“They want us to stop seeing each other, to lose touch, to feel alone,” the Icelandic writer Sjón told me. By “they,” he meant the dark forces rising across the world: populists, fascists, fundamentalists.
That was in September 2025, at the Tbilisi International Festival of Literature, which had more attendees than ever before. The halls were packed, and I think everyone there felt grateful to the foreign guests for coming—defying “them.”
I don’t think coming to Tbilisi is an act of great heroism—yet. But I already know countless people who no longer come—people who love this city and this country, who understand the context, who don’t need things explained to them. Their absence gives me a completely new and unfamiliar feeling of abandonment.
Europeans who put down roots here over decades are leaving Tbilisi. Most came in the 1990s on humanitarian missions. My father jokingly called them “cultural refugees.” They fell in love with this place and stayed forever. But nothing lasts forever, and their departure feels like an alarm bell to me.
Our young people are leaving too. Quietly, without fuss. You think someone is still here because they’re active on social media, and then it turns out they’re already trying to settle in Lisbon, Dublin, or Berlin.
There are too few of us to create communities and diasporas abroad. We will simply dissolve, scatter across the world, and disappear. Or rather, the part of us that loves thinking and can’t flatter will disappear.
For those of us who remain here, literary festivals and similar cultural events are places where we can breathe freely. You see like-minded people and tell them how glad you are to meet somewhere other than the protests that have continued since the government halted Georgia’s EU membership negotiations. The festival doors are open to everyone, but regime conformists have no need to meet foreign or Georgian authors. They already know everything.
There was an empty chair for poet Zviad Ratiani at the book festival. Two months earlier, he had effectively forced his own arrest by repeating the act of another political prisoner, the nonconformist journalist Mzia Amaghlobeli, who slapped a police officer.
Ratiani believed his action would change something. The last time I saw him was in court. He stood throughout the hearing, rolling cigarettes in his hands. Even his refusal to sit in the defendant’s chair was symbolic.
Ratiani is in prison now. Yet I often see him in the city streets, regularly mistaking passersby for him.
At the annual Tbilisi Film Festival in December, the name most often heard from the stage was that of another regime prisoner, actor Andro Chichinadze. Every speaker mentioned him, transformed from a charming and talented young man into a hero and a symbol of resistance.
I watched every film, even Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa’s Two Prosecutors, about Stalinist repression from a new perspective. Following Russia’s example, the cult of Joseph Stalin has been dusted off here in Georgia, and to my astonishment, it’s alive. Stalin’s resurrection coincides with the rebirth of the most absurd ideas of Georgian messianism. Unknown professors and pseudoscientists have started talking about the uniqueness of Georgian civilization.
The festival opened with the Italian biopic Duse. I asked the person beside me why such a boring film was chosen as the opener, and he whispered back that outside, in the cinema foyer, there was a buffet and several bottles of wine gifted to the festival by the Italian embassy.
Everything became clear.The international film festival had always been low-budget, but this year it was truly scraping the bottom. Still, despite its lack of funds, the festival always managed to attract interesting guests who were happy to come. We looked forward to meeting them, attending their masterclasses and public lectures.
This time, there was one foreign guest: the actor who played Benito Mussolini in a film. I missed the ten-minute scene featuring Mussolini because I fell asleep, but I woke up after the screening to see the actor—with his thick neck and square jaw—standing on stage, saying that Tbilisi was a beautiful city. Why Mussolini, of all characters? Maybe the actor was just visiting Tbilisi as a tourist, and his trip happened to overlap with the festival.
The most emotional audience at the film festival was the one watching Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague. No one wanted to go home afterward; strangers hugged and smoked together. The joy and excitement felt completely genuine.
“We’re part of this, we always have been, and they want to separate us from it,” a woman from my generation, whom I know from the protest rallies, told me.
By “this,” she meant Europe.
[Image: (L-R) Matthieu Penchinat, Guillaume Marbeck, Aubry Dullin and Zoey Deutch in Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague. Photograph: Courtesy of Netflix]
The film moved me deeply too, taking me back to the day my young parents came home after seeing Jean-Luc Godard’s masterpiece Breathless.
In my Soviet childhood, everything reached us late, and I vividly remember my parents watching Breathless twenty years after its release, completely overwhelmed by it.
In Linklater’s nostalgic film, the young Godard and his friends are shooting Breathless. It’s a tribute to the past, made with great care and love—for the people who, back in the 1960s, created a masterpiece and laid the foundation for something new and real, perhaps for that very Europe we admire so much, the Europe we aspire to, the Europe each of us imagines differently. A Europe that has already become a myth, and now even the path toward that myth is being closed to us. We’re forbidden from approaching it, and we grow angry, sometimes cry, sometimes feel completely helpless.
