How Luxemburg was emptied in 48 hours

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During the war, in 1941, the communists deported the Germans then living in Luxemburg (Bolnisi) to Central Asia and Kazakhstan to the empty steppes, within 48 hours. It all happened so suddenly and so fast that they couldn’t take anything with them. My mom used to tell me, how trucks came to take the Germans, and how the hell started. My mother remembered this day as a horror – hungry cattle were mooing, dogs were barking and running here and there. Soon the robbery of Germans’ houses started as well. It was October, the grape harvest had already been collected and the Germans had their two- or three-floor cellars filled with the autumn harvest, for the winter. But they couldn’t take anything with them, even though it was already winter and the communists housed them in huts, where they endured many hardships – hunger, cold, and death as well. After Stalin’s death, Khrushchev allowed the Germans to return to their homeland from Kazakhstan. Part of the Germans returned to Bolnisi since it had already become their homeland. But later they were asked to become official citizens of the Soviet Union and they had to return to Germany. Even though they had been through a lot of trouble, they started a new life in Germany and continued their hard work. I have never met any other such strong people. The Schwabs were special people, from whom we could only learn the best.

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I wanted to study at Iliauni or TSU, but I didn’t get enough points and instead went to Georgian Technical University. I was very nervous about it and decided to try again next year and get accepted to the place that I really wanted. I moved to Tbilisi to prepare for the exams, and, at the same time, started working in one of the supermarkets. Working there was very difficult since sometimes I had to work night shifts as well. Within a month, Ramilia Aliyeva from the Public TV Channel called me, she knew that I wanted to be a journalist and also, that I had experience working for Marneuli radio. I was called for an interview, and, as it turned out, they liked my Azerbaijani diction and I got the job on the same day. In a month, I was already hosting the show.

I was always a very active girl, I also had male friends; I often traveled from the village to Marneuli and because the bus runs from our village only once a day, I also had to use the taxi. Therefore, people in the village often said bad things about me. They said that I was too open-minded and that my father should really care about me and my future. My father once even told them that I was his child and it was none of their business where I’d go. He always told me that he couldn’t see a problem being friends with boys and he believed in me. I often locked myself in the room and thought about what I had done that people would say such horrible things about me. Even now it’s not easy, but I try not to pay attention to it and they can think whatever they want.

You Georgians have more freedom than we do. The women of my village stay home most of the time, since the only public place in our village is the teahouse, where women aren’t allowed, and you can’t even stand in the center of the village. Women and girls should sit at home, or visit each other only during the day. When a girl has a Facebook or Instagram account, it’s also considered bad manners. I’ve had social network accounts since school and I also shared photos online. I couldn’t understand what was wrong with posting my photos on my own page. I started attending training in the 8th grade, where I found a lot of friends from different regions, so I needed Facebook to communicate with them and also to get news. When I started working on television and they saw me, the same people who were previously said horrible things about me, completely changed attitudes, they began saying ”what a cool girl you are”, ”we are proud of you!” and so on.

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My mother died when giving birth to me and I grew up without her. I was a really beautiful girl, I sang well and my school let me study at the Gori music school. I met my future husband there, who sang in an ensemble. I was only interested in music. My husband was older than me and was a very charming young man. He often came to our village. When I was 15 years old, I gave up everything and married him. Why in hell would I do that?! I was a stupid little girl and it seems to be my fate to have been married and widowed at a very early age… I was 22 years old when my husband died in a car crash and I was left alone with two small children.

I had one year left at the Gori Music school when I got married. So, they came to my house after the marriage to ask me to continue my studies. My mother-in-law answered, ‘’If she wanted to study, she wouldn’t have married my son’’ – that’s how she humiliated me in front of them and kicked them out. In this family, education wasn’t important and I was not able to finish my studies. For years, I worked at different places – for a while in the Tskhinvali hospital, then some other places. I was so heartbroken that I said I would never go back to music. But in the end, I went back to music – to my true inspiration. In Eredvi, we had a very big Culture House with many different ensembles. I led the folk ensemble and raised many generations. We had many achievements together. At the Eredvi Culture House, I had a whole wall in my room full of trophies.

