The South Caucasus country of Georgia is a source of much sought-after Christmas tree seeds. But its own forests are now under threat, as firewood is in increasing demand as a cheap source of heat for homes, schools and hospitals.

Before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, rural communities here relied on what were then relatively inexpensive heating sources, like diesel fuel, for their cooking and heating. Over the past 20 years, however, small, wood-burning stoves have become ubiquitous, as many Georgians, without access to natural gas or pressed for cash, have turned to the forests to heat their homes.

In a recent survey of 2,000 villages nationwide, the Caucasus Environmental NGO Network (CENN) found that between 75 to 96 percent of the villages, depending on the region, rely on firewood for heat. That number, noted Rezo Getiashvili, CENN’s environmental projects coordinator, even includes villages with access to natural gas.

Consequently, some forests have been depleted to such a degree that wood shortages could occur, the group claims. Hundreds of thousands of hectares of forests are estimated to be in peril after decades of misuse and mismanagement.

“The vast majority of the villagers agreed that the condition of the forests is very tough and it is getting worse every year,” said Getiashvili.

The Georgian government has partnered with the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic (SOCAR) to install natural-gas pipelines and infrastructure around the country. But even where the gas has been brought in, residents often lack the means to either purchase gas heaters or connect their homes to the gas system.

In Mukhrovani, a small village of 90 families 25 kilometres from Tbilisi, the public school uses logs to heat a handful of classrooms because the new gas piping stops 50 metres from its building.

To cover the cost of the firewood, the school saves money from its budget all year to collect the 900 lari (roughly 529 dollars) necessary to heat the building through the winter.

While firewood keeps the children warm, the situation is far from ideal.

A makeshift ventilation system of rusting pipes goes through windows to push the dust and smoke outdoors. As a result, when the weather is windy, some rooms are unusable, noted Principal Sveta Suborukava.

Out of the 2,086 public schools in the country, 1,453 depend on firewood for heating, according to the Educational and Scientific Infrastructure Development Agency, the government body that oversees school buildings. The agency is working to connect schools to the gas system where natural gas supplies exist.

But even villagers in Mukhrovani and elsewhere are opting for firewood because it is cheaper. Irakli Matchashvili, the biodiversity programme coordinator at Green Alternative, a Tbilisi-based non-government organisation, noted that while natural gas is affordable in Tbilisi, the costs can run up to twice as much in the regions – roughly from 50 tetri to 80 tetri (29 to 47 cents) per cubic metre.

The northern mountain region of Racha, home to many of Georgia’s Christmas-tree cones, ranks as one of the heaviest areas for firewood use, according to the CENN survey.

The search for firewood is not creating an immediate danger for this export industry, although investors have noted isolated incidents when trees on their lots were cut down or access to good seeds was cut off because the government was cracking down on illegal logging.

But Nata Peradze, the founder of Guerrilla Gardening Tbilisi, a grassroots activists’ group, believes the hunt for live Christmas trees – cutting down the actual fir trees instead of just harvesting the seeds – is adding to the strain on the country’s forests since small trees, the saplings needed to rejuvenate the forests, are the ones being cut.

Environmentalists like Green Alternative’s Matchashvili stress, though, that such uses for Georgia’s forests are not an insurmountable problem if the government starts to manage the resource. “The main factor of the unsustainable forest use is the absence of proper planning,” Matchashvili said.

“Another problem… is the absence of real data. How many forests do we have? Nobody knows. How many families depend on firewood? Nobody knows.”

The Georgian Ministry of Environment and Natural Resource Protection claims that it is taking measures to tackle the issue. Under a proposal passed by parliament this month, it plans to increase the number of forestry service personnel from 969 to 2,000 people, and has imposed relatively hefty fines (from between 200 to 600 laris, or 116.50 to 349.43 dollars) on illegal logging or felling trees in protected areas or on endangered lists. Cutting down Christmas trees now incurs a fine of up to 1,000 laris, or 582.38 dollars.

While some of these proposals are still awaiting implementation, Matchashvili praised the ministry’s efforts this year, noting that now it is just a matter of putting these recent measures to work to save the “very” small number of forests left for public use.

