A year has passed since Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream party halted the country’s bid for EU membership — a move that immediately sparked a massive, nationwide protest movement that, despite relentless state pressure and shrinking in size, continues to this day.
Honestly speaking, without any theatrics: I can’t really believe I’m writing this. Partly because it’s hard to realise that such a long, heavy year has gone by so quickly. And second, it’s astonishing to see how the country has changed so profoundly in just 12 months: how sharply authoritarianism has intensified, and how the sense of safety, stability, and a predictable future has almost disappeared.
Even though I try my best to stay emotionally detached from this entire process and not let my personal feelings influence my reporting, there are moments from this one year — marked by resistance and heavy repression — that I will never be able to look back on with a cold mind. One of them is the evening when Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze officially announced the government’s EU U-turn.
People around me, like a large share of opposition-minded citizens, became deeply frustrated by that moment. Like many of my friends and colleagues, I quickly headed toward parliament, a traditional site of protests in Tbilisi. At first, there were barely a few hundred people there, standing on the pavement, talking to one another, sharing anger and outrage. Within just a few hours, thousands had gathered, and in the following days — tens of thousands.
Then came an unspoken week: every night in the November cold, Rustaveli Avenue overflowed with people, barricades, fireworks, water cannons, pepper spray, tear gas, and volunteers offering first aid and food. Brutal police beatings, robberies, and unidentified masked attackers ambushing protesters and journalists turned the main avenue and nearby streets into a zone of constant danger.
These were the days when the state, openly and unapologetically, hunted its own citizens. And although physical violence later slowed, the process continued through waves of arrests and convictions, countless restrictive laws, hefty fines on protesters and journalists, and the authorities declaring critics to be traitors and enemies from the pro-government TV studios. What many see as the consolidation of authoritarianism and isolation of Georgia from its traditional partners in the West, has accelerated over the past year and continues at a remarkable pace.
And yet, despite the relentless pressure, the protests never stopped. They weakened and shrank in size, but since 28 November 2024, it has been rare to find a day when demonstrators did not take to the streets in Tbilisi and some other cities. What is clear at this stage is that the movement has managed to adapt to the restrictions imposed by the state at various points and, through changing forms and concepts, whether static demonstrations, marches and flashmobs, has continued to act.
Over the past year, alongside experiences of resistance and repression, many hard questions have also accumulated. It is difficult to say when or in what form a turning point will come and when the struggle, for which many have risked their freedom and well-being, will bear fruit. It is equally hard to predict what might bring the number of protesters back to its original size — or even beyond. What will ignite the anger of an exhausted and, in many cases, frustrated opposition public, or change the minds of those who still think that growing authoritarianism will not affect them personally? No one can say for certain.
It is also difficult to predict what lies ahead for us, the independent media. Like the other government critics, we face a government that has crafted an entire legislative framework aimed at our elimination, placing many media organisations at risk of losing resources essential for survival — and, in some cases, already causing such losses. What we do know is that we will not yield and will continue our work. Everything else remains uncertain.
And when I say ‘uncertain’, I mean it — with a realistic, though not necessarily pessimistic, outlook. After all, with this newsletter we mark 28 November 2024: the day when a small group of protesters gathered at parliament, only to swell within a few hours into a massive, angry action. All that is left for us is to keep working, observe, and wait.
