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‘We Don’t Want To Serve Occupiers’: Backlash in Georgia Against Russian Emigres
TBILISI, Georgia — “The world should stop Russian aggression,” reads a poster on the wall of a bar in this South Caucasus nation that has become home to tens of thousands of Russian emigres since the invasion of Ukraine.
“Russians who are coming to Georgia should never forget they are coming to a place that is under attack from their country,” said Data Lapauri, the owner of Dedaena bar.
Russian citizens who want to enter the bar must fill in an online form and agree to a list of statements, such as “I condemn Russian aggression in Ukraine.”
Visitors are also asked not to speak in Russian or “engage in political discussions while being drunk,” according to the online form.
“It’s an extreme policy to say that people of a certain nation are not welcomed here. But I don’t want to have someone who supports the war in Ukraine and voted for Putin at the bar that I own. We don’t want to serve the occupiers,” Lapauri told The Moscow Times, sitting on the bar’s terrace on a busy Thursday night.
Other cases of Georgian business making special demands of Russians include Bank of Georgia, which briefly
asked Russians to sign a form in March saying that they “condemn Russia’s aggression in Georgia and Ukraine.”
The most famous nightclub in Georgia, Bassiani, has
reportedly stopped Russias from entering because of their nationality.
Dedaena, which is named after a famous 19th-century book for children learning Georgian, decided to implement the “visa policy” because of “a growing number of cases of misbehavior from Russian tourists,” Lapauri said, adding that it was “a way to protect the bar and keep it friendly and nice.”
“It's very common that people from Russia do not even request — they demand service and menus in Russian or to pay in rubles. Sometimes aggressively. As if it’s something that belongs to them. I would definitely prefer not to introduce the visa policy because it doesn’t look good to me — it looks terrible. But we were forced to do it,” the bar owner said.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022...ash-in-georgia-against-russian-emigres-a78792
