Government Does Not Pay Attention to Border Villages

Tea Tedliashvili, Gori

Tsitelubani is a village in Gori district mostly inhabited with ethnic Ossetians, though it is controlled by Georgian side and Georgian policemen strictly control the entrance to the village.

Three villages controlled by de-facto regime of South Ossetia border with Tsitelubani.

The village was not looted during the war last year. Locals say they survived because their village was mostly populated with ethnic Ossetians. Before 1993 330 families lived in the village and only some of them were Georgians. However, because of endless conflicts the Ossetian families abandoned the village and moved to Tskhinvali; another part moved to Vladikavkaz.

In parallel to it, 27 families from Adjara Autonomous Republic were settled in the village because of threat of landslide. Families of Muslim Meskhs were also settled in the village.

Although the village borders with the conflict zone we could not discover the tense relation between villagers on ethnic grounds. Ossetian and Georgian people live here very peacefully and have close relation with each other. They all complain about the government because nobody pays attention to them. Although the village is on the border it was not involved in the rehabilitation program after the war in 2008. They received only small aid from the government; they were assisted to cultivate their gardens. Anyway, the villagers could not get any harvest because they do not have irrigation water; it is impossible to harvest wheat without water. The source building of the irrigation system is in Tskhinvali and only villages controlled by Ossetians are irrigated from this system.

“The upper villages do not release the water to reach our village so we rely on the rain only. Tskhinvali releases the water but it cannot reach our village because upper villages cut it,” said Surena Bolotaeva. She is surprised at the behavior of neighbor Ossetian villages because they know Ossetian people live in Tsitelubani.

“We, Ossetian and Georgian residents are very close with each other. But the life is very difficult. We do not have water and cannot harvest anything. There is no pasture to have cows. One family can have only one cow and we feed it with grass from our gardens,” said Eter Kusraeva.

The problem of pastures appeared in the village after the construction of the new motor-way started. The villagers complain about the construction for some other reason too: - nobody of the villagers was employed on the construction while unemployment is the main problem for locals.

“Motor-way is being constructed close to us. They could employ us but nobody from the village works on the construction. This motor-way has taken away our pastures and they do not employ us either. If it lasts like that, the village will soon get empty,” said Surena Bolotaeva whose relatives and neighbors left village several years ago and moved to Vladikavkaz.

The village of Tsitelubani attracted the attention of the government on August 6, 2007 when a shell was dropped in the village. Russian and Georgian sides started to argue who was guilty for the accident. Now villagers say the government pays to them attention only during bombardment.