Rustaveli: Georgia’s Road Of Protest

Protestors shoot fireworks toward police on December 4 amid protests along Tbilisi’s Rustaveli Avenue.

The current unrest over the Georgian government’s decision to halt EU accession talks has centered around this thoroughfare in Tbilisi. It is the latest in a long list of political upheavals the street has endured.
 

Today’s Rustaveli Avenue photographed in the 1910s when it was named Golovin Prospect after a Russian general.

The thoroughfare was built in the 1840s by Russia’s viceroy to the Caucasus when Georgia was part of the Russian Empire. The tsarist authorities sought to transform the Georgian capital “from a Persian-style city into a new European metropolis.”

A sidewalk on Rustaveli Avenue photographed in the early 1900s.

The avenue was named after Georgia’s 12th-century poet Shota Rustaveli and was distinctive for its fine hotels and wide footpaths that showcased the fashions of the day.
 

Rustaveli Avenue, with Georgia’s National Gallery, photographed around the turn of the 20th century.

Rustaveli’s role in modern politics began when exiled Azerbaijani nationalists declared the independence of their country, which was then occupied by Bolshevik forces, from the Hotel Orient on today’s Rustaveli Avenue, in May 1918.

Rustaveli Avenue’s place as the focal point for protest was assured when an Orthodox Cathedral on the street was demolished by the Bolsheviks in 1930, and Georgia’s parliament building (pictured here in 1966) was built in its place.

Georgian historian Gabriel Chubinidze told RFE/RL “for the past 200 years, Rustaveli Avenue has been the political heart of Georgia.”
 

An inner courtyard of Georgia’s parliament building photographed in the 1950s when it was known as the House of the Government of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic.

 

Soviet troops gathered on Rustaveli Avenue in a show of force on April 11, 1989. 

Rustaveli Avenue was the site of one of the most infamous acts of the late Soviet empire on April 9, 1989.  In the early hours of that morning, independence protestors in front of the parliament were attacked by Soviet troops. Twenty-one people were killed, including several who were beaten to death with shovels.

 

An anti-government fighter loads a mortar on Rustaveli Avenue during the Tbilisi War.

In December 1991 amid the breakup of the U.S.S.R., Rustaveli became a literal war zone as anti-government fighters deployed mortars, tanks, and heavy artillery on Rustaveli Avenue in an attempt to storm the parliament.

Tbilisi’s Public School  No. 1, on Rustaveli Avenue in ruins after the Tbilisi War.

The conflict of 1991-1992 destroyed several of Rustaveli’s historic buildings and resulted in Georgia’s first elected president being ousted from power.

An undated photo of a street vendor selling artwork on Rustaveli Avenue.

In independent Georgia, Rustaveli Avenue became a center of shopping and culture, where locals could stroll in the shade of plane trees away from the touristy old town. But with its position in front of the parliament and its potential to effectively shut down Tbilisi's traffic, “all protests, regardless of where they begin,” ultimately converge on Rustaveli, Chubinidze says.
 

Georgians gather on Rustaveli Avenue in front of the parliament in November 2007, calling for the resignation of President Mikheil Saakashvili. 

Many protests have taken place along Rustaveli in the 21st century including the “Rose Revolution" that swept Mikheil Saakashvili to power in 2003, and the anti-Saakashvili protests in 2007 (pictured) that were violently put down by the controversial pro-Western leader.
 

Demonstrators man a makeshift roadblock on Rustaveli Avenue during anti-government protests in 2009. 

In 2008, Georgian writer Guram Odisharia predicted that, "without a harmonic relationship between the authorities and society, the people’s hopes will always be deceived and the main player in our country’s political history will be Rustaveli Avenue, and not Georgian politicians.” 

People walk along Rustaveli Avenue on December 3, 2024. 

Amid the current unrest, historian Chubinidze says daily efforts are being made to clean up Rustaveli Avenue. “The government is trying to hide the signs of the protests so during the day everything is working normally, even the graffiti is cleaned off." But he told RFE/RL, "from 7 p.m. the street starts to change, it becomes a battlefield.”