Adjara
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აჭარის ავტონომიური რესპუბლიკა |
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| Autonomous Republic within Georgia | |
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| National languages | Georgian |
| ethnicities | According to the 2002 census: Georgians (93.4%, incl.ajars ) Russians (2.4%) Armenians (2.4%) Pontos Greeks (0.6%) Abkhazians (0.4%) |
| Religions | According to the 2002 census: Orthodox (64.0%) Muslims (30.6%) Armenian (0.8%) Others (4.3%) |
| Capital | Batumi |
| Biggest cities | Batumi (152,839) [2014] |
| Status within Georgia | Autonomous Republic |
| surface | 2,900 km 2 |
| Total population | 336,077 (2014) |
| Population density | 115.9 inhabitants / km 2 |
| governor | |
| website | www.adjara.gov.ge |
Adjara ( Georgia აჭარა / Atschara officially აჭარის ავტონომიური რესპუბლიკა / Atscharis Awtonomiuri Respublika , German and Ajara) is an autonomous republic of Georgia , bordered by the Turkey in the south and the Black Sea in the west.
population
The area of Ajaria covers 4.2% of the Georgian territory. The population is composed mainly of Georgians , Turks , Russians , Ukrainians , Armenians and Greeks .
Ethnologically, the Adjars are considered to be Muslim (Sunni) Georgians, as national authorities do not statistically record their religious affiliation in the ethnic sense.
During the Soviet era, 150,000 (about 38%) of the then 393,000 inhabitants of the republic were Muslim ajars, meanwhile the proportion of Muslims (including Turks, Lasen, Abkhazians, etc.) has fallen to 30%.
Today 48% of the population live in cities.
history
Ajaria was part of Georgia in the Middle Ages. The Seljuk Turks occupied the area in the 11th century, the Mongols in the 13th century. Georgia lost the territory to the Ottoman Empire in 1635 . During this time, many of its residents converted to Islam. As a result of the Berlin Congress on July 13, 1878, Adjara was added to Russia , forming the Batumi Oblast . In the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty of March 3, 1918, Soviet Russia ceded the country to Turkey . After the defeat of the Central Powers , it was occupied by Great Britain .
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After the Treaty of Kars in 1921, Adjara was incorporated into Soviet Russia. It became part of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic as the Ajarian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic .
In the process of the dissolution of the Soviet Union , the independence movement of Ajaria did not express itself in a bourgeois-democratic way, as in the rest of Georgia, but in an anti-Georgian alliance of separatists and communists. On April 22, 1990, separatists with red flags demonstrated on Lenin Square in Batumi for the independence of the state of Ajaria. In the Georgian parliamentary elections in October 1990, the Communists in Adjara received 56% of the vote.
Abashidze era
To prevent a communist-led secession of Ajaria, Georgia's former Vice Minister for Utilities, Aslan Abashidze , took over the post of Adjarian parliamentary president in April 1991. He dismissed the old parliament and prevented a new one from meeting. Abashidze established an autocratic regime that was largely independent of Georgia. Ajaria was ruled by Abashid's family like a feudal principality.
In 1998 he was elected President of Ajaria with 93% of the votes cast. He was helped by the silent support of Russia , which has stationed troops in Adjara and other secession areas of Georgia.
Under the rule of Abashidses, Adjara set up its own armed forces and paid no taxes to Georgia. On the border between Georgia and Adjara, the local police introduced border controls and levied fees. Criticism of the head of state was not tolerated. Abashid's political opponents were killed, expelled from Adjara or sentenced to prison terms by courts on the basis of fabricated allegations of criminal offenses. Various Georgian television stations have been banned from broadcasting their programs in Adjara.
Georgia's President Eduard Shevardnadze had visited Adjara several times during his term in office from 1992 to 2003 in order to achieve a reconciliation with Abashidze. In 1995, the Abashidses party, the Union for Democratic Rebirth (Georgian Demokratiuli Agordsinebis Kawschiri ) of Georgia joined the parliamentary elections with Shevardnadze's Georgian Citizens' Union .
Conflict with Saakashvili
Abashid's Union for Democratic Revival had 30 out of 235 seats in the Georgian parliament elected in 1999 . In October 2003 she opposed the Rose Revolution and stood in opposition to Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and his government. She was concerned that Saakashvili's policies might curtail the rights of the Ajarian government and eventually eliminate Abashidze.
The new Georgian government had promised to protect the interests of the Autonomous Republic, but it insisted on enforcing Georgian law and the rights of the central government in Adjara as well. In January 2004, Abashidze initially signaled a willingness to compromise to Tbilisi and paid taxes for the first time in years. As in previous years, he ruled out a secession of Ajaria from the Georgian state.
Spurred on by the success of the Georgian Rose Revolution, broad opposition to the Abashidze government had formed in Adjara . On December 27, 2003, the opposition alliance Our Adjara (Georgian Chweni Adschara ) was founded. It includes representatives of intellectual groups and members of Georgian parties. On January 27, 2004, the opposition Democratic Adjara party was formed . Its chairman is Eduard Surmanidze, also a member of the Georgian party United National Movement . On February 3, 2004 the Georgian student alliance Kmara! (Eng. Enough! ), which played an important role in the preparation of the Velvet Revolution, began its activity in Adjara.
The Abashidze government tried to contain the opposition by force. Opposition politicians and journalists were beaten and opposition offices were vandalized. A paramilitary militia set up by Abashidze appeared, which the population called Men in Black because of their black clothing .