Many women were actively involved in the national movement. We often went to strikes in Tbilisi and I always stood in the front line with a flag in my hands. During one of these strikes in front of the government building, Georgian women came to me and asked to say in front of people, that Georgians and Ossetians should continue to live together. At that time, there was a Svan woman with a machine gun and when she heard I was Ossetian, she screamed at them, even dead Ossetians cannot be trusted; and you want to trust one that still breathes?! She said she already had collected 9 ears from Ossetian bodies and wanted to cut one from me as well. We were surrounded by many people and I was so scared, that I fainted. Although I only remember support from Georgians, I have to say that, when I was left alone, the whole of my village stood by me like a family. They took care of my children. How would this Svan woman know that Ossetians too perceived me as a traitor, because I considered Tskhvinvali to be a part of Georgia. When the Russians came to Eredvi and Disevi to punish the ‘’enemies’’ and ‘’traitors’’, I was on their list too. I was informed they wanted to take me, therefore, I didn’t stay home overnight and hid with others. On the day I was taken, I went to my house at five o’clock in the morning. It turns out the Russians were following me and took me to Tskhinvali. In those moments, I said goodbye to everything – my children and my home. But I decided that no matter what they’d do, I would not say anything to harm Georgia. I remember they showed me a huge iron ‘’barrel’, telling that they would boil me in it. Time to time they would open the prison door and tell me, that they would take me out soon and burn me. On the second day of my captivity, Georgians again stood by my side. My whole village was there for me, people rushed to Tskhinvali and blocked the roads. They said: if this woman wasn’t released, they would start a war. Their protest worked and I was freed a day later.

I remember one moment from this captivity. They brought one Ossetian woman to me, whose son was killed by Georgians. She was asking me to tell her where his son was taken, where he was killed. I, of course, knew nothing. Ossetians behaved the same way. Georgian boys were tied to trees, forced to sing about Georgia, and set on fire. Do you know, how many such stories happened there?! Ossetians have their reasons to be angry at Georgians. Georgians killed a lot of young Ossetians too, many Ossetian young people were killed, innocent families, who did nothing wrong, were left embittered. Many Georgian-Ossetian families have also been broken up by this conflict. There was a crime from both sides and innocent people were its victims. Eventually, after the 2008 war, we all had to leave and I’ve been living in Koda since then. I started working with children again here and I’m already raising my second ensemble.

Although no one would harm me here because of my Ossetian surname, I still switched to my mother’s last name and became Askilashvili. My husband was also Ossetian, but I also gave my children my mother’s surname; their children too. It probably was a protest on one hand, because the Ossetians have broken my heart on multiple occasions; and, on the other hand, I was scared of what I’ve heard from the Georgians’ towards the Ossetians in The 90s.

Author: Ida Bakhturidze
Photographer: Nino Baidauri
Translation: Mariam Kajrishvili

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‘’I call myself a civil activist, but there was a time when I didn’t even know what gender meant and I thought early marriage was a normal thing to do. In 2003, my 15-year-old sister got married and I wasn’t bothered by it. In 2005, I met a woman from Samtskhe-Javakheti, who had founded a women’s rights organization, worked on various projects, and conducted the training. We founded our own small local NGO – ‘’Marneuli Democrat Women’s Society’’.

From 2006, I started working for a local TV station, where I had to wear all the hats – be a producer, journalist, editor, cleaner… In the same year, ‘’Interpressnews’’ conducted a one-year program and then I learned that when conducting a street poll, you shouldn’t only interview men, but that it’s important to ask women for their opinion as well. Before that, in Marneuli, we only interviewed men. I found out that marriage at an early age could be a problem. I was doing stories about these topics – violence, political participation, why there were no female members in the City Council, why did the women only work as secretaries, and so on. However, at first, I was less sensitive to those kinds of issues. They’d just told me what to do and I would go and do it. Later I became more interested and started writing articles about this issue. That’s how this topic slowly came into my life.

In 2010, I received the George Soros foundation grant to study in the Gender Research Program. I ran from my TV job to lectures and suddenly, this girl from Marneuli, from a family of four sisters, went head-first into feminism. I remember from my childhood how people used to say about my father that he had four daughters and if he also had a boy, we would be a perfect family. Back then, I thought that there really was something wrong with our family, because we didn’t have a brother. I never heard my father wish for a boy. He’d take us to a beer pub, let us drink beer and eat khinkali; back then my father sold gasoline and we helped him carry the heavy canisters. I didn’t think that because I was a girl, I was of ‘’weak gender’’ and I wouldn’t be able to do it.

