Moscow – Tbilisi: one more step towards each other

 

Author: VK

 

 

After the "Istanbul process" Russian and Georgian experts make an additional step towards each other.

 

 

In Tbilisi the first Russian-Georgian School of Journalism is opened. It will bring together representatives of the media community, the pool of experts, analysts, politicians, journalists, historians of Russia, as well as young and experienced Georgian journalists, experts in the field of media space.

 

 

According to one of the organizers of the dialogue, Alexey Vlasov, executive director of the center for political analysis "North-South", “there is a great lack of communication between the journalist communities of Russia and of South Caucasian countries. We are trying to overcome this deficit to the extent of our efforts and abilities, to create new areas of interaction, new areas of communication that someday will perhaps go beyond professional interaction, and turn into normal, human, friendly relations”.

 

“Last year, in the autumn, we were able to organize the first media school in the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, and to meet with our esteemed Azerbaijani friends and partners. I think that this meeting, which dealt not only with aspects of media communications, not only of social networks and new technologies in journalism, gave us an opportunity to understand each other better”, Vlasov said. “Our school in Tbilisi is taking place only a few days after a similar event ended in the Armenian capital, Yerevan. The team of professionals that has come to Georgia these days is no less esteemed but perhaps even superior, judging from names and statuses, to our partners who have been involved in projects in Azerbaijan and Armenia. You will hear such well-known experts and political scientists as Fyodor Lukyanov and Sergei Mikheev, and such well-known journalists and media producers as Gia Saralidze and Ismail Agakishiyev”.

 

 

Greeting the audience, Yaroslav Skvortsov, head of the International Journalism department of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, said that “in the last years our relationship was sometimes overly emotional. Sometimes we talked to each other about some flimsy offences. Now the desire and understanding in both Georgia and Russia of a return to a normal dialogue, a dialogue that is aimed at listening to each other, at understanding, at getting rid of stereotypes that were making it so difficult to understand each other are evident. It seems to be that the relationship between Russia and Georgia has much deeper roots, and we have a basis to return to. Certainly, the media plays a very important role in it, because recently journalists usually added fuel to the fire instead of helping their readers, viewers and listeners try to understand each other. This is a very difficult and complex task, but, luckily, we are already seeing the first steps in this direction.

 

 

Perhaps the media's role is to capture positive trends that exist in a given society or societies, and to help these voices be heard. I think that in the near future we will witness the recovery and development of our relations, for instance, in the field of education, and we will see a large number of students from Georgia in Russian universities. A very important step towards creating an understanding, restoring an understanding between us, was the visit of Catholicos Patriarch Ilia II to Moscow. I had the honor to be present at certain ceremonies that took place with the participation of His Holiness, and I can attest that this event was of a much greater scale than an event of the Russian Orthodox Church or of the Orthodox community as a whole. It was a very important and symbolic act. I think we are doomed to dialogue. We must live, develop and grow together”.