Georgia's Paradoxes

Upon returning from another trip to Georgia the contradictions of the post-Rose Revolution, and post-war period in that country remain more clear than ever. The country has made some very unambiguously positive steps in the last seven years, and even the last two years. It is impossible not to notice this when visiting Georgia and its capital, Tbilisi. The city is replete with new buildings, bridges and roads. The disrepair of the immediate post-Soviet period has clearly giving way to a cleaner, better functioning city. The petty corruption which dominated former President Eduard Shevardnadze’s tenure as Georgia’s president has not been in evidence for years. University degrees are no longer simply sold by impoverished professors and corrupt university administrators. Police no longer stop drivers, seemingly at random, to shake them down for bribes.