Save Vake Park

Plans to construct a hotel in the corner of Tbilisi’s Vake Park have met opposition from residents of the Georgian capital. Although the Mayor’s Office says the development in Vake Park is not illegal, demonstrators disagree. Instead,they argue, the area where the hotel is being constructed was privatised without sufficient public discussion.

Organised via Facebook, the protests are now a regular occurrence with citizens and foreign residents invited to gather close to the construction site to make protest banners and signs while also engaging in other recreational activities. These include playing with frisbees, walking dogs, and even tightrope walking.

Until late last year when he was suspended from office under investigation for the alleged misuse of public funds, Mayor Giorgi Ugulava was the only member of former president Mikheil Saakashvili’s United National Movement (UNM) to hold influential public office. Coincidence or not, activists might have found an ally in the Minister of Environment for the new Georgian Dream coalition.

“Tbilisi is densely populated, with a rapidly growing traffic. When planning new development under such conditions it is important to preserve the city’s recreational zones,” the Minister of Environment Khatuna Gogoladze was quoted by Democracy and Freedom Watch as saying. “There shouldn’t be new construction projects in the central districts.”

Activists have also received messages of support from neighbouring Armenia where environmentalists successfully prevented the construction of kiosks in Mashtots Park.

However, that action was arguably only a phyric victory. The area of green areas, including parks, in Yerevan, the Armenian capital, has already been significantly reduced, often to make room for the construction of cafes and restaurants by government officials or their relatives. The concern is that Tbilisi is experiencing the same trend.

For now, however, construction has been stopped.