Out with the Old

I've been in Tbilisi all this week, and everywhere you look there's numbers. If this were because the local government had finally decided it would be a good idea to number the streets instead of giving them five-syllable names of dead writers and then not labeling them, that'd be great, but it's not the case. What's actually going on, and what I've avoided mentioning thus far in my blog (but then I saw other volunteers were doing it, so I'm now moving to sit at the cool-kid table), is a snap election.

Without saying anything remotely political, it's bare-bones enough to know that snap elections were called after opposition protests in November, and on January 5th the next president will be chosen. Candidates include members from various opposition parties, as well as Mr Saakashvili himself, who is eligible to engage in his current ultra-mega-populist campaign because he resigned from the presidency last month.

For a student of international relations, this is a delightful and exciting time to be in Georgia. Why international? Well, Russia and the US both have a stake in the outcome of this election. But I'm sure neither will try to interfere.

However, as a Peace Corps volunteer, it's mostly an exercise in smiling and nodding, coupled with feigned ignorance of anything and everything political. I turn around and head for home every time I see a giant 5 for Misha Saakashvili (the candidates are numbered, by the way) or a Gachechiladze 1, or a Gamkrelidze 3. Here in Tbilisi, there's no hiding from the numbers. Have you seen The Number 23? That's what it feels like. On the government building, 5. On the doner stand, 5. On the city buses, 5.

You start to make mental connections. The election is on the 5th. The highest score in the Georgian school system used to be 5. It costs 5 lari to see a movie at the English-language theater-- AMERICANS speak English. There's a 5-hour time difference between Georgia and London-- where people outside the Georgian government's good graces like to hide out. There are five paragraphs so far in this blog entry. As of this sentence, I've used the word Georgia five times.

So clearly, they've gotten into my head, and the only cure is a trip to Armenia. While I'm doing that, you can read this tale of Soviet-esque political deceit that one of the candidates dreamed up. If I tell you that it involves murder, will you read it? Well, it does.