“My dear friends, I have already seen this apartment complex. It may not be a luxury apartment but it is an apartment for your family, which will be yours until you return to Abkhazia and even after that. I am sure that all of us will return to our houses, our homes in Abkhazia.

I would like to say that 4500 people have moved here basically establishing a new settlement. I saw the sanatoriums of Tskaltubo in 2007, I opened the doors of each room and I visited families, while having a very heavy, overwhelming feeling. I said that all of us must return to our homes and this is the main goal of my life. But before then, the living conditions should improve. We have already started working on this.

I want to thank the European Union because we started working with them to build these houses. This is a very important and successful project. We decided together to build this new settlement in Poti. I did this intentionally because there are prospects for every one of you to be employed in Poti.

Facilities are being opened here and more facilities are built than closed. Many more people get hired than fired. In the end, Poti should become a 100% employed city.

This city has a coastline with the most important seaport of Georgia and has very significant logistical and infrastructural centers as well as good schools. Adjara, Anaklia, Kutaisi – our Parliamentary Capital and most importantly our Abkhazia is nearby.

I want to tell each one of you that the prospect for you to have housing, water, heat…all of these things are good but you should also have somewhere to go when you wake up. You should have jobs because this is very important to give our children a chance for more that just minimal state and social aid.

You are very talented people. When Russia attacked us in Abkhazia for the first time they hit the region with the most prospects, the most educated, most developed, one of the most talented parts of our society. I am not talking about controlling a piece of land; I am talking about the fact that they decided from the beginning that they wanted to cripple Georgia. They took everything away from these very people who could make Georgia better. They blocked the future of these people.

I want to tell the conquerors, who are temporarily occupying our land and everyone else that their plans did not succeed, because you still exist.

Of course many people did not survive this but you are here. You are breathing. There are children here, who are our future, the future of Abkhazia, hence the future of Georgia. We have you – the people who can do much for Georgia.

Situations of course change. We recently extracted the Vatican archive letters: almost all of the Kings of Georgia wrote letters to the Pope. One of the Georgian Kings writes, “We are Christian brothers and you are powerful in Europe. Come and help us, Georgia is in danger.” Then he signs it as one of the leaders of the enslaved country.

You remember the poem of Mukhran Machavariani – “Orbeliani waiting for Louis XIV, they made him wait; he was the 14^th in a row.” A week ago, the contemporary Louis XIV came to Tbilisi and addressed you on the central square, promised us friendship, backing, and support.  This is the difference between an enslaved, broken, and destroyed country and a country which has prospects. We have never been this close to achieving our historical goals; we have never been so close to NATO and the EU. The conqueror is still on our soil, does not let you into your homes, it provokes us within the country and abroad. In spite of this, our main goal is to strengthen Georgia, help our families feel relief, and return the land that is temporarily controlled by others. We have to return our land through peaceful means. This is our territory; the graves of our ancestors, our homes, where we were born, where we grew up and went to school. We are obligated to return all of these places. While each one of you is alive, even in such humanitarian conditions as in these houses, we are still called refugees. And while each one of you is called a refugee every patriot in Georgia and abroad, every Georgian including me will feel like a refugee. I will be a refugee until our land is returned to us.

I understand well that everyone should have civilized living conditions, but the people that were oppressed in recent years deserve them the most.  We are all in your debt. These houses are a small part of the debt that we are paying back with the help of our European friends. This is a good program and socially successful but only when we completely overcome our problems will this debt be paid back.

And in the end, I would like to address the children.

You know that I love children above everyone else because they understand me completely. Like them, I often love to fantasize and draw beautiful things, but later I implement these things. I hope that the bravest dreams of these children will come true. I want us to inspire them and make them understand that Georgia belongs to every one of us.

It is unfortunate but I remember the injustice against you happening in 1993-1994; during the time of a very bad government. I remember how the refugees were harassed. I remember how people addressed a refugee child when that child would come to school. They harassed a person who earned a little money by selling things out of a booth, reminding him that he was a refugee. Many people made fun of your accent, which I think is the best Georgian dialect. Let’s put all of this aside because all of this is in the past, because this is new Georgia where nobody can harass anybody, nobody can look above anybody and nobody will say that you don’t deserve it.

I, as the President of Georgia declare that you deserve more than anybody in the country. You have lost more than anybody, you deserve more than anybody and you must get more than anybody in the future. Today is a good day and we all waited for this day together. We are planning to open a similar neighborhood in Batumi in a few weeks, then in Tskaltubo, Tbilisi, Poti and Kutaisi.

This means building our country; whatever we are creating today will form a unified Georgia in the future.

Georgia will be rebuilt and unified!

Thank you!