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OC Media
6 days ago
- Politics
- OC Media
Mental health of detained OC Media contributor Bahruz Samadov in decline
Sign in or or Become a member to unlock the audio version of this article The Caucasus is changing — so are we. The future of journalism in the region is grim. Independent voices are under threat — and we're responding by building a newsroom powered by our readers. Join our community and help push back against the hardliners. Become a member Detained Azerbaijani activist and OC Media contributor Bahruz Samadov has spoken with his grandmother about the possibility of committing suicide. Samadov has been convicted of treason and is currently serving a 15-year prison sentence on charges he denies and says are politically motivated. 'I beg [you] Bahruz, don't do such things, like committing suicide or [going on] hunger strike', Samadov's grandmother Zibeyda Osmanova asked him on Monday during a visit to Umbaki prison, where Samadov is being held. She told OC Media that Samadov's friends had also told him to stop doing such things. On Tuesday, Azerbaijani journalist and commentator Javid Agha wrote on X that Samadov said that he would succeed in killing himself on the third attempt. News from @bahruz_samad: He met his grandmother today. He told her that since the peace treaty was signed, being unjustly kept in prison hurts him even more now. He said he cannot find peace for himself in the cell. So far, once while being held at the State Security Service… — Cavid #FreeUlviyya (@cavidaga) August 12, 2025 During the visit on Monday, Osmanova said that Samadov 'repeated that he was innocent, and asked what he was guilty of. I only reminded him of Tofig Yagublu, who went on a hunger strike for 40 days, and was sentenced to nine years'. Yagublu is an opposition politician who was sentenced to nine years in prison on charges of fraud and forgery in mid-March. He has been on a hunger strike since 1 April in protest of the court's ruling. Advertisement Osmanova added that when she saw Samadov, he had 'lost weight and looked so nervous, depressed. He constantly asked, 'Why was I not released because Azerbaijan and Armenia signed the peace treaty? I'm also a prisoner of peace. Why aren't they letting me go? Why are they prolonging it so much?', his questions I have no answers'. During the visit, Samadov also asked Osmanova to send a letter to influential presidential aide Hikmat Hajiyev regarding his case. Osmanova stressed that their meeting took place behind the glass of the prison, and during the conversation, Samadov also complained about 'why the trials were being held behind closed doors for journalists and his friends'. She told OC Media that Samadov did not mention torture in the prison during the conversation, and that she believes that if he was faced with pressure, he would have told her about it. Samadov was sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges of treason in June. On Wednesday, Samadov's next appeal hearing was scheduled to be held.
OC Media
11-08-2025
- Business
- OC Media
Amidst shifting geopolitics, Armenia's abandoned Meghri railway station is a reminder of the past
Sign in or or Become a member to unlock the audio version of this article The Caucasus is changing — so are we. The future of journalism in the region is grim. Independent voices are under threat — and we're responding by building a newsroom powered by our readers. Join our community and help push back against the hardliners. Become a member The Meghri railway station, nestled along the banks of the River Araks near Armenia's southern border with Iran, is more than a decaying relic of Soviet-era infrastructure — it is a mirror reflecting the region's complex and shifting geopolitical landscape. Built during the Second World War, the railway was a crucial source of Armenia's internal connectivity, linking Yerevan to the southern cities of Meghri and Kapan in just a few hours. But it has long since fallen into disuse. Its degradation is not just the result of neglect, it is a consequence of the unresolved regional tensions that continue to define Armenia's borders and its future. The entrance to the Meghri railway station, once bustling with travelers and freight, now stands quiet and overgrown with wild grass and creeping vines, a fading gateway to a past era of Soviet connectivity and regional movement. Photo: Anthony Pizzoferrato/OC Media. Sunlight filters through broken windows inside the Meghri railway station, casting shadows on peeling walls and rusted fixtures. Photo: Anthony Pizzoferrato/OC Media. In 2023, Armenia announced an ambitious $1.2 billion plan to revive the Meghri railway, a section of the so-called 'North-South corridor' that would reconnect Armenia to Azerbaijan and potentially onward to Russia, Iran, and Turkey. According to the plan, $1 billion would be invested by Azerbaijan and $200 million by Armenia. Armenia's Economy Minister Vahan Kerobyan noted that the restoration of the Meghri segment would be particularly costly, as the old tracks had been completely dismantled and replaced by a road. 