“I Wish We Could Return to Our Homes and Then I Will Need Nothing From Them…”

Reportage from Tserovani IDP settlement

Levan Sepiskveradze

Soon after the August war, a lot of representatives of state or international organizations visited internally displaced people from the conflict zone every day and inquired their problems. Now, four years after the war, IDPs complain about inattention and say that majority of their social problems were not resolved.

On December 5, representatives of Georgian media visited IDP settlement in Tserovani in the frame of study visit organized by the Human Rights House Tbilisi. Of course, situation turned up more complicated than we had expected. First of all, IDPs complained about high tariffs on electricity, water and gas supply. However, they hope for the new government of Georgia to resolve their social problems.

Givi Mgeliashvili, an IDP from Kheiti village: “Our request to the new government is to make some discounts on electricity and gas tariffs at least in winter. The tariffs are so high that most of us cannot pay bills; so we have to collect tree-branches to warm houses with stoves. However, foreigners have purchased grove above Tserovani village, which is guarded by armed security officers and they do not allow us to collect not only tree-branches but even mushrooms in the territory. We pay 52 tetri for one cubic meter of gas here that is 2 tetri more than in Tbilisi. Most families here live with IDP allowances and how can we survive; has any governmental official thought about it?! We do not have enough plots to have enough harvest from them. I come from Kheiti village; I have lived through war and many problems but I have never lived in similar poverty before. I wish we could return home and then I will need nothing from them…”

Big part of IDPs has lived in Tserovani settlement for more than four years. IDPs showed walls of rapidly constructed cottages to journalists that are decoying year-by-year but as an IDP from Eredvi village Neli Kristesiashvili told us, they would have endured damp walls if most part of their cottages were not constructed on the swamp.

Georgian peasants have already changed view of Tserovani settlement. A lot of fruit-trees are planted in almost every cottage yard. IDPs regret that previous government did not satisfy their elementary request and peasants had to personally purchase fruit-trees. IDPs petitioned to the former minister of agriculture several times and requested young fruit-trees but nobody paid attention to their request. “We paid too much for the plants in Gori market. What should have we done?! How could a peasant from Shida Kartli region live without fruit?! Our internal displacement is enough tragedy for us and we could not leave children without fruit,” Neli Kristesiashvili said.

Ethnic Ossetian IDPs also live in Tserovani settlement. Zura Tigiev lived in Georgian village of Eredvi and when war broke out in 2008, he left village together with his Georgian neighbors. Zura Tigiev said he could not behave otherwise because all his friends, relatives and neighbors were fleeing from the village at that time.

“Ossetian people also lived in Georgian villages and nobody ever argued with us. Now I still live together with Georgian people and we always share our fortune and misfortune with each other. I did not have perfect house in Eredvi but it was my house and I loved it. After the war my house was also destroyed. You will laugh at me but most of all I regret for my pig which I could not take with me. It was a huge, two-hundred kilo pig, which I had taken care of. At some point I decided to take it with me but the village was being bombed and I could not return back because of pig. Now we are here and we are waiting for the government to give allowances to us. Our main request is reduction of taxes. Bidzina Ivanishvili promised IDPs would live best of all. So, maybe they will reduce our tariffs,” said Zura Tigiev who excludes possibility of going to Tskhinvali until IDPs return to the region. He doubts separatists might revenge him because he stood on Georgian side.

We met an IDP from Liakhvi Gorge, ethnic Ossetian Giorgi Tuaev, when he was digging plot in front of his cottage. He is very thankful to his Georgian neighbors who first took him to a shelter in Tbilisi kindergarten and then assisted him to receive a cottage. Like other IDPs, Giorgi Tuaev also complains about social problems and said that previous government deceived IDPs because they did not assign promised plots to them.

Giorgi Tuaev, IDP: “Look at this soil. Can it be compared with the soil we had in Liakhvi gorge?! God had blessed that land and now we are realizing how fertile place we lost. However, we would be thankful if they assign plots at least in this swamp land to us. When we arrived here, government promised to give plots but some IDPs received and some did not. How can a peasant live without a land?! If we return home, I do not need their plots at all; but while we are here we should earn our living. We have to pay 52 tetri for only one cubic meter of gas. How can we live on?! The other day young girls from some organization arrived here from Tbilisi and one of them asked me: “You are Ossetian; your people expelled Georgian people from Ossetia and why do not other IDPs revenge you for that? I told her: daughter, war does not differentiate Georgian and Ossetian people. Did Ossetian benefit anything from this war?! We all lost with it. If I had not loved Georgian people, I would not have come here.”

Tserovani settlement is the largest IDP settlement both in space and number of IDPs in the country. Besides IDPs from Big and Small Liakhvi Gorges, people from Akhalgori district also live there. IDPs from Akhalgori did not lose houses during the war and they still manage to visit them periodically. However, they are afraid to permanently live in Akhalgori because there is more dangerous to live in the occupied territory than outside it.

An IDP from Akhalgori Misha Zarashvili is a driver at Tserovani medical emergency center. He joked: “When Russians entered Akhalgori, I rushed out the village by my ambulance so fast that I outran even my car.

As for problems of IDPs from Akhalgori, Misha Zarashvili said. “We are luckier because our houses were not burnt and sometimes we manage to arrive in Akhalgori. Poor IDPs from Likhvi lost everything, even their cloths. Internal displacement makes people closer. Residents of the gorge and Akhalgori district met each other here and now we are becoming relatives. We have nothing, no money except each other. Luckily I have a job but ambulances are so old, that when people get sick we are not sure we will get to Tbilisi hospital peacefully. Everybody laughs at our poor ambulances in Tbilisi hospitals… but who will complain about old cars if they local people were employed somewhere.”

Internally displaced people from the conflict zone were resettled in seven compact resettlements in Shida Kartli region. Only small part of IDPs had alternative accommodation. Those people received compensations instead cottages. Majority of IDPs are unemployed. Only several hundred people are employed mostly in Mtskheta based enterprises – Berta, Natakhtari, Zedazeni and others. IDPs from Tamarasheni village said a few people managed to get jobs in Tbilisi.

Unemployment, high communal tariffs, inattention from the government, lack of agricultural plots, meager allowances – are only part of their problems.

IDPs asked journalists to send a message to the government of Georgia: they wish the new government not to take after the old one. We will finish this reportage with Gela Kekelashvili’s words, who is an IDP from Akhalgori: “We have never been lazy to work and we are still ready to work. Main point is that we should feel the country needs us and our work. We want to serve our country. Is not it our homeland too?!”