“The main risk is if it continues business as usual,” he said.

Guerrilla Gardening Tbilisi has received financial support from the Open Society Georgia Foundation, part of the network of Open Society Foundations. EurasiaNet.org operates under the auspices of the Central Eurasia Project, a separate part of that network.

Editor’s note: Molly Corso is a freelance reporter and photojournalist in Tbilisi, Georgia. This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili rose to power in 2012 on a pledge to depoliticise the powerful police force created by President Mikheil Saakashvili following the 2003 Rose Revolution.

Yet while observers credit the government for putting an end to some alleged police abuses, concerns persist about the overall conduct of Georgia’s Interior Ministry.

For the governing Georgian Dream coalition, the stakes tied to those concerns are high, given that a presidential election is fast approaching. Rights advocates contend that measures taken so far by the Georgian Dream haven’t succeeded in boosting public confidence in the police force.

Some observers also contend that Interior Minister Irakli Gharibashvili’s job performance leaves a lot to be desired.

Ironically, police reform ranks as one of the Saakashvili-led United National Movement’s most significant achievements during its tenure as the majority party in the Georgian parliament. In the years since the Rose Revolution, the police force steadily shed its reputation as a den of corrupt bunglers and gained a measure of respect for efficient crime-fighting.

But even as the police improved its performance on the street level, critics charged that the Saakashvili administration misused the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) to protect its political power.

Georgian crime specialist Aleko Kupatadze, a post-doctoral fellow at Oxford University’s University College, documented numerous abuses against government critics and opposition politicians – including the use of intimidation, improper surveillance and arrests – in a 2012 report for Tbilisi’s Center for Social Sciences. In addition the use of torture against individuals in police custody has remained a persistent issue.

In an attempt to break with the past, Prime Minister Ivanishvili tapped as interior minister 30-year-old Irakli Gharibashvili, an individual closely linked with Ivanishvili family interests – he formerly ran Ivanishvili’s charity foundation Cartu, sat on his Cartu Bank’s supervisory board, and managed the record label for Ivanishvili’s singer-son, Bera.

Like his Saakashvili-era predecessors, Gharibashvili had no prior experience in police work, but unlike them, he also had no prior experience in government. He came into office with a pledge to end reported abuses ranging from violence against detainees to covert video surveillance of government critics.

Two of the most powerful police agencies, the dreaded Special Operations Department and Constitutional Security Department, were closed, and their portfolios turned over to the Anti-Corruption Agency, the State Security Agency, and the Criminal Police, a special investigations unit.

But some civil-rights observers note that not all the changes have been for the good.

On three separate occasions – a Feb. 8 scuffle between Ivanishvili and Saakashvili supporters outside the National Library, a May 1 workers’ rights protest, and a May 17 attack against anti-homophobia activists – police in Tbilisi floundered in efforts to maintain public order.

While police now are “much less brutal” toward demonstrators, their overall response to the May 17 fracas was “disorganised” and “completely disorderly,” commented Gia Gvilava, manager of Transparency International Georgia’s Judicial Monitoring and Legal Advice Programme. Other civil-rights activists have concurred.

“They disbanded the SWAT teams, the special units that deal with demonstrations, which is not as good as they think because you still need specially trained people in units to maintain order during big demonstrations,” Gvilava said.

Part of the problem, he noted, could have been a lack of qualified personnel.

As part of an alleged internal reform process, Gharibashvili suspended training requirements for high-level hires from January until the end of March. Three hundred and forty-one individuals were hired during this period, Gvilava claimed, citing Interior Ministry information.

The ministry did not respond to Transparency International Georgia requests for information about the exact positions filled, he said. It also has not responded to allegations that the new hires were intended for spots left vacant after a reported post-election purge.

Whatever the rationale for the suspension of hiring requirements, the ministry ran a “huge risk” by opening recruitment to potentially unqualified candidates, Gvilava asserted.

Interior Minister Gharibashvili also has been shadowed by allegations he arranged various government jobs for relatives, and used his position to secure the arrest of former Interior Ministry employees as retribution for the earlier detention of his father-in-law, Tamaz Tamazashvili, a former regional police chief, in 2011 on illegal weapons charges.