'There may be a need for a new railway altogether', Kerobyan said at the time. A view from Armenia's southern border reveals the River Araks, with Iran visible across the water. This crossing is a vital lifeline for Armenia, facilitating essential trade and energy flows, especially as tensions rise over the proposed Zangezur Corridor. Photo: Anthony Pizzoferrato/OC Media. A winding road stretches from the Iranian border toward Meghri, serving as a crucial artery for the transit of goods and energy supplies between Armenia and Iran. Photo: Anthony Pizzoferrato/OC Media. 'The unblocking of [regional connections] is beneficial not only for Armenia but for the entire region', Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in 2023, emphasising that Armenia was ready to open all transport routes, provided its sovereignty and jurisdiction were respected. But despite these proposals, the project never materialised. Instead, 2023 saw renewed tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan, stalling diplomatic progress and raising serious questions about the viability of regional integration. Advertisement That September, Azerbaijan launched its last large-scale military offensive on Nagorno-Karabakh — by the end, the region was under the full control of Azerbaijan and almost the entire Armenian population, over 100,000 people, had fled their homes. Subsequently, the topic of the so-called 'Zangezur corridor', an Azerbaijani demand for control of a strip of land through Armenia to link mainland Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhchivan, came to the forefront of negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. A rusting railway car sits silently outside the abandoned Meghri railway station, a quiet relic of Armenia's once-thriving southern rail line near the Iranian border. Photo: Anthony Pizzoferrato/OC Media. An old train car sits idle on the edge of Agarak, Armenia's southernmost town, its rear still bearing the word 'Baku' in Russian. Photo: Anthony Pizzoferrato/OC Media. The perceptions of this route in Armenia and Azerbaijan have differed, if not been outright contradictory. Pashinyan has continued to advocate for the unblocking of regional transport and infrastructure connections, including stressing that Armenia supports the principle of reciprocity in the reopening of rail and road links, including in regards to a route that would run through southern Armenia via Meghri to connect mainland Azerbaijan to its exclave, Nakhchivan. In turn, Armenian President Vahagn Khachaturyan, who is rarely seen in public, visited the Syunik province in late July, during which he proposed an 'alternative' name for the 'Zangezur corridor' — Gates of Syunik — which, according to him, would open up great opportunities for development for Armenia. A red Soviet-era station duty officer's cap, once worn during the operation of the Meghri railway station, offers a poignant glimpse into the region's transport legacy. The sign below reads 'daily'. Photo: Anthony Pizzoferrato/OC Media. Faded documents lie scattered inside the abandoned Meghri railway station, remnants of a time when this remote outpost buzzed with cross-border traffic and logistical activity. Today, the silence speaks volumes about a lost era of connection, commerce, and strategic importance at Armenia's southern edge. Photo: Anthony Pizzoferrato/OC Media. However, no matter the route chosen, the Armenian authorities have insisted that everything should be in accordance with international norms, the logic of Armenia's sovereignty, and that Armenian border guards should be there. In contrast, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has clearly stated that infrastructure passing through southern Armenia was built by Azerbaijan and that Azerbaijani citizens passing through it should not see the faces of Armenian border guards. 