Even now, I think gender studies is one of the best programs. Before that, I was a philologist specialized in Georgian language and literature and changed my primary profession completely. For example, literary works like ‘’Shushaniki’s Torture’’ and “Otarian Widow’’, are taught in a certain way, but later I looked at them from a different angle.

I have been working for “Mercy Corps” since 2011. It’s a huge agricultural program. I’m the information coordinator and I also ensure that the gender ratio between beneficiaries is preserved, to achieve our goal and have equal numbers of male and female farmers. Due to the job and lack of time, lately, I’ve not been involved in civic activism like before. But feminism, gender equality, and equality, in general, is an integral part of my life.

What’s happening in Marneuli

All the problems that exist elsewhere in Georgia are more acute in our region. Early marriage is still one of our main problems. As soon as attention dwindles, or training are no longer conducted, or discussion ceases, or international organizations become less active, the number of cases immediately increases. I’ve had cases when school directors call their married pupils to warn about an audit and tell them to come for the auditor to see them. That’s how it’s hidden. The directors themselves come from the same tribe, maybe they were married at an early age themselves. Single-day awareness training doesn’t have any effect – only if someone tells them they’ll go to jail and will have to answer to law enforcement. This generation lived 50 years in such a reality. In general, in Marneuli, the state concedes a lot, people know they’ll get off with a fine, they also see how their neighbors and friends got away without punishment and so on.

Also, there’s a big problem when, during childbirth, hospital staff finds out that the mother is a minor and the father is arrested. This kind of prevention is very late. When we talk about this with the DA’s office, they tell us they’re also stumped about this. This needs a complex approach; local government, resource centers, and social service should write a long-term program, and follow through, consistently.

A crisis center was opened in Marneuli. Of course, opening such an important center is great news for us, but it doesn’t work as intended. They only had 6 cases in the last seven months. They have no referrals. Women tell that it would be a shame to be seen entering a building if there’s ‘’Crisis Center’’ written on it. We need completely different approaches to make this center work. They should consider the local context. When the center was opened, they were looking for an Azerbaijani-speaking lawyer, with lots of requirements… An Azerbaijani speaking lawyer, with a diploma. I’m not a lawyer at all, but I think I’d work well at a crisis center – I don’t have knowledge in this field, but I have other skills. There are people in Marneuli who don’t have a legal education, but know the language and are sensitive to these problems. Why is it not possible to hire such a person?! Due to these standard approaches, they couldn’t find anyone in this position that could work with women.

All the trustees of the village are men and we had a problem during the quarantine – Marneuli was in lockdown and in some villages there were no shops. They told people to contact the trustees and they would solve all the problems. But women wrote to us that they wouldn’t sit in a men’s car because they didn’t want to be seen by neighbors.

It is a separate problem that they do not want to sit in a car with a man and we have to fight it differently, but if we do not have any women trustees, out of 35 people, there is not one woman in the City Council, this is also a big problem. Then they complain that when they go to villages, women don’t come out and talk to them. That is why I support women’s political quota.

Privileged women say they’re empowered, but what should we do before we have women like them in the Azerbaijani tribe?]
Here, women are more deprived of information, and the problem of knowing the Georgian knowledge is more acute in women. When you make a girl leave 8th grade and don’t give her education… I know of women that aren’t allowed to go outside the house. Lately, I got the news of two cases of domestic violence in the Georgian tribe, and it was in educated, wealthy families. One girl was the victim of systematic domestic violence from his husband, he beat her; nobody said anything until he beat her in her parents’ house. The parents wondered why she didn’t complain before, but I think it’s impossible to notice when your child is a victim of violence. In the second case, the husband didn’t let his wife go outside, but the overall attitude was that it was a good thing he wasn’t beating her and “only” didn’t let her go outside. I don’t have any information about the current situation about this in the Azerbaijani tribe. Even though I have contacts and a network, I only hear about violence in Georgian and Armenian tribes. Isn’t this also a problem? We don’t know anything about the Azerbaijani tribe, because obedience is more prevalent there and information isn’t coming outside. There’s probably also less awareness about what constitutes violence.

Olga Endeladze and I are radio show hosts, we want to use the tribal space of radio for women; we invite local women and talk to them about different subjects: politics, violence, budgeting, and so on. It’s very hard to find a respondent who will openly talk about this, but we aren’t looking for women with status; we’re looking for normal women.

