Welcome everyone!

First of all happy St. George’s Day to everyone!

A rainy day was forecasted for today. I am not sure whether the meteorological service of City Hall has anything to do with it or how it works, but even yesterday, when the snowy rain and wind was forecasted in Kutaisi, the sky was clear and it was a warm, sunny day as we arrived there.  In Tbilisi in a similar way, wherever we went today and where the people have gathered, it stopped raining and the sky cleared up.

I would like to congratulate you on an excellent St. George’s holiday!

I would like to congratulate you with the renovation of Aghmashenebeli Avenue as well. The “Plekhanovi” district is very dear to me, as I was born here, I spent my childhood here and I got my first job here in this place. In short, a big part of my life fits within these one-two square kilometers.

This street of Tbilisi has never, in any other epoch, been so brilliantly and nicely represented. There has never been such a consistent reconstruction of such a scale carried out in the period of 5-6 years. There will be lot more done in the coming two years than what has been done in recent years. We have just launched the construction of a new district of Tbilisi before arriving here. First we gave a new lease of life to Old Tbilisi, which is very important. It has an incredible image today. The main avenues have been renovated, the roads and infrastructure has been restored, and Tbilisi has never been such a clean city as it is now. We have opened one of the biggest shopping malls across Europe today. We have also built a foundation to the construction of “New Tbilisi” today.   

It is the eighth anniversary of the Rose Revolution today!

We had no electricity. Basically, pensions were not awarded before the Rose revolution. More than 50 percent of the population of Georgia had no income. The level of poverty was at 52 percent, but most importantly we had no hope. The majority of the population did not believe in the future, but the moment came in our history when the society said that everything has its limits, including the hopelessness. A confidence in the future has emerged as a result of us standing together. The hope has emerged and did the impossible. We did all of this even with the existence of a strong enemy, having gone through an economic and energy embargo, an entire shut down of electricity and the 2008 war – think about it. It is the first time since Stalin that the Soviet Union (Russia afterwards) intervened into the territory of another country (we are the smallest among such countries) and in spite of them continuing to occupy a part of our territory, they did not manage to bring the people to their knees. Russia could not achieve an entire occupation of the country, toppling of its regime, kneeling down of its people. Tbilisi had stood as a one living chain, huge meetings were held in Tbilisi and despite the threats of bombings thousands of you stood there and stated out loud that Georgia will never surrender its freedom. I just want us to understand what Georgia has achieved in these 8 years. It is important for me what was in the past, and it is much more important what will be coming tomorrow. The tomorrow and the day after is everything for me.

I am not going to show off to you, but we have to say one thing, the indicator of poverty was 52 percent in Georgia. Every second Georgian was basically on the verge of famine, this indicator has dropped to 17 percent today.  Certainly, even this is very important, of course, unemployment is still high but it is also important that these 17 percent have medical insurance and social assistance. We did not have anything before…Perhaps, there are people residing here, in whose families none of the members are working, but the state now has the opportunity to assist them through different means. The state has built houses for them, it has built additional floors in some of the houses, refurbished the facades, it became possible to strengthen the foundations of the house and the idea was that this kind of help may give them an opportunity to open small hotels or a café. They have obtained a small prospect for future with this news. 

When we discuss the figures and the results of the Rose revolution, we cannot ignore that the child mortality in Georgia has dropped three times since the Rose revolution. We have eradicated corruption during these years. How did we do all of this, as we have no oil and gas? We opened a government house yesterday in Kutaisi, we have conducted such vast reconstruction work here as well, while normally only the countries that have oil and gas have the opportunity to do all this. How are we able to do this without oil and gas in Georgia? It is because of the fact that we have smart people and there is no corruption in Georgia.

One more important thing that we have defeated is the criminal and the thief’s mentality. The Russians had told us for millennia that our national brand was precisely the criminal. It has disappeared from Georgia once and for all. We can safely walk in our illuminated streets…We are working on concrete plans and are thinking about reducing the poverty level once and for all. The world economy is having hard times, based on recent studies the credit ratings of France, the U.S., Italy, Japan and that of many other countries have been and are being downgraded. Against this background, only the credit ratings of two countries have been upgraded in the world. This in turn means that out of two hundred countries the situation is improving only in two of them: one is the oil and gas rich Kazakhstan and the other is Georgia, with no oil and gas, but with our proud, skilled and special people. I would like to once again note that if all of us work hard, we will reduce the unemployment to the minimum once and for all.