'We remember very well how in the Soviet years they stoned Azerbaijani cars when they passed through that section', Aliyev said on 19 July. Beyond the political arena, these competing visions have faced significant resistance from the general populace, particularly from nationalist voices who see such infrastructure projects not as economic opportunities but as threats to territorial integrity. For many Armenians, the term 'corridor', as used by Azerbaijani officials, evokes fears of losing control over sovereign land, particularly as Azerbaijan demands unobstructed access through Syunik without Armenian customs or border controls. A rusting Ferris wheel stands still in a park in Agarak, a quiet town at Armenia's southernmost edge, near the border with Iran. Once a bustling industrial center, Agarak has gained renewed geopolitical significance due to its location near the proposed Zangezur corridor. Photo: Anthony Pizzoferrato/OC Media. A solemn tribute in the heart of Agarak, this World War II memorial stands quietly in the town's central park, a reminder of the lives lost and the enduring legacy of a generation shaped by war. Photo: Anthony Pizzoferrato/OC Media. On 8 August, discussions on the route appeared to be resolved with the announcement during the trilateral meeting between Aliyev–Pashinyan–Trump in Washington that 'Armenia will work with the US and mutually determined third parties, to set forth a framework for the 'Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity' (TRIPP) connectivity project in the territory of the Republic of Armenia'. 'These efforts are to include unimpeded connectivity between the main part of the Republic of Azerbaijan and [its exclave Nakhchivan] through the territory of the Republic of Armenia with reciprocal benefits for international and intra-state connectivity for the Republic of Armenia', the signed declaration continued. However, no concrete details have been released as of publication regarding the exact location of the route, how it will be managed, and by whom (beyond that it will reportedly be a US–Armenian company), leaving considerable uncertainty about how the project will play out in practice. The impact that the project will have on the Meghri railway, the surrounding nature, and those who live in the area, is also unknown. In the meantime, extensive road construction is underway in Syunik, notably involving two Iranian companies underscoring Iran's increasing economic footprint in southern Armenia. Flights between Yerevan and Kapan now serve as the fastest alternative to travel, but capacity is limited to a 19-passenger plane. Meanwhile, the highway remains the dominant and most strategically significant mode of transport, vulnerable to shifts in regional power dynamics. At the same time, Azerbaijan is laying the railway tracks towards Meghri while the Armenian side remains quiet. Indeed, in Meghri, the rusty wagons stand so silently that it is hard to believe they ever moved at all. A rusting railway car marked with the faded letters CCCP (USSR) stands frozen in time outside the former Meghri railway station. Photo: Anthony Pizzoferrato/OC Media. Rusting railway cars sit abandoned near Agarak near the border with Iran, remnants of the past Meghri railway line that once connected southern Armenia to Azerbaijan and Iran. Photo: Anthony Pizzoferrato/OC Media. Yet, as the discussions surrounding regional transport routes demonstrate, the Meghri railway is not just a story of rust and abandonment. It is a story of power, diplomacy, and the fragile hope for regional cooperation in a landscape shaped by unresolved conflict and competing geopolitical interests. As Armenia balances its relationships with Iran, Russia, and the West, and as Azerbaijan pushes for greater control over regional transit, Meghri remains a critical and contested crossroads.
OC Media
08-08-2025
- Politics
- OC Media
A list of the Facebook posts that led to fines under Georgia's ‘government insult ban'
