On the benefits of eating ties

The BBC broadcast which showed Mikhail Saakashvili talking on the phone and chewing on the tip of his necktie in anticipation of a live broadcast became one of the most memorable episodes of the five-day war. Naturally, the Georgian president did not know that the camera was turned on and did not care about containing himself. This image is actively used in the information war and, of course, only a few people pay attention to those who knew the Georgian president as a child and who testify that Mikhail as a child had a funny habit of chewing the tip of his pioneer tie.

Nevertheless, Tbilisi has found a way to launch a "counterattack" on this “information front.” The Georgian NGO “For European Georgia” and Russian journalist Oleg Panfilov, who received Georgian citizenship after 2008, have officially patented a dish served in the form of a tie.

The annotation to the culinary invention says the following: “Eating a tie helps you to reform your life and improve its quality; it increases media freedom and democracy; it helps to cope with the disease of authoritarianism, Soviet mentality and a reluctance to see prosperous and happy neighbours. We recommend using it regularly until you lose all ailments.”

According to my information, the idea has been received in Georgia with great enthusiasm and in the near future Georgia will host events of publicly preparing and eating sweet and savoury tie dishes. Saakashvili himself will take part in the occasion. He has repeatedly been saying that if the country does not succeed in either direction from wine to sport, he will once again eat his tie.

In this way the Georgian president demonstrates to his Moscow opponents that he does not feel uncomfortable about the “tie story.” Saakashvili said: “Putin has not reached his main goal: he failed to displace me during the aggression nor later with the help of opposition rallies.” Neither Saakashvili nor his allies have any doubt that the main goal of Moscow was not so much a separation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as a change of power in Georgia.

In comparison with this important task, not only the tie episode but also the official establishment of the real-life long independence of the former autonomous regions appears to be insignificant. Especially if the tie episode is being turned into a symbol of successful reforms.

This is not the first time Mikhail has tried to twist the rhetoric of his Russian opponents in his own favour. For example, in an interview with the French president, Vladimir Putin promised to hang Saakashvili by the genitals, and several times repeated this statement in various interviews. I doubt that the Russian prime minister expected his counterpart to return to this episode in almost every speech with a cheerful smile saying: “the Russian leader dealt first with my genitals, but then went a little higher and started speaking about my tie.”

The PR war around the ties and other men's “accessories” emphasizes the basic idea of the Georgian leader and his followers both in Georgia and Russia: every episode can be turned to your advantage and leave it to the history as a joke if the country succeeds in reforms and development. If Georgia appears to be successful with a fast-growing democracy, then the history of eating ties will become a historical tradition, the original meaning will soon be forgotten, as with many other historical traditions. If Georgia does not succeed in breaking from the post-Soviet system, then the tie of Saakashvili will remain a symbol of defeat.

Georgy Kalatozishvili, Tbilisi. Exclusively for VK.