I have very often been accused of caring only about Batumi. The residents of Kutaisi would say “he will fly over and will not even wave a hand to us”. You probably saw yesterday what has been done in Kutaisi. There will be an unimaginable reconstruction there next year as well. They also say that I am only interested in Western Georgia – just see how Kakheti is being changed. This region will be unbelievably transformed by next year. See how Samegrelo is being transformed. Only Anaklya is worth so much. We are starting a huge construction in Zugdidi. Look at the work that is underway in Gori. But overall, Gigi nor I or anyone will forget for a second that we are all from here.  We are all building the capital together.  It is not only the capital of Georgia but Tbilisi is an immensely important center of the Caucasus and the entire region. Overall, when I look at this avenue, the new Rustaveli, new “Old Tbilisi” and “New District”, one could say that the construction processes on such a large scale are taking place nowhere else across Europe. Our city will be one of the prettiest, most comfortable and gratifying in the world.  Pride will be the feeling which will describe our attitude towards our capital and our country. Despite numerous attempts, no one will be able to take us back to the soviet times. While those who try to take Georgia back, they have no future. Dissimilar from them, our country has a great future in Europe. You have seen it yourselves that the European Parliament has adopted such a resolution for the first time, where in terms of implemented reforms, it recognized Georgia as a successful country among the partners of the EU. This is our achievement and our pride. This is a concrete result of the Rose revolution. We will start free trade; we are launching negotiations on visa free travel. I am not afraid about the return of a person who will cross the border with a Georgian passport at all. Each Georgian that will go to Europe will certainly return to his beautiful country, as we have more prospects today. Precisely this is another achievement during the last seven years since the Rose revolution. Yet, I also know that many our relatives and friends are abroad and they are hesitating about returning, but despite that, based on all statistics more people return to Georgia during the last 7 years than leave. Even in this regard Georgia is the only country in the post soviet space where such a tendency is noticeable. Georgia attracts its offspring back like a magnet, our population is growing and all of this is the great achievement of the Rose revolution as well.

I would like to note that we have intelligent people among the representatives of all generations, but the opportunities that are given to the new generation today are entirely different, for example, in terms of access to education, introduction of new schools and technologies. I am delighted to see how open minded our new generation is, what kind of opportunities the youth has. Given this, I regret as never before that I was not born a bit later, even here on Plekhanovi. I would have gone to today’s new school, where we give computers and teach English from the first grade. I regret that I was not born little later, so that I could go to the new technological university, which we will open next year in Batumi, regret that I was not born a little later so that I would grow up together with this Georgia. We have brought all youth to this point, yet the future belongs to them, we will all move aside, first of all I mean myself. The main goal now is to create guaranties for these youngsters, so that no one can ever take them back to the past where we all have come from…for us to never go back to corruption, absence of electricity, criminals. We will not go back to the time when connections, bribes and relatives where needed for getting a prestigious position, when there was a nepotistic approach towards everything.  We will never go back to the time, when our parents will not have means to feed and give a better education to their children. We are all moving farther away from this epoch. These years are significant for us specifically because of these reasons, as we have managed the reconstruction of the country very rapidly during these 8 years. Some people might say that we made many mistakes, certainly there were mistakes as well, but only those who do nothing make no mistakes. Let them say that we have built many things faultily. Some people do not like the color of facades, some do not like buildings and animated monuments, but if you do not erect the monument and build new buildings, no one will be able to criticize it. Let them criticize us about what we do and say that it could have been done better. Yes, I would be the first one to tell you – it can be done better. We will surely do it better next time! I prefer to be criticized on what we do, rather than for us to sit still so that no one says an awkward or bad word about us. Exactly this is the difference between the present day and the previous epoch, yes, this is why this epoch is historic. I repeat it once again that there has never been reconstruction of such scale. The moment we build the rest of Georgia is not too distant either, when we will have both hands free to build the occupied and by then returned territories. Yes, we will not make mistakes there; we will indeed do everything there just fine!

We have not wasted a single minute in reconstruction, reforms and creation of a better future and neither have we any minute to waste in the future as there is much more to be done yet.  We know all this very well just like you do. 

 Thank you very much.