Sign in or or Become a member to unlock the audio version of this article The Caucasus is changing — and not for the better. With authoritarianism on the rise across the region, the threat to independent journalism is higher than ever. Join our community and help push back against the hardliners. Become a member In February, Georgian Dream passed legislation making insulting officials an administrative offence. The legislation provides for fines of up to ₾4,000 ($1,500) or up to 45 days in jail. Subsequently, on 6 June, the deputy chair of Georgian Dream's parliamentary faction, Irakli Kirtskhalia, announced that the party would sue social media users over 'insults' towards government representatives. Since then, Georgian courts have fined over a dozen activists, journalists, and opposition figures for posts and comments made on Facebook criticising members of the ruling Georgian Dream party. OC Media has reached the individuals who have been summoned to the courts for insulting Georgian Dream MPs on social media and the lawyers working on their behalf in order to create a list of all the cases publicly available as of publication and the Facebook posts involved. A few of those interviewed plan to appeal the rulings, and most say they will not pay the fines. Despite this, at least one respondent, pensioner Megi Kipshidze, expressed concern that the fine could be automatically deducted from her pension. Giorgi Tumasyan. Photo via social media. Name: Giorgi Tumasyan (activist) Type of court-imposed penalty: Fine Fine amount: ₾4,000 ($1,500) Advertisement Reason for the fine: A Facebook post about Georgian Dream MP Mariam Lashkhi: 'I have 182 mutual friends with Mariam Lashki. Don't you feel uncomfortable with the fact that because of your traitor and modern Bolshevik 'friend' two Georgian patriots — Lika Lortkipanidze and Tatia Apriamashvili — are jailed?' Keti Molashvili. Photo via social media. Name: Keti Molashvili (activist) Type of court-imposed penalty: Fine Fine amount: ₾4,000 ($1,500) Reason for the fine: Two Facebook posts, one about MP Tea Tsulukiani and the other about Lashkhi: About Tsulukiani: 'You are worse than a slave! The woman who was trying to sue the previous government to the Strasbourg court, now your government has outdone them! I feel pity for you. You used to fight for justice but now you have become an executioner'. About Lashkhi: 'This low-class woman, who got into parliament only because she wanted to sneak in European organisations, and only because she could not succeed in this, she took a grudge, and imagined that the whole of Europe were Freemasons and she sacrificed a kid for 12 days administrative detention. […] And the only thing this kid said was down with the Russian Empire and that she [Lashkhi] is a slave to Russia. And indeed they truly are slaves to Russia! Mariam, when you sacrifice a kid to jail, you are not only a slave, you are ethnically Georgian Russian!' Dea Mamiseishvili. Photo via social media. Name: Dea Mamiseishvili (journalist) Type of court-imposed penalty: Fine Fine amount: ₾3,000 ($1,100) Reason for the fine: A Facebook post about Georgian Dream's parliamentary leader Mamuka Mdinaradze: 'This is a son of bitch, vile, non-human person. Whoever considers him as an authority, they are not any better than this maniac'. Ana Subeliani. Photo: Mariam Nikuradze/OC Media. Name: Ana Subeliani (activist) Type of court-imposed penalty: Fine Fine amount: ₾4,000 ($1,500) Reason for the fine: A Facebook post about Parliamentary Vice Speaker Nino Tsilosani: 'This vile non-woman'. Vika Bukia. Photo via ALIA. Name: Vika Bukia (journalist) Type of court-imposed penalty: Fine Fine amount: ₾4,000 ($1,500) Reason for the fine: a caption to a Facebook video, which showed Lashkhi walking past the activist: 'A slave just walked past me'. Nanuka Zhorzholiani. Photo via social media. Name: Nanuka Zhorzholiani (journalist) Type of court-imposed penalty: Fine Fine amount: ₾4,000 ($1,500) Reason for the fine: A Facebook post about Tsulukiani and two Facebook posts about Lashkhi, one of which was just a photo showing graffiti on the wall of Lashki's house reading 'Slave of Russia': About Tsulukiani: 'Fuck your mother, Tea! And I fuck everyone else's mothers too who does not hate this woman!' About Lashkhi: 'This non-woman dumb, who hears voices of the deep state, sent 19 year old girls to jail!! Hope you die!' Mariam Geguchadze. Photo via social media. Name: Mariam Geguchadze (activist) Type of court-imposed penalty: Fine Fine amount: ₾3,000 ($1,100) Reason for the fine: A Facebook post about Lashkhi: 'She is a disgraceful, amoral, low class person who talks with freemasons. She does not love either her homeland or anyone at all. A disgusting, opportunistic fern'. Misha Mshvildadze. Photo: Mariam Nikuradze/OC Media. Name: Misha Mshvildadze (journalist) Type of court-imposed penalty: Fine Fine amount: ₾4,000 ($1,500) Reason for the fine: A Facebook post about Parliamentary Speaker Shalva Papuashvili: 'Last year he was licking the ass of USAID. He is able to lick any kind of ass, he is versatile, he is Phillip Cocu [a Dutch football manager] of asslicking'. Tamar Chergoleishvili. Photo: Mariam Nikuradze/OC