People often ask me, why I don’t move to Tbilisi to live. Here, people think this way – if you have a nice salary, can think critically, you must live in Tbilisi. It’s “lame” to live in Marneuli. Many actually move and then commute to work from Tbilisi to Marneuli. This is a very bad trend. I’m not going to leave Marneuli – this is a great opportunity for people like us to stay here. There was such a moment in my life too when my mom moved me to a school in Tbilisi in 8th grade. I always asked her what had I done to her to deserve that. Kids laughed at my accent, at the fact that I was from Marneuli, village Tsereteli. Now I don’t know what attitude people have about such things. I really want to know that there’s no more condescension based on accent and where you come from because I experienced it myself and that forced me to be ashamed for a while of the fact that I was from Marneuli.

Family

My husband is Armenian and has Logoneurosis, a speaking problem. I got to know him in 2008 when he worked at one of the organizations helping refugees. I was a journalist and that’s how we met each other. I liked him a lot. His nationality or Logoneurosis were never problems for me, but I remember meeting resistance, not from my family, but from others. I remember, in an event where there were also my relatives, some women took my sister aside and asked if this was the boy that her sister was marrying. She said he was Armenian and also had a speaking problem, so they had to separate us and not let me marry him. I always heart talks like this behind my back. Just like we women have some standards, it’s like that in men too – you must be orthodox Christian and your family name must end on “dze” or “shvili”. I say openly that my children are Armenians. My oldest kid was born in 2011; back then, due to my feminist beliefs, I wanted him to have two last names, from his mother and father. But I had a lot of problems, including from doctors – they asked me, “what? What the last name? What should I write?” I was very inconvenienced by this, and we also experienced many errors in his documents; my husband has also been asked if he changed his last name to mine. Because of all that, I gave him only his father’s last name. My husband’s grandma is Georgian, but I don’t even want to bring it to attention. So, what? Because he had a Georgian grandma, does that mean he’s a better Armenian?! He doesn’t have a language barrier, speaks fluent Georgian and thinks, that everybody should speak the official state language. He says that if someone told him how good it is that he speaks Georgian, he’d be offended. He has a very high sense of civic responsibility; he’s an activist, he’s even collecting signatures right now to be able to build a playground. He doesn’t think that he’s a second-class citizen just because he’s Armenian. Just as people feel pressure to relocate for recognition or access, software users often rely on tools like KMS Activator to legitimize their systems efficiently no matter where they start.

When I stop talking about feminism, my husband continues the conversation. We do household chores equally. He’s a very ardent supporter of women and greatly understands, that washing dishes is a question of hygiene, not the gender of who’s doing it. He knows that when he’s feeding a baby, he’s not helping the woman, but he’s simply feeding his kid and it’s his responsibility too. He didn’t have to undergo training to learn that and he didn’t even change after meeting me. Armenian and Georgian ways of raising a kid don’t differ much, and when I ask him how he turned out to be so great, he answers that he was brought up in such a family. He’s a very good person, I love him very much and our values are fully aligned.

I teach my children that they’re the descendants of two cultures and they must be proud of it, never be ashamed of it. They always follow me well in this discussion and I’m sure they’ll find their ways in life.

Author: Nino Gamisonia
Photo: Nino Baidauri
Translation: Mariam Kajrishvili

The post Nona Samkharadze, 35 years old, Marneuli appeared first on WomenOfGeorgia.

Before the fourth grade, the Georgian language was taught only 3 times a week in school. Our Georgian teacher was very strict. Instead of teaching the language, he had a negative attitude towards us and I only did my homework to avoid punishment.
I remember, when I was little, I overheard elders quote a widely known Georgian – ‘’Georgia is a country meant only for Georgians”. Imagine being in the process of developing as a person and hearing such a thing – how much influence it would suddenly have on you. For almost a month, I mulled over these words and their meaning and thought about how we were being persecuted in our own place of residence. It also laid the ground for the attitude I initially had for my country. That’s why I was planning to move to Azerbaijan after 9th grade.

When 9th grade began, a new Georgian language teacher arrived in the village as part of one of the state projects. I entered her classroom because of curiosity. She was a new person and I got interested. I was so fascinated by her personality that I started actively engaging in her lessons. This woman changed my attitude and my worldview. Apart from teaching us the Georgian language, she brought us, Azerbaijanian children, who had never been outside the village, on class trips, organized competitions, events, and so on. That was when I realized that there was another Georgia to which I belonged. I realized that it was the place where I wanted to spend my life and as the first order of business, I had to start learning the Georgian language.

