Hello everybody and welcome back to RevLeft Radio. I have a wonderful episode for you today.

This is honestly one of my favorite episodes I've had in a while. I found it so interesting. I

found it so educational. I have on Sopo and Brian who are based in Tablisi, Georgia and they are

the co-host of the podcast Reimagining Soviet Georgia. It's a really fascinating podcast. I only

very recently came across, I reached out to Sopo on Twitter asked if they would want to come on to

talk about, you know, the Georgia, Soviet Georgia, this republic that I think even people who are

very familiar with the USSR might not know much about. And she agreed and her co-host Brian came on

and we just have this really wonderful conversation. We cover, you know, lots of Soviet history. We

cover the importance and the crucial role of Georgia in the USSR more broadly. We talk about Stalin

who of course was from Georgia and has deep Georgian roots and how that played out. We talk about

modern Georgia, you know, what's happened to Georgia since the collapse of the Soviet Union,

what is going on in relation to the Russian Ukraine war, which is happening just north

of Georgia's northern border, etc. So so much fascinating stuff from two really, really wonderful

principled Marxist guests who know a lot about what they're talking about. And Sopo also has deep

family ties. So, you know, what Brian can have, you know, this high-minded materialist analysis

of the situation. Sopo comes in with these fascinating anecdotal, you know, tellings of her

family, her grandparents and sort of traces the emergence and pinnacle and then collapse of Soviet

Georgia in the context of multiple generations in her family. So I just really love this conversation.

I really love reimagining Soviet Georgia, the podcast, highly recommend people go check that out.

And the last thing I would say as well, because I just do think that a lot of people probably in the

West might not have a great idea of where Georgia is or the role it's played in history. I think

it would be helpful if you're not, you know, immediately aware of where it is to go look at a map

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