Before you listen to this BBC podcast I'd like to quickly tell you about some others.

My name's Andy Martin and I'm the editor of a team of podcast producers at the BBC in Northern Ireland.

It's a job I really love because we get to tell the stories that really matter

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Hello and welcome to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm taking you back to 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. An independent state, Georgia found

itself on the verge of a civil war, with gun men on the streets and the country's president

forced into hiding. This episode with Tom Eselment was first broadcast

in 2010.

It's Christmas 1991 and rebels are firing on government buildings in the streets of the capital, Tbilisi.

Georgia, newly independent following the collapse of the Soviet Union, is on the verge of civil

war. The new Georgian president, Zviad Gamsahudia, is forced into hiding after a faction from within his own government violently turns against him.

President Ganszokodia himself in a radio broadcast from his bunker said the opposition were bandits and criminals who had no right to form a government.

He called for a mobilisation of the people.

Many men in Tbilisia quick to take sides, either to protect the embattled president, or by becoming members

of the armed paramilitaries who oppose him.

The violence begins to seep into every corner of the capital.

Hospitals are overwhelmed. Doctors and nurses must do

everything they can to protect their patients. It's so very hard for me to tell

about that period when everything was ruined.

...