In March 2004 the conflict between Adjara and the Georgian government came to a head again. President Saakashvili demanded direct control of the port of Batumi and the customs authorities. On March 14, Adjara refused entry to the president. In return, Georgia imposed a partial blockade on Adjara. With the exception of Russia, the international community supported Saakashvili. On March 18, 2004, Prime Minister Abashidze granted the central government control of the port, customs, borders, communications and state finances of Ajaria. He pledged to disarm the paramilitary militias in Adjara, to guarantee free and democratic elections and freedom of expression.
Despite Abashid's relenting, tensions arose again and again between Batumi and Tbilisi . Contrary to their assurances, the Ajarian leadership strengthened its paramilitary groups. During the Georgian parliamentary elections on March 28, 2004, polling stations in Adjara were raided, votes were stolen and election workers were threatened with violence, according to the information provided by the Georgian central government. On April 24, 2004, it declared a state of emergency in the country for the third time in five months.
Change of power
On May 4, 2004, there were demonstrations by students and opposition members against the Ajarian government in Batumi. They were violently disbanded by the Ajarian government. The Georgian parliament unanimously called for the resignation of Ajarian Prime Minister Abashidze. President Saakashvili lifted the state of emergency and appealed to the armed groups not to obey orders from the autonomous government.
On May 5, 2004, the number of demonstrators grew from a few thousand to 15,000. Large parts of the police and the Ajarian Interior Ministry refused to obey Abashidze. After talks between the Georgian President and Russian President Vladimir Putin , Russia also withdrew support from Abashidze. The chairman of the Russian Security Council, Igor Ivanov , flew to Georgia and convinced Ajarian's head of government to give up. On the morning of May 6th, Abashidze resigned from office and flew into exile in Moscow with his security minister and his family .
Adjara was temporarily administered by a 20-member commission of the central government in Tbilisi. Georgia's law enforcement agencies began to hold previous rulers accountable. In June 2004, three former members of the government and the former speaker of Ajarian parliament were arrested for embezzling taxpayers' money.
In the elections to the regional parliament, the Supreme Council of Ajaria , on June 20, 2004, the party Saakashvili - Victorious Ajaria won 72.1% of the vote (28 seats). Of the remaining eight parties, only the Berdsenishvili (Republicans) jumped the seven percent hurdle. They received 13.5% of the vote (two seats). On July 20, 2004, Ajaria's parliament elected Levan Warschalomidze , the current director of Georgia's state railways , as Prime Minister of the Autonomous Republic. Ten months after his inauguration, he was suspected of holding key positions in his government with family members.
The autonomy of Ajaria was restricted by law on July 1, 2004. The Ajarian Prime Minister is then elected on the proposal of the Georgian President. The president may dissolve the regional parliament at any time. The resolutions of the Ajarian parliament can be suspended by the parliament in Tbilisi or stopped by the Ajarian prime minister through a veto.
In March 2005, Adjara and the Ukrainian Odessa Oblast signed a cooperation agreement for cooperation in the fields of economy and trade, technology and science and humanitarian affairs.
As part of the intra-Georgian settlement, the Georgian Constitutional Court moved its seat from Tbilisi to Batumi in July 2007.
administration
Adjara is administered in six municipalities , which are named after their administrative centers Batumi, Chelwachauri , Chulo , Keda , Kobuleti and Shuachewi .
economy
The most important branches of industry are oil processing , mechanical engineering , food production , light industry and lumber production . The main agricultural products are tea, citrus fruits, grapes and corn. The main ports are Batumi and Kobuleti . Natural resources are gold , silver , copper and other metals.
literature
- Mariam Lortkipanidze: Georgia and its autonomies. Brief outline of the history of Abkhazia, Achara and South Ossetia. In: Georgica . Vol. 15, 1992, ISSN 0232-4490 , pp. 34-37.
- Hugo Greenhalgh, Robert L. Jarman: Adjara and the Ottoman Empire. 1830-1878. Archival Publications, London 2003, ISBN 1-903008-32-8 .
- Hugo Greenhalgh, Robert L. Jarman: Adjara and the Russian Empire. 1878-1917. Archival Publications, London 2003, ISBN 1-903008-32-8 .
- Hugo Greenhalgh, Robert L. Jarman: Adjara and the British Empire. 1918-1921. Archival Publications, London 2003, ISBN 1-903008-32-8 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Preliminary Results of 2014 General Population Census of Georgia ( Memento of May 1, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (English) accessed on May 13, 2015.
- ↑ Erhard Stölting: A world power is breaking up - nationalities and religions in the USSR. Frankfurt / Main 1990, p. 236.
- ^ Detlev Wahl: Lexicon of the Peoples of Europe and the Caucasus. Rostock 1999, p. 30.
- ↑ Ben Cahoon
- ↑ BBC: Nowadays over 60% of the population are Georgian Orthodox Christians, and about 30% continue to profess Islam
- ↑ constcourt.ge ( Memento from July 21, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
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See also
Web links
- BBC Country Profile Adjara (English)
- Government of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara (English, Georgian)
- Tourism Office of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara ( Memento of March 5, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
- Elections in Adjara: Observer report of the International Society for Fair Elections ( Memento of July 12, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) (English; PDF; 76 kB)
- English and Russian short messages from Kawkaski Usel from Adjara
Coordinates: 41 ° 40 ′ N , 42 ° 15 ′ E