The Russian drummer and the hatred of Georgians

During rock group  "The Killers"  in Batumi, an incident revealed local population's impatience with Russian tourists. Which may not fail to influence in the election battle for the new Tbilisi parliament in 2024.

Tbilisi (AsiaNews) - The Georgian summer, a land of renowned tourist resorts by the sea, was full of tension due to the local population's intolerance towards Russian tourists, in particular the richer and more brazen ones, who disembark from cruise ships at Batumi port. One particular episode during a concert tour of the main cities was a cause for serious concern.

The American rock group The Killers gave hit performances in Tbilisi and other venues after August Bank Holiday, until they arrived at the Black Sea Arena right on the outskirts of Batumi, and at the end of the concert, as is his tradition, the group's leader Brandon Flowers invited a drummer chosen from the audience on stage.

The man took to the stage displaying a banner with the words If destiny is kind I'll be your drummer tonight, receiving great applause; however, he then made the mistake of opening his mouth, revealing that he was of Russian origin.

Then the whole audience began to make noise and whistle, but Flowers still wanted to perform a piece with the Russian's accompaniment, and in the end he tried to calm the audience by saying "we are all brothers and sisters", a phrase which produced the effect of petrol on fire.

The situation threatened to explode, and The Killers had to flee with their tails between their legs. The next day they apologized to all the Georgians, insisting that "we didn't want to upset anyone", but the managers of the hall distanced themselves with a cold statement: "The actions of the artists on the scene are not official positions of the Black Sea Arena", underlining that "for us, Russia is an occupying country".

The story recalled a famous verse by a Russian poet, Mikhail Svetlov, who in 1930, in the midst of the Stalin era, had written Our young drummer has fallen silent, his drum has gone out.

The affair has highlighted an even deeper aspect of the classic political divisions between the forces in the field in the Caucasian country, divided between pro-Russian and pro-Western, according to the logic of convenience of a "connection zone" between East and West which from these parts have been active since the time of the Byzantine Empire.

It is an ethnic-anthropological incompatibility between the different components of the Georgian people and the Slavic peoples, especially the Russians, who throughout history have invaded these territories many times both physically, culturally and spiritually. These emotions are reaching increasingly exasperated levels, which cannot fail to influence the electoral battle for the new Tbilisi parliament in 2024.

These historical archetypes have been reflected throughout the passage of the post-Soviet phase in Georgia. As late as 1972, the future "first president" Eduard Ševarnadze had assumed the role of republican secretary of the communist party, and on that occasion the American secret services had prepared a report on the Georgian situation, in which it was stated that "the Georgians have never been Russified at the level of other Soviet minorities, and among the 123 members of the local Politburo there are only 7 Slavs.

Georgia is unique in its kind, perhaps comparable only to Armenia and Lithuania, and is the only Soviet republic where in the last decade the number of Russian inhabitants has decreased, rather than increased".

If the Armenian neighbors are a proud people and very closed to external relations, also due to the geographical conformation of their territory, the Georgians are a melting pot of very lively and creative ethnic groups, which always tries to affirm new dimensions of internal social life and relationships with external peoples, the very features that are always repressed by the Russians, and which somehow bring them closer to the character of the Ukrainians.

It is no coincidence that the party most explicitly in favor of Kiev in the ongoing conflict is represented by ex-president Mikhail Saakashvili, who is now languishing in prison near Tbilisi, but who after the war with the Russians had moved to Ukraine, even becoming governor of Odessa.

Nor is the figure of Yevgeny Primakov forgotten in Georgia, Russian Prime Minister in 1998-99 immediately before Putin, born in Kiev to a Georgian mother and raised in Tbilisi, who sought a compromise between Soviet nostalgia and openness to the West. Precisely what his successor did not want to do, to the great displeasure of the Georgians, the Ukrainians and all Europeans.