – crowded, noisy, but peaceful. Peaceful even as Georgian Dream’s lonely parliament resumes its work to bombard the country with a series of interdictions – cracking down on critical civil servants, banning the use of pyrotechnics and lasers, outlawing face coverings, making it easier for thugs to join the police, increasing fines for demonstrators… “Will you outlaw us too?” – flaps a poster on the Crisis Tree.

After midnight, the demonstrators form groups before slowly dispersing. What used to be battlefields are now agoras. Food and snacks are served in the best Georgian tradition. And contrary to the best Georgian traditions, the turnout at the rallies remains steady and stubbornly high.

“These violent groups were preparing violence for the second half of December, but this time, too, we were there first and made them waste their resources in advance,” said Georgian Dream leader Irakli Kobakhidze on November 29, echoing similar threats made by GD patron Ivanishvili back in April. As I finish this blog, it is December 12th, day 15 of the protest. And the discontent shows no signs of abating.

It feels like we are losing our country but finding each other, something that should never have been a zero-sum game. In the meantime, I start to miss myself, a life I imagined, but I also wonder if there is a “myself,” a human experience outside of these constant battles anymore.