Gharibashvili has denied the charges. But Kupatadze, the researcher on law-enforcement issues, maintains that there is at least an appearance of impropriety surrounding Gharibashvili’s conduct.

The Tamazashvili-related arrests impinge on any ministry claim to be “an impartial institution”, Kupatadze said, adding that jobs allegedly secured for relatives of Gharibashvili or his wife, Nunuka Tamazashvili, contribute to “a worrying trend of ‘legitimising’ nepotism”.

At the same time, he continued, the ministry still relies “on technical and administrative measures to address the issue of crime”.

Interior Ministry officials did not follow up on interview requests from EurasiaNet.org, despite repeated attempts. The ministry did, however, provide a list of recent reforms, which included national tests for “all operational staff”, standardised hiring requirements and a new code of ethics to promote human rights.

How these reforms will counteract many Georgians’ perceptions of diminished safety remains unclear. In March, the MIA released data that showed the number of crimes reported in November 2012, one month after the Georgian Dream’s election victory, increased by nearly 40 percent from the previous year to 4,598 cases.

The mass amnesty of 8,357 prisoners this January has also fanned public jitters. With an eye, conceivably, on his party’s chances in this October’s presidential vote, President Saakashvili recently chided the Interior Ministry for rehiring police officers the UNM-led government had jailed.

For human rights activist Nazi Janezashvili, the question now is how Georgia’s latest round of police reforms will be implemented. “Without competent staff, without implementation of regulations, nothing can be reformed,” Janezashvili said.

Kupatadze, meanwhile, predicted that the Interior Ministry’s performance “is likely to remain an issue over [the] short and medium-term”.

*Editor’s note: Molly Corso is a freelance journalist who also works as editor of Investor.ge, a monthly publication by the American Chamber of Commerce in Georgia.

This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

In the two-plus decades since the Soviet collapse, the Georgian Orthodox Church has emerged as one of the South Caucasus country’s most respected and influential institutions. But some observers and theologians now worry that ultra-conservative clerics within the Church are gaining too much power.

The growing sway of fundamentalist and nationalist elements within the Church was on full display on May 17, when a clergy-led mob attacked gay-rights demonstrators in Tbilisi.“The Orthodox Church in Georgia today reflects all those problems that have been problematic for the Georgian nation and state." -- Tamara Grdzelidze of the WCC

That priestly outburst of bigotry was not an isolated incident. Previous occurrences of ultra-conservative muscle-flexing included a mass mobilisation against Georgian ID cards, allegedly because ultras believed the cards referenced the sign of the devil.

Ultras also actively campaigned against President Mikheil Saakashvili’s United National Movement Party during the run-up to the October 2012 parliament elections – despite the patriarch’s request to stay out of politics.

The parliamentary election experience suggests to some Church watchers that the Patriarch, Ilya II, is losing his grip over the clergy. Ilya II is 80 years old and rumoured to be in poor health. Although his word is final in all areas of the Church’s internal workings, age may have significantly diminished his ability to pay attention to details and promote general doctrinal unity among the clergy.

While the patriarch remains a popular leader of the Church, it’s difficult to tell where many bishops stand. What is increasingly evident is that a philosophical split is developing within the Church. Theologian Levan Abashidze describes the divide as “serious.”

A press representative for the Church did not respond to an interview request.

According to some outside observers, the Georgian Orthodox Church has been moving in a steadily conservative direction since 1997, when it left the World Council of Churches (WCC). A major factor in this retrograde drift is a decline in the educational level of clergy members.

“The Orthodox Church in Georgia today reflects all those problems that have been problematic for the Georgian nation and state: poor education, economic shortages and unemployment, the lack of the civil society, underdeveloped democracy, a long gap in the organised church life, unqualified clergy … all these factors supporting its isolationist and exclusivist tendencies,” noted Tamara Grdzelidze, a programme executive within the Faith and Order Secretariat of the WCC in Geneva.

When Ilya II became the patriarch in 1977, the Georgian Church counted only about 50 priests. Since the lifting of Soviet-era controls over religious life, the ranks of the clergy have exploded, with upwards of 1,700 ordained priests active today. Not all members of the clergy have gained a thorough grounding in theology via training at a seminary or theological academy.