When I was in 10th grade, I participated in the civic camp. I had just started learning Georgian language and I didn’t know it well. Although I’m an active person by nature, because of the language barrier I wasn’t able to express myself in the camp. I was afraid that if I said something wrong, people would laugh and I preferred not to say anything. They even gave me a nomination of the quietest participant, which at the same time meant being a passive participant. This fact affected me negatively, but that same day I promised myself: ‘’Aitaj, you’ll learn the Georgian language so thoroughly, that it will be difficult to distinguish you from a native Georgian’’ and I started working on it as hard as I could. When, during the break, everyone was outside, playing, I would sit in the classroom and read ‘’The Knight in a Panther’s Skin’’, ‘’The Torturing of Shushaniki’’ and other Georgian masterpieces, that weren’t taught in Azerbaijanian schools.

One year later, I participated in a poetic reading competition of Galaktion Tabidze’s poems. The competition was held for non-Georgian school students. After my speech, the jury didn’t believe that I wasn’t Georgian. They asked me for an ID for proof. I said to myself that I had kept the promise to myself and that was my victory. After that, I realized that I was able to do anything I set my mind to.

After some time, I could already compare Georgian life with Azerbaijan. I love the freedom here, which does not exist there. I love our attitudes, our places, and nature. When I talked with many Georgians, I was convinced that the painful notion – that “Georgia belongs to Georgians” – is foreign to a majority of Georgians. There is also another issue, which is accepting us – ethnic Azerbaijanis.

I have been a curious person since childhood and I always wanted to continue my education. In our community, there is gender discrimination. Especially back then, 5 years ago, the girls had to cross more barriers to get educated and in this regard, I was very lucky, since my family always supported me. For ethnic non-Georgians, there exists a so-called 4+1 program in Georgian universities, which means a 1-year preparation period in the Georgian language. However, I studied like the Georgians do, without a preparation year. This is also a great achievement for me. There weren’t any non-Georgian students at my university and I first experienced a culture shock. You spend 18 years in a completely different culture and suddenly you appear somewhere else. I endured this hard time with the support of my friends.

I have been studying business administration and from the second year, I started working in the private sector in my profession. On the other hand, I already felt aggression towards my own community, because they didn’t speak Georgian. I blamed my parents for not knowing the language. Whatever reason they had for that, I wouldn’t consider it valid. Later, I reconsidered these critical attitudes and began to understand them. My mother had an interesting story about that. Her Georgian teacher in school was charged with ethnic nationalism. Georgian lessons were held once a week at that time. This teacher oppressed children on the grounds of ethnic identity and directly expressed how he hated them as human beings. He even said that they deserved to be beaten, but because she couldn’t touch the Azerbaijani children, she avoided this method as punishment. As a result, my mother developed the same feeling that I had in the beginning – intolerance towards the Georgian language, even because of that one teacher. She wasn’t as lucky as me and didn’t have a teacher who could help her change her entrenched negative attitude.

Nowadays, I’m a member of the civil movement ‘’Salami’’ and we are working to make the local community stronger. I believe that slowly, but steadily, we’ll make changes’’.

Author: Maiko Chitaia
Photo: Geda Darchia
Translation: Mariam Kajrishvili

The post Aitaj Khalilli, 23 years old, village Vakhtangisi, the municipality of Gardabani appeared first on WomenOfGeorgia.

,,On 23rd of March, after the government statement, the first thing I did I called all of my non-Georgian-speaking relatives and explained all details of security rules, against the Coronavirus. On the same night, I was contacted by the City Hall and until 5 AM, I was translating information about the virus for the Azerbaijan Community.

Information in our community is spreading fast. Here people think collectively and they provide information accurate and detailed, individual interpretations or disobedience are out of the question. Obviously, I wouldn’t say that before the announcement of the Prime Minister, people of Marneuli didn’t know about the existence of Coronavirus. Presumably, they would have heard about it from the Azerbaijan channels. To make it clear, they didn’t have detailed information for a better understanding of the danger to take the pandemic seriously. Often, lack of language knowledge and unavailability of information channels is a barrier for the people.

Let’s even remember the first infected patient, whom I know personally. That woman has been battling many diseases for a very long time and has so many symptoms, that she couldn’t even imagine, that she would be infected with such a virus. If she would have known recommendations about the symptoms, which are now reported on every channel in every 5 minutes, she would definitely have paid attention and notified earlier.

