If the energetic crisis in Georgia was aimed purposely towards president Mikhail Sahakashvili and his administration, then we can say that the people who did this got what they wanted. The president’s reputation has gone down and it had already been going down recently. The next step taken by the president, which he took by coming back from the Davos committee way too early, made Georgians start to make comments.
“It seems as if we are all going to die. He should think about the people and provide better living conditions,” said an old man from Tbilisi on television. The man was waiting in line for kerosene from early morning (the authorities had promised to provide kerosene for the people at special prices). Very few were actually able to buy it at a special price.
Since there was no gas at the time (there still isn’t any) and electricity, the Georgian authorities started blaming Russia for all this. There was no light last week and many authority figures kept on repeating “the Russians knew that the winter winds were blowing to Georgia and that’s why they exploded the gas pipeline and the energy routes.”
Let’s suppose this is so. But did the Russians forbid the local authorities to bring snow clearing mechanisms out to the streets? Didn’t they let Georgians pour salt on the streets so that people wouldn’t fall down and hurt themselves while walking? True, they did pour salt in some places, but that was not enough. As a result, there was too much transportation on the streets of Tbilisi and too many doctors. The present day Georgian authorities are known for taking advantage of any situation in the country. They don’t fulfill their promises made to the voters and claim that the country is doing fine thanks to the hard, dedicated work done by services in the country. They also say that the country could have been in worse conditions without the help of, for example, Azerbaijan (which has increased levels of gas export) or Turkey (which also increased levels of energy resources). According to the authorities, the major issue facing Georgia today is not to depend on other countries for energy resources, which basically means not relying on Russia for gas and electricity. But for some reason, they are not talking about what will happen if snow falls in Georgia again. They are not saying anything about whether or not a man who has broken hands and feet can sue the municipality for not taking care of transportation or, for example, the author of this article who didn’t write as long as he is used to writing…As for the heat, there is still a couple of months.