Printer-friendly versionSend to friendPDF version

Georgia's president Mikheil Saakashvili visited Zugdidi today and made a frankly ludicrous promise that the Savaneti region would see 50 million tourists in the next five years - making one region of Georgia a bigger tourist draw than the whole of Russia.

He travelled there by helicopter (and his goons stopped opposition supporters from photographing this) from Batumi, his bolt hole on the Black Sea.

But once again, it seems, Kutaisi and the wider Imereti region were relegated to "fly over country". He made a promise of an rink there next year but he must think the ice too politically dangerous to go there in person for now.

It is now thirteen days since the disastrously botched demolition of Kutaisi's Memorial of Glory killed a mother and her eight-year-old daughter. And while the president felt the event important enough to cut short his visit to the UN Climate Summit in Denmark he still has not had the courage to make a journey to the city itself.