Three candidates

This might be a bit old, now that Patarkatsishvili is "out" of the presidential race. Nevertheless, while he was still in the race, Irakli Tsereteli, one of the oddballs of the Georgian politics, made a statement that Patarkatsishvili is represented by three people in the race. Some things Georgian politicians say are quite hard to swallow. Maybe just taking it literally will make it a bit more understandable?

Version of democracy

It seems to be newsworthy again. Lado Gurgenidze will yet again talk to News Corp people, to convince them that Georgia only needs Government affiliated news sources, and Imedi does not fit into this plan.

CEC queue

All of a sudden there was couple dozen people who wanted to run for presidency. It's not unusual for Georgia, but as opposition is trying to defeat an incumbent, sounds a bit odd that they would put out so many contenders. Their theory is that there will be the second round, and it is necessary to have so many candidates to make the second round happen. Who knows...

Misha's fortunes

Misha has pulled some stunts recently, mostly using government money that will be coming from next year's budget. That already cost Georgia 400mln GEL of defense spending. Not that we did not want the defense spending to go down, but how do they manage to talk with a straight face about many of the changes being planned is beyond me. Do they really find their audience so, pardon my French, stupid?

War of slingshots

My artistic talent failed me, and I was not able to express exactly what I intended. As Stephanie says, the it looks like a rug. I guess it does. It was supposed to be a bear, a live one, a menacing one, one that makes you shiver. And how is Georgia going to have a war with such a monstrosity? Or is it that Georgian MPs think that their audience is limited to ignorant portion of the Georgian population?

Strange concept of democracy

Opposition, that touted its dedication to the democratic process and democracy at large, made a surprisingly undemocratic decision that did not go well with the government. There will be a follow-up cartoon evaluating the government response to the "soldiers voting" crisis. Meanwhile, let the opposition's position be known...

Soap operas suck

Now that Imedi TV is back, it is old news, but here you go nevertheless. It was published in Georgia Today on November 20, 2007.

in the Messenger every week

I am proud to announce that The Messenger will be posting my weekly cartoon I do for them not just in the paper, but now online as well. I will be posting the same cartoon on my blog, but after a few days of being on the Messenger site. Same goes for the Georgia Today ones, they will be posted, but a couple days later.

On another note, I am curious about who looks at this blog. More importantly what they think about all this. I would love to hear your thoughts. I am still looking for my style, hence inconsistency of styles and looks. As a friend mentioned, it takes a while to settle into one's signature style.

What taxi drivers think

I do not think that this is a general mood in taxi drivers of Tbilisi, but that is what he expressed. I know him, as he hangs out by our house, and I know that he grew up in Tbilisi, making him different from many other taxi drivers. What seems to have irked him the most is Levan Gachechiladze swearing out Mikheil Saakashvili, at the end of the speech.

Change of name

After a few question about the name of the blog, I decided to give it a name. For less than a week it progressed from vshioshvili.blogspot.com to shioshvili.com to blog.shioshvili.com. Now, the address will stay blog.shioshvili.com, but the name will be new. A bit stupid, but Georgia Ink it is. A play between India Ink and Georgia Inc. There you go. For now it will be mostly cartoons, so ink makes sense. And even if I start writing, it will be applicable, won't it? So, welcome to Georgia Ink.

Young agian

We took a trip to Tamarasheni, in South Ossetia, just to see BoneyM live. It was something. Georgian government managed to convince one of two BoneyMs around to give a concert in the open, in front of the only decent looking building in town. The movie theater, was renovated and was sparkling clean. It was not sure if all the police was safeguarding BoneyM or the building itself. Singers turned out to be so confused that they expressed their happiness to be back in Russia. Later, when Mr. Saakashvili arrived, he was greeted warmly. Just wrong title was used - "let's welcome mr. Prime Minister"...

Couple months on, Smokey played for St.George's day celebration. The day happens to be the anniversary of the Rose Revolution as well, hence the celebration. How many of the youth present at the concert have actually heard of Alice? Probably few, if any.

I don't think Manhattan Transfer is really coming, but who knows...

