A plane belonging to the Russian Emergencies Ministry arrives in Tbilisi, Georgia on October 17, 2006 with 150 Georgian citizens deported from Russia.
Photo: Dmitry Lebedev
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Heroes of the Visa War
// Crowds Meet Deported Georgians in Tbilisi
A Russian Emergencies Ministry plane arrived in Tbilisi yesterday carrying 150 Georgian citizens who were being deported from Russia. They were given a hero's welcome. That flight, which was supposed to have brought to Tbilisi a Georgian citizen named Tengiz Togonidze who died in Moscow on the way to the airport, delivered a crushing blow to the remnants of Russia's authority in the region. Kommersant's special correspondent Olga Allenova has the details.
That day, the Tbilisi airport was particularly crowded: besides the usual crowds accompanying and meeting travelers, there were also journalists and representatives of the Russian embassy and the Georgian authorities. Even several additional fast food restaurants had opened in the departure hall. The Emergencies Ministry (MChS) flight, which was expected at 16:00, was delayed until 18:00: a Georgian citizen named Tengiz Togonidze, who was supposed to be on the flight, died on Moscow on the road to Domodedovo airport. As soon as the news reached Georgia, it was clear that a turning point had been reached in the cold war between Moscow and Tbilisi. The two sides will have to come to an agreement now or never. Judging by the scene in the airport, those in Georgia have cast their vote in favor of the latter.
The approximately one hundred Russian citizens who were preparing to leave Georgia on the same MChS plane were reluctant to speak with journalists. Only one woman responded, when asked why she was leaving, "since it's possible, I'm going." Airport workers said that those who are leaving are mainly Armenians and some Georgians who have succeeded in obtaining Russian citizenship. "Why are they leaving?" parroted a security services official at the airport, his voice heavy with irony – "because it's free!" A little while later, the same man explained with dignity to journalists that President Saakashvili has forbidden cargo planes from the Russian MChS to fly into Georgia so that Russia has been forced to send an Il-62 passenger plane instead of stuffing people into cargo planes like cattle. Valery Vasiliev, the Russian consul in Georgia, told me that this will probably be the last plane that will take Russian citizens out of Georgia: all of those who wanted to leave Georgia, around 500 people, have already left. In reply to the question of how it came about that a person being deported by Russia died on the road to the airport, the consul answered, "it is a very sad event, there will be an investigation," but said nothing more concrete. That was provided by Georgian ombudsman Sozar Subari: "It is run-of-the-mill fascism," he said. "It's Nazism. I approached the Russian ombudsman with a request that he intervene in this outrage, if in Russian some kind of positive forces still exist. Out of the 150 people deported today, more than half have normal documents and the right to live in Russia!"
When the people from the MChS plane cleared passport control and began to trickle into the arrival hall, they were surrounded by a wall of journalists so solid that it was difficult to push through it. Those who arrived did not want to comment. Someone shielded his face with his hands, and another covered his head with his coat as he pushed through the throng. The men, frowning, haphazardly attired and with unshaven cheeks, were irritated and embittered, and the women were distraught. One of them, who was carrying a child in her arms, stopped as a microphone was thrust at her. "Why did they arrest you?" she was asked. "My visa was not in order," said the woman. "What will you do now?" "I don't know! I have no idea what to do!" The following dialogue was had with another man:
"How long did they hold you in the isolation unit?"
"Ten days."
"Ten days?!! How did they treat you?"
"Badly."
"Why did they arrest you?"
"Because I'm a Georgian."
Many explained their arrest in similar terms. Someone said something in Georgian about Russian Nazism; someone showed his passport, which had a Russian visa, and said that they had no right to kick him out. Someone mentioned a week of incarceration in an isolation unit, where it was even forbidden to wash. Someone simply broke down in tears of humiliation.
I glanced at the ombudsman, Mr. Subari, whose eyes were aflame. I think he was feeling these people's humiliation as keenly as they themselves were. And I felt burning shame for my country.
A young woman from the Georgian Education Ministry stopped children and teenagers and pressed into their hands a booklet that had "Welcome Home!" written across it. On the other side of the booklet, a notice from the Education Ministry explained that all schoolchildren who had been forced to leave Russia would now be attending Georgian schools and that they should call such-and-such a number so that they would be accepted into school. The children hid the booklets in their pockets, and their mothers cried.
The Russian Federal Migration Service stated that day that all of the deportees had overstayed their visas or did not have visas at all. The service also said that the Russian budget allocates about 27,000 rubles for the deportation of a migrant, which includes expenditures for tickets, detention in a special holding area, medicine, and food. But in the case of the deported Georgians, the budget was economized by half: the deportation of a single Georgian was managed by the government for only 13,000 rubles. Maybe that's why Tengiz Togonidze, an asthmatic, died when he wasn't given medication in time.
In Georgia yesterday thousands of people saw on their television screens their compatriots and their visas, both overstayed and valid. Thousands of people heard the story of Tengiz Togonidze. Thousands of people in Georgia asked each other for the third time – this was the third MChS plane from Russia – why it was necessary to so thoroughly humiliate the Georgians, who were once desired guests in Russia. I am certain that these people will never forget what they have seen.
"Russia shown has its face once again," Georgian Minister for Refugees Georgy Kheviashvili told me. "Russia has shown that it is impossible to live with it in peace. Russia has done everything to push Georgia as far away as possible. Well, thanks for the gift. I don't doubt that we will be able to use what has happened in our own interests."
I also have no doubt.
Olga Allenova
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 18, 2006
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