Among like-minded people, you believe everything will be fine, that the efforts of so many good people can’t possibly end in defeat. Yet still, that tragic feeling of abandonment doesn’t leave me. It feels like we’ve gone back to the old days when European films reached us, but their creators never did.
Above the hall full of nonconformists hung the specter of isolation. The film festival ended, but the street protests continued, and so does our life in a country where laws designed to oppress and restrict us are being passed at an accelerated pace.
We have neither money nor brute force, nor, thank God, weapons. They aren’t afraid of us, but we greatly irritate the government and those who have chosen the path of conformism—as well as others who have the skills needed to live in an empire but not in a free society. Such people have started calling themselves “traditionalists.” They label the pro-European part of the population “liberals,” regardless of their political views, and have learned to say that word with particular hatred.
Traditionalists are driven by spite toward liberals. If liberals are seen caring for stray dogs, traditionalists consider it their duty to treat those dogs cruelly.
Tbilisi is becoming a difficult and depressing city to live in.
I walk through the streets of my hometown and, once again, I think I see the imprisoned poet and his carrot-colored jacket.
Every April, I spend several weeks guiding European birdwatchers, and the work never tires me—I enjoy it. But this year, I only had one group, from the Netherlands, in May. No matter where my guests are from—the Netherlands, Belgium, or Germany—at some point they’ll ask me why there are so many EU flags hanging in Georgian towns and villages.
I usually answer that my country is striving to join theThe EU, and that this is the will of the Georgian people.
[Image description: Souvenirs of Joseph Stalin on sale in his hometown of Gori, Georgia, on 1 March 2023. Photograph: Irakli Gedenidze/Reuters]
Birdwatchers are friendly people, and they come well-prepared. They already know everything about our birds in advance—they’ve even studied their calls. But most are surprised to hear that 80% of Georgia’s population wants to join the EU.
And if the birdwatcher is a decent person, that surprise is quickly followed by discomfort. Especially after I tell them that people have been standing in the streets for over 500 days for European ideals, that many have lost their jobs because of their civic stance, and that even more have been fined and beaten. Some protesters are in prison, showing rare resilience, performing acts of civic heroism, and refusing pardons.
I traveled with my Dutch visitors through different regions of Georgia, visiting various bird habitats, and the tour was a great success. Despite wars and countless disasters, birds continue their annual cycles: crossing borders they know nothing about, rebuilding nests, and pairing up.
After five days on the road, none of my birdwatchers had asked the awkward question about EU flags. I didn’t have to give my prepared angry answer—that yes, people here go to prison for the European idea. They stopped asking because, in the cities and villages of Georgia, EU flags are now a rarity.
Archil Kikodze is a Georgian fiction writer, screenwriter, professional photographer, and ecoguide.
This article, published on the occasion of the Tbilisi Debates on Europe, 12 and 13 June 2026, was translated by Maia Gabuldani-Schneider. A longer version was published by VoxEurop.eu.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here is a list of FAQs based on the statement In Georgia our festivals are lively but our poets are in prison and now we feel abandoned by Europe
BeginnerLevel Questions
Q What does our poets are in prison mean
A It means writers journalists or activists who speak out against the government are being jailed Its a symbol of political repression in Georgia
Q What does our festivals are lively mean
A It means Georgian culture is still vibrantfull of music dance food and celebrationdespite political problems
Q Why does Georgia feel abandoned by Europe
A Georgia wants to join the EU and expected strong support for democracy and human rights But recently the EU hasnt taken strong action to stop Georgias government from cracking down on dissent
Q Is Georgia in Europe
A Geographically Georgia is in the Caucasus region at the crossroads of Europe and Asia Culturally and politically it strongly identifies with Europe
Q Who are the poets in this context
A They arent just literal poets It refers to any outspoken artists writers journalists or opposition figures who are imprisoned for their views
IntermediateLevel Questions
Q Why are these poets being arrested
A The Georgian government has passed laws like the foreign agent law and used it to target NGOs media and activists Critics are charged with vague offenses like disorderly conduct or organizing illegal protests
Q What is the connection between festivals and prison
A It highlights a contradiction Georgias rich free culture exists alongside a shrinking space for political freedom The festivals are a mask for authoritarianism
Q How has the EU responded to Georgias situation
A The EU has criticized Georgias laws and delayed its EU membership process But many Georgians feel the EU hasnt imposed real sanctions or offered concrete protection for activists which feels like abandonment
Q Are there specific examples of imprisoned poets or activists