Limited oversight over the preparation of priests means that the quality of their religious teachings varies widely. Rapid growth helped strengthen the Church, but it created a “vacuum” of knowledge, noted one theologian close to the Patriarchate who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution.

“[People] should know that [beating people] is not Christian, is not Orthodox, is not Georgian. …There is a vacuum of theology,” he said.

Priests who lack proper training are more apt to be part of the ultra-conservative movement within the Church. “[We need to] learn how to think,” the theologian said. “If we start to learn philosophy … tomorrow we will not throw rocks.”

The philosophical struggle within the Church seems set to intensify as Ilya II grows older and attention focuses on succession. In the Orthodox Christian faith, the patriarch is a life-long appointment. After the sitting patriarch’s death, a successor is chosen by the Church’s governing body of archbishops, the Holy Synod.

The outcome of the current succession maneuvering could have far-reaching implications for Georgia’s domestic and foreign policy, given patriarch’s ability to shape public opinion. Earlier this year, Ilya II was identified as Georgia’s most trusted public figure, according to a March 2013 survey by Caucasus Research Resource Center (CRRC).

Since the May 17 upheaval in Tbilisi, Ilya II has been an advocate of moderation and tolerance. “We need to value people,” he said during his Jun. 2 sermon. “We need to see in people…these positive elements that God awarded them. It is possible that a person has negative sides. But the positive is infinitely more.”

Abashidze noted that there are “certain groups” within the Church that are already engaged in a “strong fight for power”.

“There are groups who are more, let us say, open minded, and who understand that the Church needs real education, real theological education and people with theological knowledge – because otherwise the Church cannot survive,” he said.

Liberals, however, are in the minority, and there are few willing to publicly break ranks with conservatives. In an interview with the Georgian magazine Liberali after the May 17 mob attack, however, one priest urged his colleagues to speak up.

“Probably a lot of religious people were very surprised by what happened,” said Dekan Iakob Makhniashvili. “For every religious person, this day should serve as a good example that religion should not provoke people into aggression and hate.”

*Editor’s note:  Molly Corso is a freelance journalist who also works as editor of Investor.ge, a monthly publication by the American Chamber of Commerce in Georgia.

This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

Georgia may be touted as the most pro-Western country in the South Caucasus, but the recent backlash against LGBT activists in Tbilisi underscores how wide the cultural divide is when it comes to defining democratic values.

While most Georgians condemn the violent May 17 attack on an anti-homophobia rally, many do not see the core issue as having anything to do with a lack of tolerance, a right to freedom of assembly or respect for minority rights.

Rather, many see the central issue as a matter that goes to the heart of Georgia’s national heritage and cultural identity: should Georgians be expected to embrace a lifestyle seen as common in the West, but unsuitable for Georgian society and incompatible with the teachings of the country’s main unifying force, the Georgian Orthodox Church?

Many Georgians would answer no to that question. After years of jumping through hoops to meet Western demands, some say they have seen no results – popularly defined as economic prosperity and territorial security – out of the process. How showing greater respect for gay rights, an issue often misinterpreted in Georgia as meaning general avowal of personal homosexuality, will change that situation leaves many at a loss to explain.

“If the West wants us, they have to take us as we are,” declared Georgian Orthodox Church Bishop Iakob of Bodbe and Tsurtaveli in response to international criticism of the attempt to drive LGBT activists from Freedom Square, an event in which he took part.

Criticism coming from the West about the May 17 events appears to be doing more to fuel resentment than fostering soul-searching. “Whoever — America or Europe — comes to us as a friend, we will be friends, of course. But if it wants to dictate its own [agenda], we will not accept that,” said a Tbilisi tobacco stand worker named Nodar.

One Tbilisi printing shop clerk agreed. “In general, [the West] has been treating [Georgia] like a little child: ‘If you will behave well, we will take you to ride the rides” said Manuchar. “That is having a really bad effect on people.”

The explanation for such sentiments lies, in part, in the context of current times.

