Will Knolevi Village Get Mountainous Zone Status?

Lado Bitchashvili, Shida Kartli

After the armed conflict in August 2008 the population of Knolevi village in Kareli municipality, with 180 families, was almost half-reduced. The locals say people migrate from the village because of hard social-economic conditions. Big part of their agricultural plots and pastures are now in the occupied territory.

“Nobody cares about this village. We have only one field and that is all. A day ago Russians arrested my friend and I managed to escape,” local Giorgi Tsikubadze said.

According to the village population, most of them lost social allowances that farther complicated their situation. They hope the status of the mountainous zone will somehow relieve their hard life; with the status they will get some social allowances. (Knolevi village is located at 832 meters above the sea-level).

“More than half of the village population has migrated to the towns. Children are not born; I do not remember when last wedding was held in the village. We wrote letter about the situation in our village and sent it to the Ministry for Regional Development; we asked them to grant status of mountainous zone and still wait their answer. We cannot find out whether they give us the status or not,” local Roman Totladze said.

Another Knolevi resident Goneri Gobernidze said he could not cultivate the plots and uses them now as pasture. He said if the village gets the status, it will resolve part of his social problems.

“We deserve the status and they should give. We are in a conflict affected zone and surrounded by wire-fences. We have nowhere to go. Our pastures were occupied by Russia. The government shall take these circumstances into consideration,” Gobernidze said.

Shida Kartli region interim governor Ioseb Okromelidze said they had discussed issued of Knolevi. He said they are checking some additional information and after final confirmation comes, the recommendations will be sent to the central government.

“We discussed the issue of Knolevi at the previous consultation council. The municipality governors received instructions to work on the relevant issues and collect information,” Okromelidze said.

The consultation council of the regional governor’s administration has already discussed status of those villages, who were not on the first list of the mountainous zone. Upper Nikozi in Gori municipality was among them. Three months ago, when locals started collecting signatures to claim the status, representatives of Human Rights Center’s Shida Kartli office held information meeting in Nikozi village. After the meeting, the organization called on the government to consider the status of Upper Nikozi again; as a result the village is now already on the list.