Word: tbilisi
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...festering crisis in the Baltics is only the most obvious manifestation of the problem and by no means the most alarming. The resolve of the leaders there is still tempered with restraint. That is not necessarily so in the southern republics. Speaking privately in Tbilisi two weeks ago, one of Georgia's most popular nationalist leaders denounced as "traitors and collaborationists" any of his countrymen who participate in Soviet-approved parliamentary elections this fall. Such epithets give off a distinct aroma of gunpowder...
...midnight approached, the crowd keeping vigil on the front steps of the government building in Tbilisi, capital of the Georgian Republic, suddenly burst into song. The anthem was an ancient call to battle, glorifying freedom as "the sweetest of words." As its haunting harmonies echoed down nearby Rustaveli Prospect, tens of thousands of Georgians thrust clenched fists into the air. One year ago to the day, on April 9, 1989, Soviet troops had broken up a peaceful demonstration on the very same spot with tanks, shovels and poison gas, killing 20 people. Last week residents gathered in the streets again...
...with young Communists last week, he predicted, "If we begin to divide up, I'll give it to you bluntly, we'll end up in such a civil war, in such bloody ! carnage that we won't be able to crawl out of it." Given the tragic memories in Tbilisi, it was a fate Georgians were determined to avoid...
Secessionist fever has been simmering as well in neighboring Estonia, which last week followed its sister republic in requesting talks with Moscow. The Caucasian republic of Georgia is also flirting with defection, after parliamentarians in Tbilisi denounced their incorporation into the union. Local nationalists are calling for a boycott of parliamentary elections on March...
Because of its souring relations with the outlying republics, Moscow is wary of intervening. Given the resentments caused by the army's brutal suppression of a peaceful demonstration in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi last April, the central government does not dare ask the agitated Georgians to return Turkish villages to the Meskhetians. Moscow has ordered up a plan for repatriating the Crimean Tatars and Volga Germans, but nothing has been done...