Georgian press review (August 21-28)

The main event of the last few days in Georgia was the visit to the Republic of the NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on August 26-27, during which the Alliance Training Center in Krtsanisi was opened.

According to the Georgia Online news agency, the authorities did not hide their enthusiasm in connection with the arrival of the high-ranking guest. "The visit of the NATO Secretary General indicates that Georgia is seriously represented on the agenda of NATO, that it is a country-graduate student and a very important, essential partner for security in the region, and in general an important partner in view of Georgia's contribution to Euro-Atlantic security. We will hold high-level meetings of the executive and the legislature powers. There will be the opening of the NATO-Georgia center. We will discuss all the topics that are important for the integration of Georgia into NATO. The NATO Secretary General will find out about the current reforms in the country. It will be important dialogue before the summit in Warsaw," the news  portal quoted Foreign Minister Tamara Beruchashvili.

 

A furore was caused when the monument to Ali and Nino was dropped while being transferred to its new site in Batumi.

"The decision to move was made because of base damage to the sculpture. According to the words of the mayor, Giorgi Ermakov, the statue was installed illegally and without accounting for technical details ... The Armabi 21 company, which won the tender for the transfer, dismantled the statue, when one of the cables of the crane broke, resulting in ‘Nino’ being dropped and damaged. The company claims that the damage to the statue is minor and it will be restored in the coming days," Resonance describes the situation.

 

Not all is well in the field of education.

As stated in the InterPressNews interview with the head of the Ministry of Education, Tamara Sanikidze, despite the fact that today 500 schools have been repaired, a fairly substantial number of them are still in pretty poor condition.

The Minister also clarified the situation with textbooks. "This year, 40% of all books are new. We used to estimate the state of textbooks according to a 15-point system, but later we simplified it, and the condition of the textbooks is now estimated on a 9-point scale. As for rumors about the replacement of the covers of the old textbooks, this decision has not been taken by the Ministry. Every year we are considering various options for updating manuals, and it was the only one of the options we reviewed,’’ the website leads the words of Sanikidze.