Romanian comedian Victor Patrascan ‘denied entry to Georgia’ ahead of show

Romanian stand up comedian Victor Patrascan has reportedly been denied entry to Georgia, hours before he was scheduled to perform in Tbilisi.

Patrascan posted on Instagram on Tuesday afternoon that he had been turned away at the border.

‘Apologies to the over 500 lovely people of Tbilisi who got tickets for my shows today and tomorrow, but your current government thinks I’m too dangerous and has not allowed me entry into Georgia’, he wrote, adding that the reason he was given for the denial was ‘other cases envisaged by Georgian legislation’.

‘I hope soon you’ll get the freedom you deserve and we’ll see each other and laugh about this’, he wrote, with a picture against the backdrop of what appears to be the border checkpoint between Armenia and Georgia.

Patrascan was likely traveling from Armenia, where he had just performed.

Patrascan, a self-described ‘eccentric stand up comedian and outrageous social commentator from Romania’ was stopping by Georgia and Armenia as part of his tour, Stand Up Comedy in Broken English. He is scheduled to perform in Baku on Friday before moving on to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan.

In a snippet shared by Patrascan from a show in Copenhagen, he banters with an audience member from Georgia, briefly touching on the ongoing protests and says that Russia ‘bought’ the 2024 parliamentary elections.

Georgian protesters have been taking to the streets since December 2024 to protest the government’s decision to ‘temporarily halt’ Georgia’s EU membership bid. The decision followed the October 2024 parliamentary elections, which gave the ruling Georgian Dream party 54% of the vote.

Georgian border officials regularly use the justification ‘other cases envisaged by Georgian legislation’ as a tool to bar people, including Western activists and journalists critical of the governments in Tbilisi and Moscow, from entering the country.

In late March, Lithuanian women’s rights advocate Regina Jegorova-Askerova, who had lived in Georgia for 15 years, was denied entry into the country under the same justification.

Jegorova-Askerova reportedly has a family in Georgia, including two children, and also holds permanent residency.

Lithuanian women’s rights advocate, who has lived in Georgia for 15 years, denied entry

The reasons behind the decision remain unclear.

OC MediaMikheil Gvadzabia