Learning a language where it’s not wanted

Towering above the capital city of Tbilisi, the Mother of Georgia is one of the country’s most famous landmarks – a 20-metre-high aluminium statue of an allegorical maiden holding a glass of wine in one hand, and a sword in the other. Respectively, these are meant to represent the Georgians’ reputation for hospitality, and their willingness to fight for their country.  Standing at its foot, a long-time English settler reminisces about the affordability of the city prior to the year’s Russification. It’s a process of gentrification that has forced him, alongside many native Georgians, to seek more affordable residency elsewhere. The Mother of Georgia has overseen decades of Soviet occupation – it faces a different type of Russification now.

Georgia’s relatively relaxed entry laws allow a 365 day visa-free period for all those entering the country. It’s made the country a hotspot for the subsequent surge of Russian emigration that followed Putin’s announcement of a general mobilisation last September. Many of these Russians say they are refugees seeking asylum, but there is a general consensus in Tbilisi not to refer to them as such, with the actions of their homeland not meriting them such a romantic title.

They are met with a disgruntled welcome by many Georgians, unsure whether to help those who hail from the country that still occupies a fifth of their territory. Such resentment is expressed in abundance, from the ‘Слава Україні’ banners along Tbilisi’s central boulevard, Shota Rustaveli Avenue, down to pharmacy receipts, all of which now read ‘Thank you for your visit! 20% of Georgia is invaded by Russia! Slava Ukraini!’

Even setting up an account with the Bank of Georgia requires the following to be declared: ‘I condemn Russia’s aggression in Georgia and Ukraine; I agree that Russia is an occupant, that invaded Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 and 2022; I agree that I won’t share Russian government propaganda and will help fight against it.’ Despite this, little has actually been done to prevent the dissemination of Russians throughout the city. Average rent in the city’s centre has escalated while restaurants and bars have rapidly hiked their prices to accommodate this wave of Russian money.

It’s culminated in what has become a peculiar (to say the least) environment in which to study Russian. In some bars, even the simple question ‘Можно говорить на русском?’ (Can we talk in Russian?) can draw a barrage of equivocal gases as to why you’d even attempt to speak such a language, let alone come to Georgia to study it.

Unlike in the UK, where telling someone you’re learning Russian is often met with intrigue, the same information in Georgia is met with a cocktail of hostility and genuine bewilderment. Sometimes, I have even pretended to be a travelling medical student upon being asked what on earth an English teenage boy such as myself would be doing in Georgia, rather than admit to the seemingly sordid truth.

This predicament initially struck me, a student with a modest grasp of Russian (at best) in dire need of conversational practice, as a massive dilemma. After all, only a year before, I’d imagined my year abroad would entail trudging through deep snow along Nevsky Prospect; drinking and waffling to strangers in slightly broken Russian in what can only be described as some naive Dostoyevskian fantasy.

But as I began to cope with this initial adversity, I realised what a unique opportunity I actually had. Unlike previous cohorts of Leeds students sent eastwards, I had the rare chance to witness the Russian language at its peripheries; where there is a certain tension between the view of Russian as a communicative tool and as an instrument of oppression. As recently as 2019, even the prospect of Russian MP Sergey Gavrilov addressing Georgian parliament in Russian was met with nationwide indignation, with the ensuing protests outside the building leaving around 275 injured.

The Russian language is poised right at the centre of Georgia’s burgeoning generational divide. Those I speak to who actually lived through Soviet occupation, namely market vendors and cabbies, rarely seem to mind conversing in it – ‘Это просто язык!’ (It’s just a language!) I recall being told on one of my many alarmingly cheap taxi forays round the city’s centre.

It’s a considerably different scene in the spaces populated by Tbilisi’s youth, whether in the maze of hipster bars that envelop Liberty Square or within Georgia’s premier techno-intoxicating fever dream, Bassiani; most young Georgians adopt English as their lingua franca. For them, Russian is becoming a reminder of a vexatious past. English, alongside the European integration which it represents to many, is the future. 

Georgia’s resonance with the linguistic plight faced by Ukraine has reignited a national debate on whether Russian, an obstinate colonial hangover to so many, should be consigned to the past. The threat to the language has grown in Georgia, and throughout Russia’s post-Soviet peripheries, despite the growing number of Russians fleeing to them. 

Being witness to this has forced myself and other Russian students to reckon with our role in all this, a state of perplexity and anxiety that encapsulates this strange time to be a student of the language. Somewhere in this generational schism, we, a group whose youth contrasts with Russian’s deteriorating popularity among our Georgian hosts, awkwardly try to fit in.

Header image credit: Flickr