The Georgian police are reported to have tracked down the thought criminals responsible for “indecent and insulting” satirical videos which targeted the head of the Orthodox Church and caused a nationwide scandal in this fervently religious country. A statement from the Interior Ministry identified the culprits as a school pupil and a student. […]

Evolutsia, examines the larger issue as it relates to the power of the Church and freedom of speech. In an op-ed piece on the newly launched English-language news blog, Inge Snip sounds the alarm bells.

One of the most fundamental freedoms is, I believe, the freedom of speech. Freedom of speech enables a country to show to every citizen that their opinion is allowed to be heard, no matter the content. In addition, a true democracy allows the mocking of important figures in society, and by doing so, it shows its maturity.

[…]

To conclude, there is no grounds for investigating this issue, nor should there be; however, the law enforcement agencies did the opposite, because there is some kind of popular demand. As a student of law, this is easily one of the most ridiculous grounds for any judicial investigation I have ever heard.

Radio Free Liberty journalist Niko Nergadze talked about a blog, which he has been running for over a year. After the lecture, he told Georgia Today that the participants were very active at the forum.

[…]

Nergadze added that forums like these are important for Georgia as new media exists, but is limited.

“Still we are very far from claiming that the Internet and new media have a serious influence on events. But we are heading toward something,” he said.

Ruso Panozashvili, a journalist and another forum participant, agrees with Nergadze about the event's importance.

“The importance of new media is high in Georgia where television and so-called traditional media outlets are strongly controlled,” she said. “This is not good for quality. This is why it is important to develop media with alternative tools, which in this case is new media.”

Global Voices Online's Caucasus Editor also made a presentation at the event, and was later interviewed by the same publication.

Last week Georgia Today published a story about Media Forum, an event that took place last week in Mtatsminda Park. This week we offer an interview with Onnik Krikorian, a British-Armenian journalist and photographer based in Armenia, the Caucasus editor for Global Voices Online, and the Armenia editor for Oneworld.net. During the New Media Forum he presented the Global Voices Web site and talked about the importance of new media in the Caucasus.

At the event, Global Voices Online interviewed three local bloggers, Dodka, Dv0rsky and Sweet. A second, longer interview by Polish new media specialist Jakub Górnicki, who was also presenting at the forum, is now available online.

Video discussion with Dodie Kharkheli (aka Dodie Kissie, Dodka), Giga Paitchadze (aka Dv0rsky), Mari Talakhadze (aka Sweet) about their blogs, what pushed them into blogging and how blogosphere developing in Georgia and South Caucasus. Show was broadcasted live on October 15th 2009 from Tbilisi.

Dodie Kharkheli (aka Dodie Kissie, Dodka), Giga Paitchadze (aka Dv0rsky), Mari Talakhadze (aka Sweet), New Media Forum, Tbilisi, Georgia: Video grab © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2009

Following last year's Caucasus Bar Camp in Tbilisi, Georgia, came this week's New Media Forum supported by the Open Society Georgia Foundation (OSGF) and the Mtatsminda Park. With the Georgian blogosphere arguably the least developed in the region, the two-day event sought to evangelize the potential of new and social media to a specialist audience.

Around 200 journalists, students and social activists will gather in the amusement park on mount Mtatsminda to learn more about new media opportunities, blogging, social networks, citizen journalism, podcasting, Internet TV, contact management systems, and of course, social impact of new media.

Global Voices Online also presented at the event along with guest speakers from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Poland, U.K., and the U.S. The event also launched Blogroll.ge, a portal designed to aggregate, rate, rank and populize blogs in the former Soviet republic. The forum was covered by the local mainstream TV and print media as well as by bloggers.

It also gave Global Voices Online's Caucasus Editor the opportunity to interview three of Georgia's most prominent and prolific new media advocates, Dodie Kissie (http://dodka.ge and http://ni2news.ge), Dv0rsky (http://www.dgiuri.com and http://www.face.ge), and Sweet (http://www.sweet.ge).

Interview with Georgian bloggers from onewmphoto on Vimeo.

Assessing the state of the Internet in Georgia is rather complicated, however, but in the near future a new service – Georgian blog catalogue will be launched. The catalogue will include all the blogs and services categorized by topic in order to simplify access to information. That will make it easier to find authors and blogs on the Internet.

The presentation of the blog catalogue is scheduled to take place in October 2009, within the framework of next week's Georgian New Media Forum. The forum will also deal with new media in general, blogs, journalism and so on. Ahead of the launch of the blog catalogue, however, a short list of Georgian blogs is available at http://blogroll.design.ge.

Until then, following analysis of the situation, the picture in Georgia is as follows:  there are over 1,500 Georgian-language blogs, a third of which are active and post at least one article per day. There are also blogs by foreign visitors to our country, but their number is not so high and at this stage are not going to be listed for review.

From our viewpoint, the most active Georgian blogs, which receive 200-300 unique visitors a day, include:

http://dodka.ge/

http://sweet.ge/

http://tomushka.blogspot.com/

http://linguistuss.wordpress.com/

http://tiny.ge/

As you can see, the topics covered by Georgian blogs is rather diverse with many bloggers mainly writing about their personal lives. However, many of them also simultaneously comment on or review political developments, the economy, theatre, music, photography or design. Nevertheless, thematic blogs on specific topics are rather rare.