“Georgian society at the moment is very poor, very frustrated, very unhappy and…caring [more] about economic and survival issues [than self-expression],” said political scientist Marina Muskhelishvili, co-founder of the Centre for Social Studies in Tbilisi. “Nobody can expect that it [Georgia] will become European in a moment … and tolerate all lifestyles and all behaviours.”

In recent years, as Georgians have grappled with economic, political turmoil and perceived encroachments on their country’s sovereignty, interest in all things seen as intrinsically Georgian – in particular, the Church — has increased. The issue of gay rights, as Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili explained to European diplomats on May 24, is “relatively new to us,” news outlets reported.

Against that backdrop, international calls for respecting those minorities’ right to assemble can come across more as demands to change “core values,” said Koba Turmanidze, country director of the Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC), which runs annual surveys on values in the South Caucasus.

“[I]t is hard to say whether people understand that no one asks you to become gay, no one asks you to marry a person of your gender; you are just asked not to beat these people up,” Turmanidze said.

While Georgian television reported Western diplomats as expressing “surprise” at the attack on LGBT activists, in reality, the display served as “maybe [a] very good reminder” that Georgia, though “going ahead fast” toward democracy, has not yet arrived at its final destination, observed political scientist Alexander Rondeli, founder of the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies in Tbilisi (GFSIS).

Muskhelishvili cautioned that the cultural divide could widen if Western governments do not listen more and lecture less. “For many years, Western partners were promoting [the] development of Georgia. But in many cases they were following their own vision of what is on the agenda” within the country, she said.

Women’s rights, for instance, are “not a priority” for Georgians since they are more concerned with “how to feed their family” than about “who is the boss in the family,” she noted.

Representatives of the US Embassy and European Union’s mission in Tbilisi did not comment when queried on the cultural-divide question.

The Georgian government should do more to inform the public about the role civil rights plays in any partnership with the West, said Viktor Dolidze, chair of the Parliamentary Committee for European Integration.

At present, many Georgians see the prospect of membership in the European Union or the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation purely in terms of the benefits of enjoying a greater degree of stability and prosperity. Few are taking into account the fact that membership in such organisations will require Georgia to harmonise its values with EU and NATO norms, Dolidze added.

With time, though, more and more Georgians will come to understand the challenges, said GFSIS’s Rondeli. “Only now, [a] generation of Georgians understand[s] they have to have [a] modern, democratic, inclusive, nation state,” he said. “And now, people are starting to understand that it is very difficult to achieve.”

*Editor’s note: Molly Corso is a freelance journalist who also works as editor of Investor.ge, a monthly publication by the American Chamber of Commerce in Georgia.

This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

A 150-million-dollar-plus Chinese real estate and tourism deal that is slated for a suburb of Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, is creating a quandary for many Georgians.

The project is feeding a long-standing desire for foreign investment, but it is also stoking wariness about foreign influence.[People] have the notion about China that it is huge and enormously populated, and their idea is somehow to expand.

Set against a broad backdrop of crumbling, Soviet-era apartment blocks, the project — run by the Hualing Group, a privately owned, Xinjiang, China,-based company with banking, timber, and hotel investments in Georgia – is projected to remake about 420 hectares of land in the working-class district of Vazisubani.

In the first, 150-million-dollar phase, housing will be built on four hectares for the European Youth Olympic Festival, an event of young athletes from 48 European countries that Tbilisi will host in 2015. A subsequent step is expected to include a retail and residential area, to be built at an unknown cost.

Last year, President Mikheil Saakashvili’s government praised the Hualing Group for bringing in much-needed investment and employment to a poor, densely populated part of Tbilisi. The level of investment for the first phase amounts to more than five times the size of total Chinese foreign investment in Georgia in 2012.

At the same time, rumours that the project will bring 127,000 Chinese immigrants into the city to work and live are generating local concern – increasingly prevalent since the 2008 war with Russia — about foreigners pushing Georgians off their own land and depriving them of hard-to-find jobs.

“Nothing will be left for us [if so many Chinese come],” complained Gulara, a 62 year-old female pensioner who lives near the planned development site. “Where did all these ethnic groups come from?…God gave us this land.”

In recent years, Tbilisi has experienced an influx of immigrants from Africa and South Asia, as well as occasional Chinese traders, and Arab investors. But in a country of 4.49 million people with estimated rates of unemployment over 50 percent, these visitors are sometimes seen more as an economic threat than as a source of opportunity.

