Adzvi Population Requests Attention from the Government

Tea Tedliashvili, Gori

Residents of the Adzvi village unsuccessfully tried to attract the attention of the government several times. The villagers arrived in Gori to meet regional governor Lado Vardzelashvili; they petitioned to the government in written form too but all in vain. Residents of Adzvi say the government does not pay attention to the villages close to the border.

The village was supplied with the irrigation water from Tskhinvali and they always had problems for that. But, after the war in August 2008 the situation in the village aggravated because they cannot irrigate their plots on the territory controlled by Georgian side at all. Consequently, the population cannot get harvest.

“We borrowed money from each other to arrive here. Is it government? Isn’t our village close to the border? There is no assistance for our village. People do not receive allowances. Most plots remained on the uncontrolled territory. The government warns us against entering that territory because they cannot be responsible if something happens with us. But what shall we do? Ok, we will not go there but we cannot irrigate the plots that are on our side. We do not have water and let them make at least one well. Ossetians used to release the water whenever they wanted and demanded huge money for that. Now we do not have any water and we will not be able to get any harvest this year. Even old fruit-trees went dry,” said Tina Tsetskhladze from Adzvi.

Villagers complain about drinking water too.

“In the morning, before departure, I brought some drinking water from my neighbor but how can people complain about drinking water nowadays? The government claims they do everything to help us… they dug wells in every village but nobody has come here. Nobody pays attention to our village. They promised to build weir to resolve the irrigation water problem but we do not know when they will finish it. They have not done anything yet,” said Zhuzhuna Balamtsarashvili.

Villagers could not meet Lado Vardzelashvili and did not receive any promise from him. Gori district governor Davit Khmiadashvili met one part of villagers in Gori.

Khmiadashvili said in his interview with us that the channel is already cut in the village of Adzvi and the water is already supplied to the village. As for the drinking water Khmiadashvili said the problem will be resolved soon. “Now we will examine every village and see which of them has problem of drinking water. Then we will assist everybody to resolve the problem. As for humanitarian aid, the project is not implemented in Adzvi and villagers cannot receive the aid,” said Davit Khmiadashvili.