55 Tetris Spent Per Person in Municipality Soup-Kitchens

55 Tetris Spent Per Person in Municipality Soup-Kitchens

Opening free soup-kitchens in Tbilisi and other cities in Georgia is in fashion. New charitable soup-kitchens for socially excluded people are opened almost every month. After the dazzling TV presentations, involving MPs and government representatives, are over everyone soon forgets about the fate of those marginalized people. Nobody thinks to ask what kind of meals are prepared for lonely pensioners for only 55 tetris.

Bread, buckwheat, soup, baby food and beans – this is the usual menu at the free soup-kitchens. As for dishes with meat – they are served only occasionally, when government representatives are visiting, or on holidays like New Year, Easter and Christmas. Occasionally the elderly people are given cutlets, sausage or fish.

Most of the elderly do not like the food or the service in the soup-kitchens, although if they start complaining they are told – if you don’t like, you can leave! On 19 Tsagareli Street in Tbilisi, one elderly lady was kicked out, because she did not like the food.

Rusudan Sekhniashvili is the only person who talks openly about this issue. Most of the elderly people prefer silence. Sekhniashvili states: “Mainly old and poor quality food is served in the soup-kitchen. The food neither has any smell nor taste. Meals with meat are only prepared on holidays. The dishes are not washed properly either. We are not beggars; we are people of merit who have been left in a poor country without any attention. I have complained at the soup-kitchen several times, that is why I am not allowed to go there any more”. 

The Administration of the Vake-Saburtalo district acted against this woman and left her without her daily bread. According to Sekhniashvili, the Deputy Local Administrator, Nana Latsabidze made her sign a document and after that she was no longer allowed to visit the soup-kitchen.

It is observed that the same situation exists in other districts of Tbilisi, for instance in the Didube district. We were contacted by different people, who complained about the conditions in the soup-kitchen there. We are deliberately not publishing their names, as we do not want to leave them without their daily bread.

As Ketevan, one of the inhabitants of Didube states, the food is only good when government representatives are visiting them. “If we were not so hungry we would never come here. It is good to have a free soup-kitchen, as many people are surviving on the food they get here, however, please respect us and prepare good food. We are not ungrateful, but we need to be sure that food we are given here is not harmful for our health. If we complain, they dislike us. It would be good if government representatives came here without forewarning them. Then they will see if we are lying or not”.

55 tetris per person per day are spent in municipal soup-kitchens, whereas 2.5 GEL are spent per person in the soup-kitchens run by the ‘Nationalist Party’. The general conditions are better in the latter but the number of ‘Nationalist Party’ owned soup-kitchens are limited and they are not enough for everyone. David Ioseliani, Head of the Vake-Saburtalo District Administration states: “55 tetris are spent on food. I can understand that it is not easy to prepare good food on this amount of money. I can understand that the people are not satisfied, however they go there every day and the number of people who wish to have free dinners is quite high. We are not leaving this sphere unattended we are monitoring the processes all the time”.

We contacted the Mayor of Tbilisi, Temur Kurkhuli. He said that none of the complaints about this issue were registered with the Municipality. “I have not received any letters regarding this issue. If I did, I would react to it immediately. The Local Administrations are categorically warned to pay special attention to those people. We choose the owners of soup-kitchens via tender and it would not be totally unexpected if some of these people turn out to be dishonest and immoral”.

Eka Gulua