“People are not aware of how to deal with, how to cohabitate … with others,” said Nana Berekashvili, the head of the Department on Minorities and Gender at Tbilisi’s International Center on Conflict and Negotiation. “In [the] case of [the] Chinese, I think it is … [people] having the notion about China that it is huge and enormously populated, and their idea is somehow to expand.”

Representatives of the Hualing Group denied that there are plans for a massive resettlement of Chinese to Tbilisi. The residential buildings that will begin construction once the Olympic Village is finished will be sold on the open market, and are not sufficient to house 127,000 people, commented the company’s Georgia spokesperson, Tina Shishinashvili.

She emphasised that 531 of the project’s 659 workers are Georgian citizens. Hualing has also taken on Georgian architects to design its overall strategic plan, she said.

But such assurances mean little to figures such as Jondi Bagaturia, the outspoken head of the right-wing Kartuli Dasi (Georgian Troupe) political party. The party has played a prominent role in stoking popular discontent over the project with claims of a pending Chinese resettlement.

Bagaturia says he bases his opposition on what he purports to be a copy of the contract between the Georgian government and the Hualing Group. Although the investment itself is “very good,” he said any influx of Chinese immigrants is “unacceptable” since the government “must protect the labour market.”

Neither the Economic Development Ministry nor Tbilisi City Hall responded to requests for comment about the planned investment. The project’s architectural plan is still awaiting municipal approval.

Hualing Group’s interest in Georgia is not unusual. Chinese companies in the past have been involved in large-scale investments ranging from the construction of a hydropower plant to a railway tunnel. With a trade turnover of 591.5 million dollars, China in 2012 ranked as Georgia’s fourth largest trading partner.

Yet Georgians’ attitudes toward the Chinese — and immigrants in general — remain complex. A 2010 survey by the Caucasus Research Resource Center in Tbilisi found that while 57 percent of 2,089 Georgian respondents supported doing business with the Chinese, 80 percent were against the closer tie of marriage.

While Georgian culture stipulates hospitality and respect toward guests, Berekashvili commented, Georgians are selective about which ethnic groups are welcomed. They “are very hospitable toward people from Western cultures, from Europe, from the United States, but very little to others,” she said.

For Yu Hua, a Chinese businessman, Georgia is still a land of opportunity. After 14 years in the country, Yu serves as the president of the newly formed Chinese Chamber of Commerce and is married to a Georgian.

He says that he has never experienced racism or discrimination, but underlines that the government and media need “to offer… correct information” to dispel rumours that could spoil Chinese-Georgian business ties.

Right now, opinions are decidedly mixed.

As a small crew cleared mounds of earth from the European Youth Olympic Village site one day last month, a group of male onlookers dismissed the Chinese project with shrugs and a curse. But one 65-year-old woman selling sunflower seeds near the site remained optimistic.

“Let’s see what happens,” she said. “I don’t think it will be bad.”

*Editor’s note: Molly Corso is a freelance journalist who also works as editor of Investor.ge, a monthly publication by the American Chamber of Commerce in Georgia.

This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

Rooted in longstanding historical, religious and economic differences, Georgian animosity toward neighbouring Turkey, Georgia’s fifth-largest investor, appears to be growing in the Black Sea region of Achara.

Recently, politicians eager for votes in Georgia’s Oct. 1 parliamentary elections have brought the sentiments to a steady boil.

The number of Turkish citizens entering Georgia nearly tripled during the first six months of 2012 (658,000) compared with the same period in 2011 (252,000), according to the Turkish consulate in Batumi.

For many, Batumi, a port city of about 125,000 people that has undergone a no-holds-barred beautification campaign, is their first port of call.

Turkish families stroll in groups along the city’s picturesque seaside boulevard or shop in Turkish fashion boutiques in the historic district, while Turkish gamblers throng the casinos.

But their presence, for some Georgian politicians and voters, is not always welcomed.

