First of all, I would like to welcome our Olympic gold and silver medalists, who are here together with us today.

Georgia got more medals on the Olympics than did India, Belgium, Austria…

This time we have obtained the largest number of medals in our Olympic history. For this, I would like to greatly thank you boys!

I welcome everyone!

Today, there are our citizens present here from everywhere in Georgia, from all parts of the country.

I came across people from Sighnaghi not long ago. We mastered the reconstruction in Sighnaghi. Perhaps, we made many mistakes in the beginning, but we did also study these mistakes.

There are people from Telavi here and Telavi is being incredibly reconstructed today. Initially, we were thinking to only rehabilitate the city center, but we are now reconstructing the whole Telavi City.

We are building this fortress of Rabat, which is the real crown of our reconstruction.

There was a man living here nearby, a Meskhetian poet, who wrote an excellent poem and I would like to address you with his words: “He gave us the country, to the men, with countless colors”.

Georgia is beautiful with its variety. Perhaps, this is the very fortress, where King Rostevan resided – you probably remember:

“There was in Arabia Rostevan, a king by the grace of God, happy, exalted, generous, modest, lord of many hosts and knights, just and gracious, powerful, far-seeing, himself a peerless warrior.”

"I saw the garden fairer indeed than all places of delight: the voice of birds was heard, sweeter than a siren's, there were many fountains of rose-water for baths, over the door were hung curtains of cloth of gold.”

It is a unique place for Georgia, it is a symbol of our reconstruction, but we have restored not only Rabat – we have restored the Bagrati Cathedral, on which, we will mount the cross tomorrow.

We restored Gelati before that; we are completing the building of a Poti Cathedral.

In the fortress of Rabat, we have also restored the ancient Georgian church from the 9^th century, where the bishop Tevdore, had conducted the liturgy for the first time.  

We are very grateful to him, as he has done a lot for the restoration of this church, and together with our clergy has worked very hard.

Of course, there still is much that remains to be done.

The restoration of Tusheti and Mutso is already underway, we continue to restore Svaneti, we have restored Mestia and are restoring Ushguli…

We are beginning to restore villages in the mountainous Racha Region, where I was visiting few days ago.

There are new cities being built in Georgia, including Batumi, where almost everything is new.

The rehabilitation of Telavi is underway, which is basically going to be a new city, especially after the natural disaster.

We are building Akhaltsikhe, which in effect is being built from the beginning.

My dear friends, the best people live here and I am aware of the kind of poverty that exists here, but there was huge poverty in Sighnaghi too, when we began its rehabilitation. It still is there, but people at least found some relief.

People in Batumi are in poverty in many places too, but not so such as before, when we started the reconstruction there.

I am sure that it will be like this here too – if there were 100-150 people visiting Akhaltsikhe annually before, I bet that it will have 100 thousand visitors next year, who will benefit the business of each resident of Akhaltsikhe – the cafes, hotels, food courts and the agriculture.

I would like to address those people who say that we should have restored neither this fortress, nor the Bagrati Cathedral…these are the same people, who have a long list of objects to be ruined.

I am sure they have not been here once, and they have no idea where the fortress was nor what the Rabat was.

The chief initiator of the restoration of this fortress is the Prime Minister of Georgia Ivane Javakhishvili, who was born nearby this fortress and is a real hero.

The construction of Akhaltsikhe is to be continued, but the next monument, which we need to restore, is the Gori Rortress. We need to also turn that into a place where each resident has more prospects and more pride in its own city. 

One of the main means to defeat poverty is to spin our touristic potential and fully employ our vast culture. My dear friends, we are the best in this regard.

Our opponents often say that it is us who started the war, but is it possible that we could have wanted the war and ruins? This construction means everything to us; the new cities mean everything to us – we have Lazika to build…how can we possibly want war?

I would like to tell them…Bana is ruined, and one of our initiatives is that in the new city, in Lazika, the building of which we will begin in few days, to install the exact copy of Bana. By this, we want this to “baptize” the new city, which will be symbol of thereconstruction of Georgia.

The enemy has attacked us because we chose the reconstruction.

I was visiting Rustavi yesterday, and I know well what kind of poverty is there, but people have found hope now – new factories, logistic centers, small businesses have opened there…the initiator of this too was Vano Merabishvili. We work steadily and do everything.

The Rabati Fortress was not even finished here in Akhaltsikhe, when a new, very nice hotel was opened – there are four more hotels being constructed.

There will be more than 10 hotels built in Abastumani.

There are 10 hotels being built in Borjomi; there is a road being built from Abastumani to Kutaisi…

We are developing Borjomi, Vardzia, Rabat, Abastumani, Sairme, which has already been restored, Tskaltubo, the rehabilitation of which we begin now, Shaori, Utsera and in the end, our resorts and cultural monuments will link up and make one circle.

We will take this job to the end!

Each new resort is the prerequisite of pulling people out of poverty; it is a new prospect, new spark in the eyes of every person and each resident of this place.

I would like to recall Ilia Chavchavadze’s quote: “There is so much we have gone through, so many enemies have attacked us, so much bloodshed, so much misery we have gone through, so much turmoil there has been upon ourselves and we withstood them all, we stood strong against them all. We preserved ourselves, preserved our country, our land and soil…”

Is it not the exact portrayal of the today’s history of Georgia?!

Then Ilia continues: “there is war even now, while not that of blood spill, but of hard work, the war without blood, peaceful, calm…”, but very well know and we will surely prevail in this war!

In the end, I would like to finish my address with final words of the great Rustaveli, Meskhetian poet:

“The one who gave me the birth, was the one who empowered me to overcome the enemy,

Who is the invisible force, in help of all mortals,

Who sets boundaries to the borders, and sits as a immortal god,

He will make the being-moment one into hundred, and hundred into one”.

We have had many enemies, and still have numerous today, but Georgia will never back down and yield to being smashed by anyone!

It is impossible for the nation of such a past, of such a culture not to have a great future and we are all creating this future today!

We have to hand this job to you, the youth present here, and not to figures of the past, who desire to ruin and destroy everything.

There are the best youth here, who will carry on with our reconstruction in a few years and will do 10-times and 100-times better work.

This will only delight us, as you have to study on our mistakes, you have to build on top of our reconstruction and hence create a new, strong, united and prosperous Georgia!