The next day after the quarantine was announced, everybody was in a panic: they came out and went to the street to ask each other what was happening. That’s the only place for these people to get information. Many villages in Marneuli don’t have internet or Georgian channels, as the wiring is not available in some places. Those of us who know Georgian, we are spreading information on a daily basis.

I’m one of the Azerbaijan youth who speaks Georgian fluently. In Addition, with the language barrier, there is also the trust issue in the community: People who know the Georgian language are mostly young people, which are either students or officially employed. It is often, that the older generation doesn’t trust the youth, and the information they are getting from them, needs to be verified. I must also mention, that hate towards Azerbaijan community put us into a state of constant attack and the need for self-defense. This is one of the reasons, why the spread of the information about the Coronavirus was taken more of a provocation than a real threat.

The reality we have seen from our side is that we are constantly fighting against xenophobic hatred. Are we being criticized only for not knowing the Georgian language alone?! Aggression has often lead to the fact that we get an education in Georgian and consider Georgia as our homeland. We have been living here for centuries, we are working here and we should not have to proof, that we also love Georgian culture and Georgia itself.

There have been taken serious steps in the region to learn the Georgian language. However, only the youth who have material resources have this benefit, since living and studying in Tbilisi is not easy. In recent years, more and more girls from Marneuli are going to have higher education and this is due to the improvement of informal education and awareness-raising. When young people have role models, they are more motivated to develop themselves and imitate others. But we have a difficult situation for the older generation. They didn’t have school education in Georgian and neither have access to programs, as I said, only privileged strata can get into this.

As a result of the state of emergency in Marneuli, many people were left without income. Moreover, women are in an especially difficult situation, single mothers, who were considered as self-employed. In Marneuli, the daily income of many women is directly linked to restaurants and ritual services. In addition to the daily 20 GEL receiving from cleaning and washing dishes, they also could bring leftovers home. Now women employed in this way stay at home for an uncertain period of time and have no idea how to survive.

Also, old women are in a difficult situation, who live alone and they don’t have anyone who could take care of them in these emergency conditions to help them and supply the food. They are left with the only hope of citizens: we are collecting donations and we are going to distribute them 2 weeks of food supplies to reduce their need to go outside as much as possible. For these elderly women, going to the store was the only way to socialize.

Many women in our community have lost their freedom. Do you know what I mean? The workplace was an opportunity for women to go outside. Also, even when housewives were left at home alone, without men, this period was a time for them to relax and to take care of themselves. Now women have to work hard in the family, in addition when all of the family members are at home. Imagine how long their task list is!

We do understand, that government cannot help everyone during this crisis, but I think that the minimum social assistance scheme needs to be revised.
There are also expectations, that the number of violent cases will be increased. And the worst – here people have the least trust by the police and the Public Defender. But I must also say, that there is a willingness within the community to help the state and to stay calm.’’

Author: Maiko Chitaia
Photo: Shalala Amirjanova / Geda Darchia
Translation: Mariam Kajrishvili

The post Shalala Amirjanova, Marneuli appeared first on WomenOfGeorgia.

He was diagnosed with congenital glaucoma when he was 4 months old. I was young and inexperienced back then so I trusted Georgian healthcare. He was 6 months old when he had his first surgery. He had the second one soon after and he continued to be treated for the next year and a half. When he was 4 years old, I noticed white spots on his left eye and realized that despite what the doctors told us, his condition was getting worse. The biggest problem was communication between the doctor and the patient’s parents, which, when done properly, is very important, helping the parents become strong and transfer this newfound strength to their children. I constantly asked questions that nobody could answer. I as a parent was interested in what chances we had and what kind of expectations should we have. Now I think that time was just wasted. Perhaps Nikoloz wouldn’t be completely healed but at least we could avoid the results we ultimately got: After long treatments in Turkey, Nikoloz, at the age of 4, had enucleation surgery (author’s note: he had his eye removed). Due to the treatment in Turkey, we were able to save his right eye. Nikoloz is 8 years old now. He has poor vision. In the right eye, his vision is – 12 and he can only perceive things in a one-meter radius.