Over the past several weeks, politicians connected with billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili’s opposition Georgian Dream coalition have whipped up anger among crowds of Batumi supporters with allegations that President Mikheil Saakashvili’s ruling United National Movement Party is allowing “Turkish expansionism” that threatens Georgian culture and Georgian jobs. And even the country’s sovereignty itself.

They claim that the open-armed welcome for Turkish tourists and investors is ruining Batumi with growing prostitution and “the smell of Turkish donar (kebabs)” sold by street vendors.

While Ivanishvili himself has repeatedly stated that he does not support xenophobia, some Georgians see Turkey as an “acceptable” common enemy to target, commented Beka Mindiashvili, an expert at the Public Defender’s Office’s Tolerance Centre.

“(The opposition) can’t say (the enemy) is the West or America,” Mindiashvili said, since most Georgians eagerly desire friendship with those powers. “It has to be connected to the opinions in society, and our history with Turkey is one of war…”

The Ottoman Empire controlled western Georgia from the late 16th century until 1878, when Achara, among other territories, was ceded to the Russian Empire, Georgia’s then suzerain. Turkey attempted to retake Achara in 1918, toward the end of World War I, but was repulsed. A second failed attempt came when the Red Army invaded the Democratic Republic of Georgia in 1921.

Memories of that history, often coloured by suspicions of Islam and wariness of foreigners, still run strong. The anti-Turkey rhetoric does “not come from an empty space . . .” Mindiashvili said.

Few residents in Batumi were willing to go on the record about their feelings toward Turks, but some claimed that, despite Georgians’ traditional love of guests, the Turks are wearing out their welcome.

“There shouldn’t be so many Turks coming to Batumi…they don’t have any respect for our culture,” complained 57-year-old driver Giorgi Tkemaladze, annoyed by what he described as Turkish men publicly consorting with prostitutes. “When they are good and nice, let them come.”

While local observers doubt that such moods will translate “into aggression” against visiting Turks, “there is a tendency that it could turn more aggressive,” commented Parmen Jalagonia, head of the Batumi office for the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association.

Tensions in Batumi about Georgia’s relationship with Turkey started to increase last year, when the government announced plans to rebuild an historic mosque in the city near the gravesite of Georgians killed trying to end a brief Turkish occupation of Batumi in 1921, Jalagonia said. The plans are part of an agreement with the Turkish government to allow the Georgian restoration of medieval Georgian Orthodox churches in northeastern Turkey.

Construction on the mosque has not started, and negotiations about the project are still underway. Before the initial public reaction, which included protests, “xenophobic statements” were “quiet” and mostly linked to reports that the local government “sells property to Turkish investors for a symbolic price”, Jalagonia said.

The land-sale allegations could not be independently substantiated. But Turkey’s economic muscle is the way many Georgians know the country best – most immediately, via cheap Turkish goods in supermarkets and bazaars.

Turkish investment stood at 43 million dollars for the first two quarters of 2012, nearly half of its total of 75 million dollars for all of 2011. According to Turkey’s Batumi consulate, Turkish companies have created jobs for 6,000 locals in Achara alone. Georgian government figures were not available.

The country also ranks, along with Russia, as a top destination for Georgian labour migrants. Georgians can enter Turkey visa-free, but now, like other foreign nationals, face tighter restrictions on long-term stays, part of a bid to curb illegal migration. The deportation of 142 Georgian migrants in August under the rules fueled popular resentment of Turkey for being “unfair”.

Mindiashvili, however, predicted that the influx of Turks with cash to spend means that “primitive Turkophobia” will not take root in Batumi or Achara, where official unemployment stands at 18 percent. The Public Defender’s Office has not recorded any acts of violence toward local Turkish investors or visitors, he added.

“(T)his type of… xenophobia will not be accepted because people live better than they lived before this,” he said. “(O)pen commercial ties go only to the improvement of the economic lives of Georgians.”

The Turkish consulate in Batumi also has no record of violence against visiting Turks. Turkish Consul Engin Arıkan described the anti-Turkish rhetoric as “not good”, but stressed that it is limited to a “marginal group”.

*Editor’s note: Molly Corso is a freelance journalist who also works as editor of Investor.ge, a monthly publication by the American Chamber of Commerce in Georgia. Paul Rimple is a freelance reporter based in Tbilisi.

This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.