Media. Name: Tamar Chergoleishvili (journalist and politician) Type of court-imposed penalty: Fine Fine amount: ₾4,000 ($1,500) Reason for the fine: One Facebook post calling Tsulukiani 'non-woman' and another post calling Mdinaradze 'a dick'. Baia Pataraia. Photo: Mariam Nikuradze/OC Media. Name: Baia Pataraia (activist) Type of court-imposed penalty: Fine Fine amount: ₾4,000 ($1,500) Reason for the fine: Facebook posts about Lashkhi, Mdinaradze, and Tsulukiani. About Lashkhi: 'A few days ago, the dumb and malicious Mariam Lashkhi said no one should dare compare her children to someone else's criminal kids. And today, she had someone else's children thrown in jail. With such cruelty — bearing the guilt of sacrificing innocent boys and girls, and for betraying your own country and your own people - you are cursed!' About Mamuka Mdinaradze's statement that the war in 2008 was started by then-President Mikheil Saakashvili: 'Everyone knows how he does math, but this Russian is a traitor!' About Tea Tsulukiani's statement that Georgian soldier Giorgi Antsukhelidze's death in 2008 was 'pointless': 'Her birth was pointless. And her life is pointless'. Name: Megi Kipshidze (Pensioner) Type of court-imposed penalty: Fine Fine amount: ₾3,500 ($1,200) Reason for the fine: She shared a Facebook post by Lasha Chkhartishvili, a member of the Labour Party, about Interior Ministry employee Tamta Kimbarishvili with the following description: 'How you grew up so disgusting, you son of a bitch! What kind of environment did you grow up in? Even your face shows that you're a witch and there is no way that you can do any better'. Levan Khabeishvili. Photo: Mariam Nikuradze/OC Media. Name: Levan Khabeishvili (a leader of the opposition UNM party) Type of court-imposed penalty: Fine Fine amount: ₾4,000 ($1,500) Reason for the fine: A Facebook post about Tsulukiani: 'I'll cut her tongue out'. Giga Makarashvili. Photo: Mariam Nikuradze/OC Media. Name: Giga Makarashvili (activist) Type of court-imposed penalty: Fine Fine amount: ₾4,000 ($1,500) Reason for the fine: Facebook comments: About Mdinaradze: 'slave!' About Papuashvili: 'traitor! Eka Mishveladze during a broadcast in 2022. Photo via social media. Name: Eka Mishveladze (journalist) Type of court-imposed penalty: Fine Fine amount: ₾4,000 ($1,500) Reason for the fine: She shared a photo on Facebook, where graffiti was shown on the wall of Lashkhi's house reading 'Slave of Russia', with the following description: 'They let a slave know who and what she is'. Elene Khoshtaria. Photo: Mariam Nikuradze/OC Media. Name: Elene Khoshtaria (leader of the opposition Droa! party) Type of court-imposed penalty: Fine Fine amount: ₾4,000 ($1,500) Reason for the fine: Facebook post She did not respond to the summons, deciding not to even check the official documentation, nor did she appear in court. She is not going to pay the fine, which was issued after the court found that her post constituted an administrative offence under the new law. Name: Diana Gogoladze (civilian) Type of Court-Imposed Penalty: Fine Fine Amount: ₾2,500 ($920) Reason for the Fine: A comment on a Facebook post by Lasha Chkhartishvili, a member of the Labour Party, about Interior Ministry employee Tamta Kimbarishvili: 'A young woman and such a bitch'. Rostom Zarandia. Photo via social media. Name: Rostom Zarandia (activist) Type of court-imposed penalty: administrative detention Length of prison sentence: five days Reason for the detention: Comments on Zugdidi City Hall's Facebook post about spokesperson Magdalena Todua: 'Braindead and sluggish' 'You are deleting these comments now, you gave them the right to beat us so you could post this post, you goose!' 'You are fabricating reality, you are rigging elections, you are a criminal Magdalena Todua'. The comments were made on a post commemorating the Soviet Union's brutal crackdown on a pro-independence protest on 9 April 1989. During the overnight commemoration held by activists near the 9 April memorial in Zugdidi, police violently dispersed activists, injuring several, in order to clear the area for an official commemoration of the event by government officials. Zarandia wrote in a separate Facebook post that he had left several comments about this on posts by the city hall about the official commemorations, but that the administration kept deleting them. While other citizens have been administratively detained for allegedly verbally insulting government officials, Zarandia appears to be the only person detained for posts made on Facebook.