However, there are blogs on cuisine, wine, military topics and so on. For example, ბლოგი ღვინისა და გემოვნების შესახებ [GE] covers wine and recipes while Military Thoughts [GE] is a blog about military theory and is rather interesting too. While there are not so many blogs of this kind, we can also mentions blogs by Gogi Gvakharia, Niko Nergadze and other journalists from Radio Liberty.

There are also blogs such as თავისუფალი სიტყვის ბლოგი [GE], whose author is an amateur Georgian journalist. In the future our rubric is to review such popular blogs to raise public interest and awareness of the authors and blogging in general.

The original unabridged version of this article on the blogosphere in Georgia first appeared in Georgian, Russian and English on Media.ge.

Azeri Wedding, Karajala, Kakheti Region, Georgia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimediia 2009

Last weekend saw an unprecedented event occur in the South Caucasus. Flying Carpets and Broken Pipelines blogger Arzu Geybullayeva, an Azerbaijani citizen based in Istanbul, Turkey, and Baku, Azerbaijan, worked with Global Voices Online's Caucasus Editor Onnik Krikorian, a British citizen partly of Armenian descent based in Yerevan, Armenia, to produce various reports on an ethnic Azeri village situated close to Telavi, Georgia.

Although cross-border initiatives between journalists do occur, this initiative was unusual because not only was it undertaken by mutual voluntary consent, but it was also without the involvement of a “neutral” editor or organization. It was certainly the first time that bloggers on both Armenia and Azerbaijan, two countries in the South Caucasus still locked in a state of war over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh, came together.

Arzu Geybullayeva, Azeri Wedding, Karajala, Kakheti Region, Georgia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimediia 2009

As detailed on my Frontline Club blog, the collaboration was important for both personal and professional reasons. Geybullayeva, also an analyst on Azerbaijan, was perhaps the first English-language blog on her country to stand out in the region.

It was a dream come true. Despite knowing each other for several months online, the chances of meeting regional analyst and superstar blogger Arzu Geybullayeva seemed remote at best and unlikely at worst. […]

[…]

But always expect the unexpected in the South Caucasus, and a meeting of youth activists inTelavi, Georgia, saw the unlikely happen. […]

Ten minutes outside of Telavi was Karajala, a village Inhabited by approximately 8,000 ethnic Azeris in Georgia. As Arzu and I had often spoken about joint projects using traditional and new media to overcome the negative stereotypes of the other in play in Armenia and Azerbaijan, it provided us with the first of hopefully many projects along the same lines. What we weren't expecting, however, was to walk straight into an ethnic Azeri wedding.

Azeri Wedding, Karajala, Kakheti Region, Georgia © Arzu Geybullayeva / Flying Carpets and Broken Pipelines 2009

Writing on her own blog and posting her own photos, Geybullayeva also remembers the visit to Karajala and especially stumbling upon the wedding. She also details the history and context of the village in a country where ethnic Azeris constitute the largest minority with an overall population of around 280,000 according to a 2002 census.

According to the locals the population of the village is around 8,000 people (Wikipedia says between 8 and 10,000). All are ethnic Azerbaijanis who have lived there for several generations. They speak in Azerbaijani but with a dialect- they all use Georgian as well, so it is more of a mix. 16- year- old son of the village head says there are maybe 3 or 4 Georgian families.

[…]

To be honest, I wasn't expecting much. I thought at best, there would be some nice shots and maybe few interviews. Well, it was more than that. 30 minutes into the visit, a woman, whom we (me and journalist Onnik Krikorian) tried to interview told of a wedding that is taking place just five minutes from where we were standing.

The front yard of the house was crowded with people- neighbors, relatives who came to help. This was just the preparation; the wedding was to take place later in the evening and that was the only the girl’s wedding (according to Azerbaijani traditions there are two weddings- girl and boy, the boy’s wedding is the actual wedding). It all looked like well- planned team work- men were setting up the tables, while women were busy preparing food and washing the dishes. 300 guests were expected to come.

Several hours into chatting with locals, we got invited to the wedding itself, which was the ultimate experience.

A joint article and photostory will also soon be published by Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso while a slide show of my own photographs with an audio narrative from Geybullayeva can be viewed above. So far response from Armenian and Azerbaijani alike as well as others has been positive with some comments to that effect available on my Frontline Club post.

Dagen Valentine | October 1, 2009 7:44 PM

Onnik and Arzu,

Awesome. Collaborative efforts like this are what the region needs. Work like yours will help Azeris and Armenians recognize, accept, and celebrate their differences and similarities.

[…]

scary azeri | October 1, 2009 10:55 PM

Wow, I loved this! Well done, guys. Arzu- you are too cute! You need to do more video interviews. :)
On a more serious note, I have found this fascinating. I never KNEW there was an Azeri village in Georgia.

[…]

Medea Georgia | October 2, 2009 6:28 AM

Hey, guys, great initiative…not only for Armenians and Azeris to get closer to each other, but for Georgians as well…Viva to integrated and strong South Caucasus

Narmina | October 2, 2009 9:31 AM

It is so nice that there are people who want to see South Caucasus united. I hope that one day end will come to war and hate between nations in Caucasus. We have to be united and support each other!

A larger version of the audio slideshow as well as a video interview with Arzu Geybullayeva on the visit shot on a mobile phone is also available on the my Frontline Club post as well as below. Geybullayeva was also interviewed by Global Voices Online in July. Hopefully this will mark the start of other collaborations between Armenian and Azerbaijani bloggers in the months and years to come.