Dispatch – March 16: Dog Days
On March 12, the 105th day of nonstop Georgian protests, Skelo left the Rustaveli Avenue rally early. Evidence from friends’ messages suggests that the chubby, fluffy, grayish, short-legged, sad-faced stray dog was still at the parliament when protesters again blocked Tbilisi’s main street. But minutes later he was sitting alone around the Liberty Square metro station, about 300 meters down the road, listening with watery eyes to a street musician’s lonely guitar wail. Skelo didn’t stay there long either, getting up lazily and slowly walking further away from the protest epicenter, unclear where. It was not his day. It could be that the mood of the rally was already low for him to play his sad-face card and get the attention of which, as one protester recently complained, he is a big seeker.
The protest day turned out differently for Nodar(i), another prominent riot dog. Unlike Skelo, whose not-so-politically correct name comes from his chubby physique, Nodar’s male human name perfectly matches the masculine demeanor of an athletic black-and-white bird dog. Nodar has all the rage in the world and patrols the section between Rustaveli Avenue and the Tbilisi Concert Hall, a strategic area where the daily marches are most likely to pass, which the dog is eager to accompany and lead. He is no friend of drivers and has been particularly unkind to police cars, which, painted in colors similar to his own, he must perceive as the greatest threat to his marked territory (and to his marching friends).
The hotheaded dog had been missing from the scene for several days when, on March 12, he must have sensed something unusual with his deep snout that brought him out of hiding: the daily evening march, which usually moved from Heroes’ Square to Rustaveli Avenue, suddenly passed him in the opposite direction.
Here is Nini and the Dispatch newsletter telling stories of two Tbilisi strays who came to represent two dominant – and contrasting – moods of the ongoing Georgian resistance.
The world according to Skelo
Skelo has been roaming Tbilisi’s Rustaveli Avenue for years. He was spotted at pro-Ukraine rallies weeks after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 and was seen marching with Chiatura residents who came to Tbilisi to demand fair compensation for their destroyed homes in the months before the 2024 elections. The harmless and peaceful stray dog never explicitly asks for attention and during marches, he usually prefers to walk in the crowd rather than on the front lines. This would have made the small dog rather invisible, were it not for the undeniable swing of his back during these walks and the melancholy eyes that carry all the world’s pain.
If you could ask Skelo exactly when things went so wrong in his country, he’d probably shrug and tell you he did his best, dutifully attending every pro-Western or anti-government protest he came across in his area. It’s probably others who have spared the effort, easily succumbing to their mood swings when things got bad. The pets he has received from European lawmakers only confirm that Skelo is one of those “civilized,” pro-EU, law-abiding, peaceful citizens, with the innocence on his face that has survived many temptations of this cruel life. The emo eye makeup he was born with further adds to his look of the concerned activist that portrait photographers love to shoot at more subdued rallies, risking right-wing scorn on how men shouldn’t paint their eyes, or left-wing skepticism that this is just another gathering of a bunch of liberal hipsters out of touch with the common people.
Skelo did leave Rustaveli Avenue once. Having followed groups of protesters into the upscale Vake neighborhood in the weeks after the disputed October elections, he remained camped out there, among the university campuses, long after the post-election protests had died down. The distance spared him the crossfire of gas canisters, water cannons, and loud fireworks after a new wave of anti-regime protests broke out on November 28. He did not return to his home area until mid-January, somewhat unenthusiastically following the workers from Vake back to Rustaveli Avenue during a general strike. By then, he must have lost all hope that Georgia’s struggling academic circles were capable of forming the backbone of resistance.
He has remained in the Parliament area ever since, hanging out with other sad-faced protesters who try to keep the resistance alive with (dwindling) daily peaceful gatherings. And while it may sound increasingly foolish to some, Skelo probably hopes it will eventually break the system.
The world according to Nodar
Unlike Skelo, Nodar rose to prominence more recently, sometime in November. The videos of him and his fellow strays confronting police cars during rallies made him an instant star. He was seen ripping off the car’s license plate after an unsuccessful attempt to bite off the front wheel as well, an act he has tried to repeat many times since. Wrong? Criminal? Nodar cares little for these restrictive notions of perfect citizenship: the only way for him to be a good boy is through being bad. He wakes up, chooses violence, and is also a bad influence by damaging the criminal records of the otherwise peaceful strays he befriends along the way. Show him a squabble, he’ll make it double.
Nodar prefers to be on the front lines, leading the protest marches he encounters, but never consistently. The restless dog makes rounds, erratically circling and clearing the area where protesters are expected to pass. Where the marchers walk one kilometer, Nodar runs five. His frequent risky ventures into busy traffic and straight into the wheels of racing cars would have gotten him fined many times over, were it not for the innate black balaclava he has painted on his face and his hyperactivity that makes it difficult for cameras to capture him.
If you have ever tried to photograph Nodar, it must have been a difficult task to choose a good picture from many blurry ones. He even has a skin condition that goes untreated simply because his human friends could not catch him standing still long enough. The only time he rests is when he makes it into the nearby fancy Stamba Hotel and recharges on a leather couch, or when he’s had a solid portion of free food available on Rustaveli Avenue during larger rallies.
If Nodar could talk, he’d probably bark a lot of illegal words and complain that his fellow protesters are being ungrateful: instead of letting him do his job and actually make a difference, they love to spread conspiracies that dogs like him are violent provocateurs the security services have smuggled in to smear the entire peaceful resistance. But that doesn’t stop Nodar, who knows well that deep down everyone wants to be like him, even if not everyone finds the same courage.
So, who’s the good boy?
March 12 was Nodar’s day. The moment he saw protesters marching from Rustaveli Avenue to the Public Broadcaster’s office to support the Theatre University students demanding airtime, he was happy to assist and lead with his rage, bravely menacing police cars along the way. The rally proved dynamic, succeeding in getting the protesting students on the air, and eventually reversing the process of their expulsion.
But not all days are so vibrant. Fearing that the protests are waning, activists are faced with a dilemma about what path to take as the non-stop resistance enters its 110th day: do they stick to Skelo’s dedicated routine and stubbornly but peacefully continue their quiet, “civilized” resistance, or has the time come for Nodar’s noisy mayhem to make a comeback in the increasingly depressed streets of Tbilisi? The dilemma is real: Nodar’s hot-headed and risky way is easily smeared (if not jailed), while Skelo’s quiet battles are now increasingly ridiculed (and fined). But perhaps it’s not a dilemma at all, but rather two complementary means to the same battle.
Indeed, dogs couldn’t be more different in character, and yet both are just lonely strays fighting for their right to exist, and to exist among those who will unconditionally love them, feed them, and never leave them. And if Skelo and Nodar could actually talk, they would probably say that they are both good boys with mutual respect. The real bad boys, they would say, are to be found among those sofa wolves who are good at barking at them from balconies, but run and hide under their pillows at the first minor inconvenience.