OC Media
06-08-2025
- Politics
- OC Media
Azerbaijan restricts banking operations related to foreign financial sources
Sign in or or Become a member to unlock the audio version of this article The Caucasus is changing — and not for the better. With authoritarianism on the rise across the region, the threat to independent journalism is higher than ever. Join our community and help push back against the hardliners. Become a member Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has approved legislation further restricting foreign funding of non-government organisations (NGOs) in the country. On Thursday, Aliyev signed amendments to the laws on NGOs and on combating the laundering of property obtained by criminal means and the financing of terrorism were. The changes ban NGOs from receiving money from abroad under service contracts without prior government approval. Critics said the move aimed to close one of the last loopholes used by pro-democracy groups and other NGOs to receive support for their activities. According to the new legislation, civil society organisations and individuals can face criminal liability for performing any work at the expense of foreign financial services. 'As in 2014, Azerbaijani law enforcement agencies are prosecuting [NGOs] for their independent and critical activities, which is a clear violation of the Constitution of Azerbaijan and the requirements of international legal treaties to which it is a party', an Azerbaijani lawyer told OC Media on condition of anonymity. 'In practice, this does not properly apply restrictive legislation to [NGOs] and their representatives, but, on the contrary, abuses its powers, deliberately violates laws, and applies criminal legislation in the wrong place, bringing individuals to illegal criminal liability', they added. Advertisement The lawyer told OC Media that, currently, criminal cases against NGOs are mainly related to charges of failing to register with the state. 'Some of them are about seeking and receiving funding without state registration, as well as a lack of registration of grants and contracts for the provision of services. Neither the veracity of these charges nor their compliance with the provisions of criminal law have been proven'. The lawyer believes that the amendments passed on Thursday further restrict civil society organisations from obtaining funding, noting that now, '[NGOs] will no longer be required to provide detailed reports not only 'when receiving and providing grants and donation', but also on the sources of formation of all their assets in monetary and other forms'. The lawyer also argued that the reasoning behind the legislation — particularly in regards to financing terrorism — was not accurate. According to a 2023 report by the Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism (MONEYVAL), a monitoring body within the Council of Europe, Azerbaijan's risk assessment on the NGO sector 'failed to identify any specific NGOs or categories of NGOs at risk of being abused for terrorist financing'. 'Reporting and monitoring measures should be carried out in a targeted manner based on a risk assessment, rather than as part of a general approach covering all NGOs', the lawyer said. 'In other words, NGOs should not impose obligations requiring everyone to report money laundering and terrorist financing without any assessment. It is quite interesting that Azerbaijan, which was criticised by an international organisation, would change its position in this direction and adopt even stricter rules in this area a year later', the lawyer said. Azerbaijan is expected to report back to MONEYVAL on progress achieved in improving the implementation of its anti-money laundering and combating financing of terrorism measures by December 2025.
OC Media
06-08-2025
- Entertainment
- OC Media
No More Bazaar — photographer Elene Glonti on the death of Georgia's street markets
Sign in or or Become a member to unlock the audio version of this article The Caucasus is changing — and not for the better. With authoritarianism on the rise across the region, the threat to independent journalism is higher than ever. Join our community and help push back against the hardliners. Become a member For the last five years, Georgian photographer and multimedia artist Elene Glonti has been tracking the decline of Georgia's market culture with a photo project titled No More Bazaar. Glonti is a sharp and spirited woman in her late twenties, with a keen interest in the marginalised sectors of Georgian society. She began the project in 2020, with a visit to the Eliava bazaar in Tbilisi. She was immediately taken by the people she met there, by their pragmatism and resilience, and took a lot of photographs, writing down what she learnt through conversations with her subjects. 'I don't like to exoticise anything, especially working class communities', she tells OC Media, 'but it is also true that they are very honest, they stand firmly on the ground, their heads are not in the clouds, so it's all real'. Of men and women. Photo: Elene Glonti. Since then, Glonti's photographed in the Navtlugi, Dezerter, Marmeuli, and Sachkhere Central Bazaars in order to create a multi-media display consisting of photos and interviews. She wants these people to be named, to tell their stories, but also to not dehumanise her subjects by using them as symbols in service of a narrative about contemporary Georgia. In this sense, her work can better be described as archivism. 