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Here's John Bachelor.

Georgia South Caucasus.

This is a state that during the Soviet era, I knew only as in Georgian wine was the best.

Everybody in Moscow wanted a bottle of Georgian wine. Now I visited

Georgia twice with delegations in 17 and 18. Downtown is a charming European city.

Didn't look like it had been updated for some decades.

Now of course the building cranes have done their work and it's prospering.

Why? I welcome Ekaterina Zolotova, who writes for

geopolitical futures. She's an analyst. She's based in Moscow. Reintroducing me to

why between 17 and 18 and 24 the prosperity has come to

the oblisee. It was always going to be there, liberated from the strictures of

Marxism but in any event there is a reason and part of the reason is the conflict in Ukraine and also the willingness of the Georgian government to open itself up to trade around the world.

But there is tension and the tension now is the fact that there are no diplomatic ties between Tbilisi and Moscow, very

strange, but that's the fact is left over from the conflict of 2008. At the same

time there are elements in all parties in Tbilisi who say we need a balancing act not to west not to Moscow back and forth back and forth and we're doing well but there's an election

upcoming and that may be determinative of this contest coming out in the open

at Keterina your essay is very helpful to understand the story so far.

I want to establish what we have now.

Georgian Dream is a dominant political party.

The president right now is a woman named Salome

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