Russian shame

Washington Post:

Growing up in this capital, Svetlana Tikhonova remembers how proud her father, Petr, was of his medals. A Soviet Red Army pilot during World War II, he used to show them off to visitors, and on the annual holiday commemorating the end of the war, he would march down the street with all 30 of them affixed to his chest.

But since the violent Russian conflict with Georgia, his home for more than half his life, the 86-year-old ethnic Russian won't leave his room. "He says it is a shame for him to look into people's eyes," Tikhonova said. "He is ashamed that his army has turned into this group of bandits."

When the Soviet Union imploded in 1991, millions of ethnic Russians were left in the newly independent states, outside Russia. Many have felt a stronger allegiance to Moscow than to the country where they wound up. The Kremlin has pushed this to its advantage in some cases. In years of tension here, Russia supported separatist movements and even issued Russian passports to residents of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two breakaway regions that have sought independence from Georgia.

But in the rest of Georgia, and especially in Tbilisi, where residents are proud of the city's multiethnic composition, playing the nationalist card hasn't worked. Russians here feel a mix of emotions these days, but the most salient ones seem to be shame before their Georgian neighbors and anger that the latest conflict among politicians could threaten their harmonious relations.

"We all love Georgia and we all feel nervous about this situation," said Mikhael Kazakov, 68, an ethnic Russian who was fixing a bathroom door at the Count Alexander Nevsky Russian Orthodox Church, one of several Russian churches in Tbilisi. "In this mutual fighting and these mutual victims, we feel like we are losing something, and of course we feel sad about that. In Tbilisi, we were always saying, 'I have no nationality -- I feel I am a resident of Tbilisi.' "

Russia has long been an integral part of Georgian life. For more than a century, Georgia was part of the czarist empire; after a brief fling with independence from 1918 to 1921, it was swallowed by the Soviet Union. Russian literature and language influenced Georgian culture, and close ties with Russia offered education and work opportunities that were unavailable here. Although Georgian remained the official language, educated Georgians spoke Russian as fluently as their own language.

Georgia, for its part, was a source of wine, fresh fruit, art films, and mountain and beach vacations for the czarist and Soviet elites. Some Russians chose to move here, charmed by the sunny climate, and many married Georgians.

Wars and the rise of a nationalistic leader at the time of the Soviet collapse sent many Russians back to Russia. Some also returned to Russia to work as the economy improved. Their presence here shrank from 6.3 percent of the population in 1989 to 1.5 percent in 2002; today an estimated 65,000 Russians live here, according to the office of Georgia's ombudsman.

For the last few days, the ombudsman's office has hosted meetings for ethnic Russians who have come up with a petition declaring their allegiance to Georgia and condemning the Russian occupation.

...

The Russians discussed int his story appear closer to Georgia than Russia and have noticed no repercussions by their neighbors in Georgia. Their statements of affection for Georgia are touching. It is also clear that they are not going to give Putin the pretext for another occupation of Georgia.