'I'm always interested in preserving the memory of something that right now feels irrelevant to the world' she says. Asked how the vendors responded to her presence and her camera, Glonti replies that they are generally mistrustful. They've had bad experiences with the media before. 'It takes time', she says. 'You need to go back often, you need to communicate, and you never walk away if someone isn't happy, you go up to them and delete the photo in front of them. You never steal.' Advertisement She always makes sure to stay in touch with her subjects, emailing them the photographs she has taken. Card players. Photo: Elene Glonti. Glonti's approach to photography and her relationship with her subjects was forged abroad. From 2015–2018, Glonti studied at Sarah Lawrence College in New York, majoring in Visual Arts. This was where she began taking photos (she'd been a painter before) under the auspices of renowned American photographer and educator Joel Sternfeld. Sternfeld, now 81, was a titan of early colour photography, best known for his 1987 photo book American Prospects which documented ordinary life all over the US. At her first seminar, Sternfeld told Glonti to just 'go and shoot', to ignore the technical aspects of the camera. She returned with some pictures of the Bronxville police station — she'd taken them at sunset and, not knowing how to adjust the ISO (the camera's sensitivity to light), the pictures had come out in extraordinary violet tones. Sternfeld loved them. Bronxville Police Station. Photo: Elene Glonti. 'You just took the camera and you really made it your own', he told her. In this way, Sternfeld helped Glonti to lean into her own subjectivity. 'You are in a way really penetrating the world with a camera,' she says, 'you extend your presence beyond yourself, and you change your surroundings'. End of a long, hot day. Photo: Elene Glonti. US President Donald Trump was inaugurated for the first time while Glonti was at Sarah Lawrence, and there was, she says, 'a lot of discussion about who was allowed to photograph what'. To Glonti these debates mostly felt like 'academic drama', and anyway, she says, 'as a person coming from an ancient country which has been overlooked by the world for centuries, I can't relate to the mainstream perspective […] I am colonised, my body is colonised, I am a woman, so I relate to the outcasts'. Indeed, women and their lives are one of Glonti's primary concerns. 'I'm really a very hardcore feminist', she says, grinning, 'this is my lifelong topic'. On the position of women in Georgia, she says: 'from one point of view it's very patriarchal, very macho, but there is an underlying matriarchate — every Georgian family is run by a woman, especially after three wars […] women had to really step up and carry this country on their backs'. The living. Photo: Elene Glonti. The dead. Photo: Elene Glonti. Older women make up a good part of Georgia's bazaar vendors, often combining their work with more traditional domestic duties. Now that bazaar culture is being decimated by supermarkets and eager developers, it's growing ever more difficult for these women to feed themselves and their families. According to Georgia's National Statistics Office for Georgia, the number of bazaars (counted as permanent spaces, organised and rented by a legal entity, as opposed to street vendors) has declined by 11% in the last ten years, falling from 218 in 2014 to 194 in 2023. Survival. Photo: Elene Glonti. Tbilisi's largest bazaar, Deserter, was the site of protests in the summer of 2024 after the announcement of plans to turn the market into a shopping mall and car park. The protests seem thus far to have successfully halted the project, although the situation appears precarious. Several bazaars have seen fires destroy huge quantities of stock, like the fire in Station Square market in April 2025. In the markets that have yet to be closed, vendors now struggle to scratch out a living. Counting coins. Photo: Elene Glonti. One woman Glonti photographed in the small bazaar surrounding Tbilisi's Ghrmaghele station, an IDP from Abkhazia selling counterfeit men's Versace underwear, told Glonti she had to borrow ₾20 ($8) to come to work that day. 'People have become so poor I cannot sell anything,' she told Glonti. 'It will be a very nice day if I'm able to just return this ₾20.' As markets fade. Photo: Elene Glonti. Glonti's project 'No More Bazaar' is a translation of the Georgian slang phrase 'bazaari ara', meaning 'agreed'. 'Ara' is Georgian for 'no', so the term references the market, as a place of haggling and broader social interaction, to mean 'no discussion'. The English slang version might be rendered as 'say less.' For Glonti, the death of the bazaar is massively contributing to social alienation in Georgia. Bazaars were social hubs above all, places where a myriad of lives would intersect, where you would come not only to buy your cheese but to chat with the woman selling you the cheese about her grandson's studies, or her husband's bad back. Glonti quotes 19th century Georgian historian Ekvtime Takaishvili as saying that before the proper establishment of media, people would come to certain corners of bazaars to hear the news being announced. Their disappearance spells greater class isolation between the working and middle classes, and between Georgians and ethnic minorities, Glonti says. Even in supermarkets interactions with staff have been replaced by self-service machines. 