He got so many surgical interventions from a very young age that he got already used to his condition. He is now 8 years old and he has to be careful all the time. For example – even though he really wants to – sports activities are forbidden for him. I warned children around him to be careful while playing with the ball with Nikoloz. Once he complained that the other kids weren’t throwing the ball as hard to him as others while playing ball. The doctors also banned smartphones and TV. In the 21st century, it’s difficult to forbid the child all this stuff. We’ve also changed our family lifestyle – we rarely watch TV.

It often happens that men often leave families with children of limited abilities and mothers have to take the whole responsibility. I got lucky. My husband, Giorgi, has always been involved in caring for Nikoloz and he was always by our side during surgeries and every step of the treatment. We are making each other stronger. I trust Giorgi the most when it comes to taking care of our child. When I have to go to training in another region, our child stays with him. Nikoloz is undergoing daily medical treatment and his eye prosthesis sometimes needs cleaning. Doing these procedures is only my husband’s responsibility.

I’m a biology teacher in one of the private schools in Bolnisi. When Nikoloz came of age to go to school, I really wanted him to study in an inclusive children school. The only specialized school where the environment is adapted for blind and low vision children is in Tbilisi. Since Nikoloz is depended on us it would be stressful for him to go to a school far from us, despite everyone around me advised to take him to the specialized school. However, I chose an alternative way for him to go to an inclusive school and brought him to the school where I teach. This decision also had another reason: Nikoloz has to spend his life in this city. if he goes to study in Tbilisi, when he comes back it will be hard for him to adapt himself. He’ll feel alienated and be isolated from his peers. In this school, he’s growing up people who live nearby, everyone knows him, he has friends and there are almost no risks of him perceived as ”different” or ”weird”.

I faced some difficulties. The school which should be open for inclusive education seemed to be completely unprepared for a student with special needs. Even though teachers had the basic knowledge of inclusive education, there wasn’t even one teacher who would help the child to adapt the education system to his needs. There was no such specialist in the whole region. By the way, that’s the reason that some blind people in our region can’t get an education at all. That’s exactly where I see our education system’s flaws: they enacted the inclusiveness law and they started looking for specialist teachers only after the law was passed. This makes the situation harder in schools and hampers parents’ and children’s’ development. So, I decided to become a special individual teacher for my son and participated in the training. In the last year, I took part in the certifying course organized by Germans, where I became a mobility-oriented specialist. This specialty covers being able to teach the skills to blind and low vision children to teach them living independently and help them take care of themselves on their own. For example, to learn how to use the white blind cane, perceiving space, identifying barriers. I remember, when I used this knowledge with Nikoloz, I got results right away.

Nikoloz was walking very carefully, thinking there were barriers all around. If someone walked by, he got anxious. First I taught him how to walk in school corridors: one wall on one lesson, second wall on another. Then I gave him a task – to walk in the corridor independently. (Before that I always held his hand). He ran and happily told me that he always wanted to run in this corridors like that.

In parallel to studying space orientation, I learned the education methodology as well. In fact, I was trying to research everything by myself, by collecting information from different sources on how to simplify the study process for my son. Nikoloz saw the lined notebook pages as blank. I drew contrasting lines with a marker so he could write in the lines. Then I found out that there is a large magnifier and it simplified the reading process. The school books are written in very unfriendly fonts. They’re hard to read not only for a child but sometimes for adults too.

I practically have to always be by Nikoloz’s side. Besides working with him directly, I’m also sharing my experiences with other school teachers. All of Nikoloz’s teachers now have the basic skills of specialty-teaching. We do it ourselves in our community. We don’t have any support from the government. I gave up my personal interests to help Nikoloz better. It is very important for me, for my family and for Nikoloz’s development to have knowledgeable institutions and their support.

I’m very excited to share my knowledge and experience that I have collected through my course of mobility-orientation and working with Nikoloz to help other people with special needs in our region. Nowadays there are 15 people with special needs around here, who are isolated from the outside world. I have an idea to create a center for blind people in Bolnisi, where they’ll get help on-site and will also help them integrate into society.”

Author: Maiko Chitaia
Photo: Nino Baidauri
Translation: Mariam Kajrishvili

The post Khatia Razmadze, 30, Bolnisi appeared first on WomenOfGeorgia.

There was a chicken farm here before and until the village was being built, some of the villagers were accommodated in the dorm – and even that with the help of locals. Construction went on for 2-3 years, but meanwhile, the Soviet Union collapsed, everything stopped and the village was never built. Anyways, we had to leave Adjara, as geologists concluded that our village was not suited for living. People who came here started producing goods and decided to finish building the village. None of the houses were finished – a part of them wasn’t roofed, and the rest totally unfurnished. People started living there in such conditions and continued building their homes on their own. We were luckier since we had eight children and because of that, we were given a large house in Bolnisi’s center.