6:01 vs 7:01

I am curious, how did they come up with 7pm on Friday, as a date when emergency state should be lifted? I know that you need to set some kind of cut-off date, and almost all of them would seem quite arbitrary. Would it not be a bit more realistic to say midnight? You know, you wake up in the morning and say, "what a nice day, it's better than yesterday". Otherwise, you get "well, I am safer now that a minute ago..."

Misha's calendar

Not that I am implying that he ever goes to bed that early, but you get the point, right?

Sound economic policy

Don't think this one needs much of explanation. This is what Georgian economic policy sounds like...

Traitors?

For people who are not aware of events that took place on 7 of November, 2007, some background information would be useful. In the midst of police using tear gas, rubber bullets and other non-lethal equipment available to them to disperse large crowd gathered in front of the parliament, almost all TV channels suddenly started broadcasting a "documentary" about opposition leaders' phone conversations. While proof is yet to be provided about legality of the wiretapping, government is suggesting that these people are guilty - just by association. Friendly hello, telling something that is not a secret is now considered enough to be branded a traitor. Judge yourself.

Cartoon was published in Georgia Today on Friday, November 23rd, 2007.

Going back to past

I decided to delete the latest five entries in favor of posting cartoons one by one instead of bunches, in order to give each of them a bit more context. They will start coming slowly, a few a day for now.

Georgia Today - November 16, 2007

First week for me in Georgia Today, I was quite surprised when after giving them five options of cartoons to pick from, they said that would be printing four. Here are the four.

The week after the police used tear gas, rubber bullets, stream of water and other arsenal of non-lethal weapons available to them, justifications kept on coming from the government, that did not sound very convincing. Using "they do it like this in the West" should not be used to justify anything.



Within days of announcing upcoming presidential elections, coalition of opposition parties managed to come up with one candidate to represent all ten parties. It did not last long, Shalva Natelashvili of the Labor Party was the first one to withdraw from the coalition and declare that he has better chances than anyone else.



Tbilisi water authority was sold, without much noise. Half a dozen companies had a runoff, and oddly enough, offer with the third best price was accepted. Justification from the government body responsible for the decision was in line with "they promised to keep prices intact for two years" and "they will invest additional 350 million dollars in Georgia". First one makes sense, the second one means that the company will buy up more property.

What makes the deal shady is the fact that other companies are in water business, while Multiplex Solutions is a Swiss registered company, created in 2005. No additional information was available, and government refuses to provide any.



During opposition protests some people used the play of words as their slogan. Interestingly enough, word "Roses" is the same as "You are falling"...

Wrong Assumption

There is a never-ending battle going on between the leading party and the opposition. Neither side wants to give up anything, and meanwhile Georgian population gets stuck in the middle. Each request by opposition gets denied by the government, but in response it suggests something completely different that a lot of times represents a reversal of previous statements and procedures that are clearly driven to elevate National Movement 's (the majority party) electability.

Chaban

- This one turned out to be a flop. I don't think I thought through it enough and decided to do it anyway. Just for the background info, general Chaban is the head of the Russian peace-keeper forces in Abkhazia. After an incident in the end of October, when Georgian Interior Ministry officials were detained by the peace-keepers in Zugdidi (a town outside of the conflict zone), Georgian side declared Chaban "persona non grata" and asked him to leave. Requests have not been granted so far, but Russians promise to replace him...

Tourism

- Published in the the Messenger, Winston decided to use it when I was out of town and did not do anything.

There are many problems with the tourism industry in Georgia, but I think that lack of signs if one of the important ones. I do not know how many people give up on their trip because of sign issues, but I am sure that they do not have anything good to say to other potential tourists.

The sign actually says Ikalto, a small town new Telavi in Georgia, that has a monastery that also served as an academy. Shota Rustaveli, greatest Georgian poet, was attending the academy back in the days. Unless you know where you are going, a lot of times it is a guesswork...

Did not make the cut...

- I did a few more in the month of October that did not make it into the paper. The apprentice did not seem important enough at the moment and the news got old very quickly. Putin's criticism was looked over because of the Opposition one. Kokoity's xenophobia did not seem to be hot enough news, and number of attacks vs reality did not convey the idea behind it well. Nevertheless, here you go.