'It's so anti-humane', she says. 'It's anti-you.' Silence louder than trade. Photo: Elene Glonti. According to the United Nations Development Programme, around 41% of Georgia's population depends on agriculture for their livelihood, yet many supermarkets fill their shelves with imported goods from places such as Russia, Turkey, and Central Asia. With no strong farmers' unions and a weak distribution network, local producers struggle to compete. 'People are exhausted', Glonti says. 'You walk into a supermarket and end up buying Russian products, even as Russia is occupying your country.' Nature morte. Photo: Elene Glonti. A married man. Photo: Elene Glonti. In Eliava, Glonti once came across a particularly striking vendor, a very tall man with mournful eyes. She asked if she could take a photograph, and he assented and took off his hat. He told her he'd fought in all Georgian wars. 'He was a war hero', she says, 'lost in Eliava market with his scrap metal.' Glonti sees the bazaars as a sort of condensation of all of Georgia's tragedies — 'these kinds of spaces bring all these traumas together.' Eliava war hero. Photo: Elene Glonti. As she sees it, the decimation of the bazaars is part of an ongoing attempt at historical erasure, a break with Georgia's troubled past and a decisive move into the brave new world of unchecked capitalism. Her subjects 'do not know how to adapt to the new world order, so they are being left behind'. Among the weight of harvest. Photo: Elene Glonti. Glonti's conversation is peppered with references, mostly to female artists or thinkers. She paraphrases the Joan Didion line from Slouching Towards Bethlehem: 'I think we are well-advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4:00 of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.' For her, this impulse to turn away from, even erase, the Soviet past, is more than just a cultural shift. It has tangible consequences for Georgia's most vulnerable, who are cast adrift in a society eager to reinvent itself. Glonti sees it as a kind of exile from the present. Forgotten corners. Photo: Elene Glonti. 'Exile' is also the title of Glonti's next project, which is about elderly women. 'They've ceased to exist in the public eye,' she says, 'so I photograph them in their homes.' There's a counter-intuitive benefit to this public disregard, she says. Having largely outlived their use value as objects and carers, 'they do not have to put on this whole spectacle, these multiple faces, this being who has to please everyone in her life, finally they can be themselves […] there's a rare freedom in that.' The desire to cultivate a space in which women can enjoy this freedom is partly what drove Glonti to found the Caucasian Art Circle (named in reference to the Brecht play, Caucasian Chalk Circle) in 2021. It's also 'another form of resistance to isolation', she says. Reflections. Photo: Elene Glonti. The Caucasian Art Circle is an organisation open to both men and women of all ages and backgrounds. Glonti's goal was to make art accessible to everyone: 'art has to be available because it is a form of therapy, of exchange, of community, of memory.' Participation is the point; the group engages in acting workshops, scriptwriting, photography, and choir singing. Glonti organises screenings of films by directors like Agnès Varda and Chantal Ackerman, as well as works from the broader tradition of avant-garde cinema, followed by group discussions, creating a space for participants to engage with unconventional forms of storytelling and explore perspectives often overlooked in mainstream film. Many women in their sixties come, she says, 'and you cannot imagine how they act, the stories that they bring with them, the characters that they create, and the whole energy that is in the room, the openness, the vulnerability, the way each of the groups appreciate each other'. 'I'm not proud of any of my work', she says, 'I feel like it all needs to get better and better, but I'm so proud of this project'. 'Those who don't consider themselves artists are the best artists,' she says. 'There is so much suppressed energy in them'. Death in the vitrage. Photo: Elene Glonti. Glonti has yet to find proper funding for the Caucasian Art Circle project, but it's obvious she is determined to keep it alive. Her grandfather was famous theatre director and teacher Ghizo Zhordania, who she says raised generations of Georgian actors. 'Teaching was always part of my family, and I know how much it means'. Though Glonti probably wouldn't characterise what she's doing with the Caucasian Art Circle as teaching per say — more like facilitating — she does feel that art is 'a world that you need someone to guide you to'. She wants to affirm, in people who've been unable financially or psychologically to justify dedicating time to creativity, that making art has an unquantifiably curative value. All of Glonti's projects are ongoing, she says, though she is planning to release a photo book of her No More Bazaar project. In her parting words, she asked that this article be dedicated to Manana Darakhvelidze, a street vendor and one of the two people killed in the collapse of a building on Station Square on 14 July 2025.