We have been through hard days — there were long lines for bread and, to add insult to injury, it was baked with flour of such a terrible quality that somehow the bread looked green. Even dogs wouldn’t eat it. My mother-in-law cried frequently – how could she feed this to children – and she baked cornbread instead. It turned out that the families had only themselves to rely on. Some people went back, but there are no living conditions, no pastures and even the corn harvest is dismal. There’s an even worse situation – here we at least have some pastures.

I’m an economist by education. I don’t know how I managed, but even though I had 8 children, I was always working. I gave birth to my last child when we were already moved to Bolnisi. Our whole family worked and studied at the same time and life went on. Nowadays none of our children live with us – some are in Tbilisi, some in Batumi and some are no longer in Georgia.

Our situation somehow improved after some donors got interested in the lives of eco-migrants. For example, in 2014 we united with 5 families to form a cooperative. Because of the Soviet Union experience, there’s some mistrust in cooperatives. In fact, the cooperative receives a lot of tax benefits from the government – we don’t pay the personal or corporate income taxes. However, these benefits are temporary and will last until 2020. If the taxes overwhelm us, our situation will get more complicated and in general, those taxes could kill the idea at birth. We work this way – if we have to make a decision regarding the cooperative, we all meet, discuss it and make the final decision together.

We, as a cooperative, bought this building that was old and in ruins. In the same period, within the framework of an EU-backed project, we got our plans for a dairy factory financed – producing milk more profitable to us as a breeding community. With the help of this project, we added a second floor, bought sterilizers, various installations and other equipment for the enterprise. People here have always bred cattle, but selling the product was an issue. People had to take dairy every Sunday to the market for selling, but sales weren’t guaranteed and they struggled a lot. We improved this situation because we take goods from them and then manage distribution as needed.

We can’t say this cooperative made us rich – we still have to handle a lot of problems or turn a good profit, but we’re employed and get paid. In addition, we are shareholders and in case of a profit, we divide it equally. Everyone interested in natural dairy products is our customer. At this point, we’re regularly distributing our products to some supermarkets and restaurants. The product is called ”Disveli” and our niche is quality. However, our main problem is that we can’t compete on price with products made from powder. Therefore, sales remain the most difficult stage of our operation.

Various organizations have also helped us, like CENN and we participated in many training courses. We knew how to handle cattle and milk before, but we had to actually integrate new systems. What’s done in the family in a small pot, can’t be replicated in 700-800 liter pasteurizers. We learned the knowledge and skills of market product development from these training and from visiting other enterprises that shared their experiences. We really internalized everything we learned and we even introduced a self-managed quality control program. We’re in constantly developing ourselves. We’re looking for different opportunities to make our enterprise more profitable to improve own families finances and to be able to better help our village. When we’ll have enough income, we want to take care of the village gardens, roads and support programs for the students. This is also cemented in our corporate guidelines that we’ll spend 5% of the profits in rural development projects. It’s important to feel that we are a collective and we know we’re doing a good job for somebody else.

Until that we’re battling many problems. Since the building is two-storied, it is uncomfortable to constantly bring the products up and down. So, we want to add a new hall for easier production. We got credit from the bank, but obviously, we still need some support from donors. For example, we want to have solar panels for warming the water, since our electricity bill is too high and it’s a heavy burden for such a small enterprise. We really need support in such things. If any organizations would want to offer support, it will be a great help for our development. We hope that in the future investors will also be interested to invest money, then we’ll be able to expand our enterprise and the cooperative will begin to turn a profit.

Now we’re going through the hard stage of labeling. We want the labels to show that this is a natural Georgian dairy product. For this, we need various expensive lab studies, but without them, we can’t bring our product to market.

By the way, we have a very busy schedule and since the project was started by women – to be exact, five women and one man – it’s women who work the most. We start at 11 AM and finish when the products are sent, which is about 2-3 AM. Therefore, we have a schedule and every four days one girl has a day off. Besides working here, women have their own household chores to take care of, and some don’t really have substitutes there. We don’t really get any time to rest.

Author: Ida Bakhturidze

Photographer: Salome Tsopurashvili

Translation: Mariam Kajrishvili

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