Bidin Ivanishvili, a billionaire who divides Georgians

Most of the villagers in Blackville in the northwest Georgia are adorned with Bidin Ivanishvili, their most proud son, who is widely perceived as a true person in the country.

This is a picture of a postcard where the roads are good, the houses are well maintained, and there are many blue and yellow flags of the ruling party of Georgia.

“This whole area, where you can see new houses and roads, was made by our man. Nothing without him, and he did everything for us,” says Mammia resident, pointing to the village from a nearby forest.

Ivanishvili founded the Georgian dream (GD), and the party has been in power for 12 years.

For more than four months, Georgians went on the streets across the country to accuse the Ivanishvili Party of falsifying the October elections and accusing the State Council of Crossing the country from the way to the EU and return to the sphere of influence of Russia.

GD denies that you will not find anyone in the blackville with a bad word to say about your son -million.

Ivanishvili earned happiness in Russia in the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, first, selling computers before acquiring banks and metal assets. He returned to Georgia in 2003.

According to Temur Kapanadza, every young couple in the blackville receives a cash gift of $ 3,000 (2300 pounds) from Ivanishvili, who teaches history at a rural school where Ivanishvili went to the boys.

Unlike most rural Georgia schools, it has its own pool and basketball on the premises.

“He reconstructed the hospital, built two churches, corrected all the roads, made all the roofs around the region,” says Temur.

“I personally received a refrigerator, a TV, a gas stove and for five years, Mr. Bidin helps us paying 200 Laris (55 pounds) every month.”

Here they accuse the confrontation in the protesters against the EU and using young people as “tools”.

“We also want Europe, but with our traditions, and this is what the government also wants,” says George Burzhenidze resident. “We are a Christian country, and our traditions mean that men should be men and women should be women. President Trump also thinks how we are.”

Judging that Europe is trying to impose the values ​​of foreign Georgian traditions, such as gay rights, are often repeated by state ministers and pro -government media.

They also abandoned daily protests that caused the Georgian dream decision to suspend negotiations with the European Union on future membership in the country.

“Fire to the oligarchy” has become one of the main slogans on current protests to decide what people say, this is the preferred influence of Bidin Ivanishvili on the country’s politics.

“Currently, Georgia is managing the oligarch, which has a very Russian agenda,” says 26 -year -old Tamara Arwadze, who has joined the Tbilisa capital every day to fight what she sees as Ivanishvili.

“He owns everything, all institutions and all government forces and resources. He sees this country as his private property, and he runs that country as if it were his own business.”

Last month Tamara and her guy were in the incident that was Captured on mobile phones And went viral. They were traveling to the place of protest and shouted the words “oligarchy’s fire” when a number of disguised policemen surrounded the car and tried to break.

“It happened in seconds, but it seemed that the hours. I was shocked how aggressively they tried to do it if they had happened out of the car, I don’t know what would happen.”

The boy Tamara canceled the driver’s license during the year and could face the term of imprisonment for the police. It was fined $ 3,600, a huge amount in Georgia, where the average monthly salary is closer to $ 500.

Since the controversial parliamentary elections criticized by international observers, the Georgian opposition has boycotted the parliament, leaving the ruling Georgian dream so that they make any changes to the law.

“We see the law abuse,” says Tamar Anyani, Director of Human Rights at the Georgian Association of Young Lawyers.

“At first he forbade face masks, and then they unfolded the personality recognition cameras in Tbilisi. So, it facilitates them who appears on the stock and then order high fines.”

Last month, the fines got ten times to block the road or disobey the police, and Tamar Anyani speaks only one day when they received 150 calls from the rally who were fined.

Prime Minister Irakli Kabohidze recently announced the participants of the rally as an “amorphous mass” and thanked the “replenishment of the state budget” with big fines.

Tamar Anni says that the “judicial system is completely passionate” and acts as one of the instruments against the demonstrators who, she said, were shot down.

“They were tortured only because they participated in the protest and were a supporter of Georgia’s European future.”

The government denies the allegations.

Ever since the protests began in November last year, hundreds of civil servants lost their jobs after signing petitions criticizing the government’s decision to suspend negotiations with the EU.

“The government has decided to clear the public sector of employees who were not true to them,” says Nini Lezhava, who was among those who lost their jobs.

She held the post at the Georgian Parliamentary Research Center, which was tasked with providing objective reports to parliament and has been abolished since then.

“They no longer need it. They have their own politics, and they do not want anyone with an independent analytical ability,” she says.

Nina says that such “purification” takes place in the ministries of defense and justice, as well as in other state institutions: “This is happening throughout the state sector of Georgia.”

“They are trying to create another Russian satellite in the region. And it goes beyond Georgia and outside the Black Sea, beyond the South Caucasian because we see what’s happening in the world. And this is a bigger geopolitical shift.”

In Blackville, the Temur Capanadze History Teacher sees the government’s approach to Russia quite differently: “No friends and enemies forever. Yesterday’s enemy can become today’s friend.”

More about this story thereAs intended by BBC World Service