A Georgian woman in Moscow has been forced to make a public apology after a video of her calling Russians ‘killers’ spread across social media. The video was originally recorded years ago when the woman, Tamar Saliya, was working at a Georgian restaurant in Moscow called Saperavi.
In the original video, Saliya can be heard saying Russians are ‘finished’, adding that ‘you [Russians] kill Georgians, you kill khoklov (a slur for Ukrainians), and you get off on it’. She also encourages the unidentified person taking the video to keep filming.
Saperavi issued a statement on 17 September saying that the video had been recorded several years ago when Saliya worked at the restaurant, but that she has not worked there since 2023.
In addition, Saperavi said they were ‘shocked’ by the video, and that they had contacted the authorities.
‘If we had known about this earlier, we would have taken certain steps in a timely manner, such as contacting law enforcement agencies’, Saperavi said.
The restaurant added that they took the incident ‘personally’ because ‘Russian blood flows in our employees as well as in our co-owners’.
On 19 September, the Russian media outlet Regnum shared a video of Saliya at a police station, saying that she had gone there to ‘apologise and explain her statements’. She said the original video was filmed during an argument at the restaurant, and followed insulting comments the co-worker had made about Georgians.
‘I have a very good attitude towards Russians, I have many friends […] We have the same culture, the same faith’, Saliya said in the video at the police station.
Public apologies via video have become commonplace in Russia in recent years. The practice is thought to have originated in the North Caucasus.
Elizaveta Chukharova
