Young Georgia

The average age of Georgian officials is just 28

Recently a prestigious non-governmental organization has carried out multilateral research of all power structures in Georgia. Most interestingly, the average age of Georgian officials turned out to be 28. The research dealt with government and parliament as well as all the country's bureaucratic class, that is with personnel of all administrative structures both in the capital and in regions. The results shocked many people. The research showed that the country is ruled by the youth. There are no people even in their early forties, not to speak of elder ones in the power structure, representative bodies and among minor officials. The average age of ministers and deputies amounts to just 32. Bureaucracy and top officials are not the only corroborating the above-mentioned rule .For example,  the so-called establishment (or elite), including successful businessmen, managers, heads of
institutions for higher education, experts and journalists are generally younger than 40 years.
 The problem of gender equality exists in all societies, but in Georgia misbalance of representation of different age categories at the public and state institutions is so evident that some experts
point out the certain social deformation with its causes and preconditions.The social process is considered to originate in the Rose revolution of 2003, when the youngest president of the world embarked on his post. Mikheil Saakashvili was 36 then. Change of elites and personnel "rejuvenation" in all spheres became his most revolutionary revolution. Young president and his young team feels more comfortable working with a bureaucracy of the same generation.  Typically of complex sociopolitical processes, the result turned out to be ambiguous. On the one hand, the group which came to power on the tide of street protests, has increased the budget eightfold (from $ 500 million to $ 4 billion) and has carried out extremely complicated reforms in all spheres. On the other hand, young radical politicians reflected little on cost and consequences. This resulted in social explosion on November, 2007 the president had to declare a state of emergency in Georgia. 2008 South Ossetia war is, by and large, a result of the youth radicalism, emotionality and lack of inexperience.
 Politics is the sphere of activity where knowledge and professionalism are always products of experience. It is impossible to learn this at school or higher school, even for students of brilliant
abilities and diligence. There are virtually no political child prodigies (unlike generals, scientists etc.). If there are any exceptions to the rule, the ruling class can't consist of such exceptions entirely.

And what about the elderly? The answer is simple: family values haven't disappeared. The standard Georgian family still includes three generations, and is still indestructible. But it turned out that family values are not necessarily projected onto sociopolitical sphere, and sometimes, when certain factors coincide, they may lose influence on social processes at all.

 "Rejuvenation" of the Georgian elite didn't begin in 2004: process was launched by the long-term country's head Eduard Shevardnadze. Having seized power after the 1992 military coup d’état (and any coup, war or revolution is known to be sublimation of primarily youth energy), Shevardnadze started elevating and promoting the social group able to provide legitimization for his reign in the new post-communist epoch in all the social and political institutions. It is thanks to Shevardnadze, that the overwhelming majority of Georgian current president's team members has centered on the  political scene. Here the main question emerges: the experienced politician estimated power and possibilities of this generation correctly. But why did it possess the energy that made it possible to legitimize the power of the political long-liver and then to remove him from the political Olympus when the former benefactor became a burden for them? If we want to answer this question, we should analyze Saakashvili's team attentively, taking into consideration their age as well as some even more important social factors.

The abovementioned group is characterized not only by similar members' average age. All its representatives once were members of the social stratum formed between mid and late 1970s and early 1980s, the metropolitan "gilded youth" brought up in the families of Soviet high-ranking functionaries of the memorable Brezhnev epoch with its mendacity, social demagogy and all-embracing snobbery.

 Mikheil Saakashvili is a typical representative of the communist-hater generation. These young men were substantially formed as individuals in the epoch when the VRC or Levi's jeans were considered a sign of social superiority. They had everything and studied in the most prestigious institutions for higher education. However, they wanted much more. Went on the border with Turkey to watch the European Football Championship on Turkish TV, took  planes to the West(as on November, 18th, 1983), listened to Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd throughout  the nights, indulging in things sharpening the senses. It was this stratum of Brezhnev's "jeunesse dorée»  that came to power in Georgia after the Rose revolution. This provides explanation for their self-confidence, absolutely implacable westernization policy pursued by them and instinctive aversion of Russia, the successor of the hated USSR. Everything else, including the deformation of different age categories' social representation is just consequences (but not the reason as it may seems at the first glance) of the most passionate social group's coming to power( the generation has been "brewed" in that  that remote and outwardly tranquil epoch).  However, social and cultural processes seldom happen to be unequivocal: no nother social group wouldn't have been capable of making Georgia unrecognisable, as Saakashvili and his team did. Nowadays, it isn't better or worse. It is just different.

George Kalatozishvili, Tbilisi. Exclusive for VK