Podcast | Shovi: an avoidable tragedy?

10 August 2023

On 3 August, a fatal mudslide hit Shovi, a resort in the northwest of Georgia. At least 21 people were confirmed to have been killed as a result of the mudslide.

This week on the Caucasus Digest, OC Media journalist and co-director Mariam Nikuradze talks about the mudslide and its aftermath. Aleko Sardanashvili, an activist and winemaker from Racha, talks about the impact of the disaster on the region, while Lasha Sukhishvili, a professor at Ilia State University and the deputy head of of the Institute of Earth Sciences, talks about what needs to be done to avoid such tragedies in the future.

Death toll continues to rise in mudslide in Georgia’s Racha

Become a supporter at oc-media.org/support_us, or on Patreon.

The devastating landslide in Shovi in August 2023. Photo: Netgazeti

Analysis

Datablog | Georgians are feeling the effects of climate change

Dustin Gilbreath

••3 min read

The effects of climate change are increasingly being felt acutely in Georgia. A CRRC poll investigated Georgian people’s perception of climate change, and found that 90% of respondents considered it to be an important issue, and 75% had experienced changes in local weather patterns. Climate change is increasingly having catastrophic impacts around the world, from an increase in insect-borne infectious disease to a rise in deadly heatwaves, flooding, and storms. These impacts are also being

Lali is a self-taught beekeeper with 14 years of experience. Photo: Tamuna Chkareuli/OC Media.

Agriculture

Georgia’s women farmers battle a changing climate

Tamuna Chkareuli

••6 min read

In Georgia’s patriarchal countryside, women are starting to take more leading roles in agriculture — but climate change threatens even the modest gains that women have made so far. Lali Sukhitashvili inherited a number of beehives from her mother-in-law, one of the first beekeepers in the village, 14 years ago. She has worked as a beekeeper ever since. ‘My profession was maths, and bees are mathematicians too. I’m fascinated by their biology. When a lot of bees died in my first year [as a