During the first CIS and Baltic countries’ mass media forum, deputy prime minister of the Russian Federation Sergey Ivanov talked about Russia’s principles for creating intergovernmental relations with foreign countries. It turns out that Moscow considers the market economy principle as a cornerstone.
“Russia trades as in Russia, as well as abroad based on the principles of the market economy and we will continue doing that,” he announced. It turns out that it’s necessary to find the causes for good and tense relations by taking a look at the economy. Ivanov went further in detail and said:
“The gas price in Armenia is lower than that in Georgia. But that’s not due to the fact that Russia wants to sell gas to Georgians for a higher price than Armenians based on politics. The thing is that Armenia has handed over its entire gas substructure and that has affected the price of the product.”
“GasProm” is offering Georgia to pay 260 dollars for 1000 cubic meters of gas in 2007. As for Armenia, which has handed over its entire economy to the gas monopolist, the price stays the same-a little more than 100 dollars. Question: is it really that expensive to connect the Georgian gas valves with the large Armenian gas pipelines of “GasProm”? Armenia will continue to pay 100 dollars for gas because it has decided to “not pay attention” to “GasProm”, thus the country has handed over all the small pipelines and substations to “GasProm”. So, in this case, the gas first makes it to Georgia and then Armenia. No, of course I’m not encouraging to make the gas price equal to that of Russia’s strategic ally or for a country which, based on surveys, will soon head the list of Russia’s enemy countries, or countries, which are a potential danger for Russia. We Armenians simply want to understand why, for example, Georgia, with half of its population in poverty, can be dangerous for a country that wishes to become supreme. This, perhaps, is due to the wrong propaganda, if of course, the Georgian wines and mineral water prohibited in the Russian market haven’t been brought down to the level of the biological weapon. But we’ll talk more about this later.
In his speech, Ivanov came up with another fact. It turns out that the planes traveling from Russia to Georgia and vice versa don’t fly due to the fact that the Georgian airline companies have a debt and that the cease of communication via mail has stopped due to technical difficulties and not economic. This last one, however, is not a problem because there are private organizations that handle that.
A question comes up concerning the airplanes: why should they fly? Whom are they going to transfer if the Russian consulate of Georgia is closed, visas are not granted and market relations are frozen? However, visas are sometimes granted exclusively. Ivanov said that Russia doesn’t have any problems with Georgia and that Georgians can “come to and leave Russia”. In general, as you listen to the Russian deputy prime minister, you get the impression that very often post-Soviet countries don’t really understand Russia. What’s standing in the way of Tbilisi to not bring Russian spies and simply redeem the debt of the airline companies and get things back to normal? Why can’t it stop making a big deal about the economic pressure and give the major pipeline to “GasProm”? Instead of talking about an economic blockade and threatening to put a veto on Russia becoming a member of the World Trade Organization, it should solve the issues concerning wine production in Georgia and make it so the ingredients of mineral water correspond to what is written on the label. However, there is one flaw: the errors on the labels, the debts of the airline companies, the increase of the gas price, etc. started after the spy scandal when Tbilisi removed the federative security service officials by causing a big scandal. So, in the beginning, there was some kind of political cause, which led to the effects of economy, which in turn could have principally turned into the cause for the current Russian-Georgian crisis. But it didn’t. However there are signs that Russia may ease the tension of Georgia’s economy. General sanitary doctor Anishchenko recently blurted out that there appears to be a lack of the “Borzhomi” medicinal water in the Russian market and hoped that Tbilisi would start producing high-quality mineral water and the medicine would be supplied again. The “longing” of Russians for the “Borzhomi” mineral water was so great that Russian stores were forced to fill their shelves with the “Bagiati” mineral water produced in Vladicaucas. The label of “Bagiati” is the same as the label of “Borzhomi”. “Bagiati” is bottled in the Tskhinvali region of Georgia and it’s refreshing. But the “Borzhomi” that tastes like “Bagiati” is an imitation and can be thrown away.