(Club) Cultural Battles in Tbilisi

He himself had the great good fortune that he kept encountering people who opened up possibilities for him: first his music teacher at school, then some of the professors at university, where he studied Architecture. That showed him and his generation "a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel." 

For the last seven years, he and Ines Manseder and Jan Henschen have made up the team behind STAUB parties, a series of daytime parties taking place once a month on Saturdays at Berlin's ://about blank, where no DJs or live acts are announced in advance—the events are advertised purely under their own name.  It's a clear message about the overcommercialization that troubled the techno scene so much before COVID-19 struck. 

Now, however, there are a handful of DJs and producers in Tbilisi whose productions and sets are well known even outside Georgia. Kiziria highlights in particular Natalie Beridze, Nikakoi, Rezo Glonti, Zesknel, Greenbean & Leon (Boyd Schidt, Vulkanski), Gacha Bakradze, Michailo, Zitto, and Newa. 

In addition, of course, there are the resident DJs at the three main clubs in Tbilisi: Bassiani (see 360° view of the entrance below), Khidi, and Mtkvarze.

Unlike in the neighboring states of Turkey and Russia, in Georgia a lively subcultural music scene has developed over the last 10 years. This is mainly due to the work of a group of people for whom club culture and hedonism are inseparable from social, political, and cultural engagement.  

People like, for example, the founder of the Bassiani Club, Naja Orashvili, or the previously mentioned producer and musician Natali Beridze, but also people like Paata Sabelashvili, who founded the White Noise Movement with Orashvili and—a little earlier, in the 1990s—artists like Irakli Charkviani, Lado Burduli, and Kote Kubaneishvili, who worked under the name Reactive Poetry. 

They all showed, and continue to show subsequent generations, that change is possible. They believe in culture as a place where people from all backgrounds can meet, and not only from specific circles—a place where everyone feels wanted and secure. "But that's exactly why clubs were attacked by conservative forces in Georgia," remarks Irakli Kiziria. "In general, club culture has done more for the LGBTIQ community and social justice in Georgia than all the political parties and NGOs put together. But it takes courage and energy."

"Tbilisi is a very dynamic city," explains Irakli. And that has both positive and negative implications for its residents. Because the more tourists who come and the more popular the city becomes, the faster spins the gentrification wheel, and alternative venues, not to mention housing, become (too) expensive for local people. 

"These are global trends and no doubt it's a problem everywhere," remarks Kiziria. "Georgia is no exception. But the country's neoliberal economic policy doesn't help. There are very few people in Georgia with really left-wing political ideas. That's partly because of our history, but there's another reason, too: because of our geopolitical location, Georgians feel compelled to protect their cultural identity—and that leads to a more nationalist tendency in politics." 

First of all there was a military intervention at the Bassiani, ostensibly about drugs, but in fact it was an attack on the open, permissive atmosphere of the LGTBIQ community there—which must definitely be seen in the context of the strength of clerics and right-wing radical groups in Georgian society that we referred to earlier.  

But, as has always been the case in the past: "We still dance and sing and we don't let them get us down. The campaigning goes on, perhaps not always on the streets, but the people behind the campaigns make films and put on exhibitions and continue their educational work. It's very important that people don't give up and that they continue to fight for justice."

The support from abroad that people here received and sensed helped enormously at that time in the quest for the right to protest publicly and organize protest marches outside the country's Parliament. However, Kiziria insists that those signals of support must not stop because especially now, with another crisis in the form of Covid, people need to stand together and support one another "so that these important spaces can survive." 

For Kiziria, none of these are new problems. He describes a continuum that has characterized the situation in Georgia over recent decades. In the early 2000s, when he moved from Georgia to Germany, the country was in a difficult situation, not least due to sociopolitical pressure arising from its complicated geopolitical position, squeezed between the spheres of influence of Turkey and Russia. 

"When the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990s, the Russian government did not want to lose its power—with the result that for a decade there was just chaos in Georgia, with international military conflicts and civil war. As a consequence, there was hunger, no electricity, and no water, complete misery for the local population." 

It is often hard for Westerners to understand, but it was precisely this difficult situation which gave many young people the courage to confront the state and its long-established value systems and standards. "We didn't want to give up our happiness at being independent, we thought we had the right to celebrate," remarks Kiziria, even though it wasn't always easy "when there was shooting going on outside."

"Russia was still there as a powerful force—and it still is today. Russia is a strict regime with a dictator who will do anything to maintain his territorial power." It's a situation that has not changed much to this day, with Turkey and Russia still ruled by autocratic leaders with a clear nationalist agenda. On top of that, says Kiziria, the USA also has "its own particular strategic goals"—and "the EU doesn't really dare to do anything against Russia." 

Kiziria emphasizes how differently democracy is viewed in his homeland from, for example, in Germany: "People living in Germany often forget that democracy is not inevitable but something that you have to fight for every day. That's what I see every time I go back to Georgia, and I see how the next generation is fighting for freedom and democracy. Despite all the setbacks, that gives me some hope."