Kareli was a governor of one of Georgia's regions. He happened to be a close associate of Irakli Okruashvili and many claim that that connection was the reason Mr. Kareli was arrested on corruption charges.



Every couple weeks South Ossetian de-facto government claims an imminent military attack of Georgians being in planning. It's been this way for a long time. So far only a few minor incidents have taken place though. It gets to the point when "crying wolf" will not help...



South Ossetia's de-facto president, Eduard Kokoity made a statement that sounded like "all foreign diplomats are biased", and the only one he would talk to is the Russian
Ambassador.



Criticism coming from Putin, couple months prior to cracking down on opposition in his own country...

Patakratsishvili

- As a result of Patarkatsishvili's involvement in opposition parties' unity, the government started attacks on many different fronts. It all started with him being stripped away his "chairman of the Georgian National Olympic Committee" title.

This was published in the Messenger on October 12th, 2007.

Opposition

- Published in the Messenger on October 5th, 2007, this cartoon turned out to be Winston's (editor of the paper) all time favorite content-wise. He still finds it very funny, even though it was a very rough sketch.

In the beginning of October, Irakli Okruashvili, former interior minister of Georgia, was arrested and it started a wave of unrests. Initially his arrest happened to be the reason opposition parties were looking for. It was one uniting cause that could get thousands of people out into the street to protest injustice. Demands seemed to vary though. The coalition of ten opposition parties, lost one within 2 months. How many more will depart is yet to be seen.

Russian for piece-meal

- First editorial cartoon that the Messenger published. I have to dig for the exact date, but it was in September, week of the 17th. Story behind it is a rumor that briefly got media attention, but soon subsided. As Russia won the right to hold 2014 Winter Olympic games in Sochi, some in the Georgian government started talking about Abkhazia willingly giving Russia a sliver of its land. According to the same piece of news, in order to hold Olympic games, the town has to have 40 kilometer clearance from a conflict zone, and it does not, unless Abkhazia gives up part of its land. No one said that Abkhazia willingly giving Russia anything would not be legally binding. At the moment it seemed interesting enough to draw about...

Introduction

First of all, thanks for visiting the blog. It is an attempt to make my hobby available a bit more widely than it it currently is. Newspaper that is only available in Tbilisi, does not seem big enough of the market.

I never really thought of drawing cartoons. I have been sketching little things here and there. Sometimes to pass time, sometimes to express this or that feeling. However, in last couple months there have been a few event that made my hobby a bit more prominent. I started doing editorial cartoons. Some get published, some get rejected, and some just do not make it because of space in the paper. As newspapers do not put them online, and there was interest from a friend to see them online, I figured why not.

It all started with a friend of mine, Winston, asking to do a sketch for a cover story of the newspaper he edits. The Messenger's artist was on vacation and Winston figured, as someone mentioned that I do drawing well, I should do it. I am not really sure where and how he heard that I am good at it, but it was good enough to get me started.



So far, I've done only two of the cover ones. I think they got disappointed with the second one and decided that the front page is not my playground. It did not stop me though. I do not remember how did I switch to editorial cartoons, either Winston asked me to do one, or I pitched it in, and he bit it. The first one was based on a rumor that was being spread around and seemed alright. Next one happened to be Winston's all time favorite, and so it went on. All of those I will post individually with a little background blurb. Many, if not all cartoons are political. If you do not enjoy them, please, please let me know how I can improve. I will not go back and change existing ones, but I will certainly take comments into account for future ones.

Second reason happened to be the political turmoil in the country. I am wondering if things did not get crazy if I would do any. I never thought of doing it before, so why would decide to do it now?

As of right now, I do weekly editorial cartoons for two publications, daily The Messenger's Friday issue usually, and the weekly Georgia Today. Political situation has been very "friendly" for expressing creatively, so hopefully it will continue. My intention is to post my cartoons here. I have yet to determine the frequency of posting, something between biweekly to weekly seems appropriate for now. That of course I flood it with cartoons I have done already last couple months.

I hope you enjoy your visit and come again!