In Georgia, war tanks turn to culture

TBILISI, Georgia | When David Sakvarelidze heard Russian bombs falling on the outskirts of Tbilisi, he knew he had to do something.

When he saw Russian warplanes and tanks brush aside the Georgian military, he knew he had to help defend his country and his family.

After Russian soldiers halted a half-hour’s drive from Tbilisi, Mr. Sakvarelidze thought of rallying the world to protect his children, wife, friends and countrymen.

The 38-year-old director of the Tbilisi Opera and Ballet Theater knew he had to act, but did not know how.

“If they tell me to fight, I will fight,” Mr. Sakvarelidze said, sitting in the Acid Bar behind the theater house as American jazz played softly in the background.

Georgia’s five-day war with Russia in August proved the futility of fighting Moscow’s forces on the battlefield but opened a cultural war for sympathy being waged by combatants on both sides.

Mr. Sakvarelidze said he wants to make Tbilisi a jewel of the international arts community, and in doing so strengthen the West’s personal connections with his small country. He and other Georgian artists are trying to defend their country with arias, paintbrushes and clay creations.

“;Art is our weapon,” Mr. Sakvarelidze said. “We have nothing else here.”

Cultural warfare has a long history in the region.

During the Cold War, the Voice of America broadcast jazz behind the Iron Curtain. The Soviet Union possessed fearsome weapons systems but could not compete with U.S. popular culture.

“Jazz connected American and Soviet culture like a wire,” said George Yashvili, a sculptor whose career began when bushy-browed Leonid Brezhnev ran the Kremlin.

With the curtains drawn and volume down, Mr. Yashvili, now 52, listened to the jazz broadcasts, warbled by the KGB´s efforts to jam the radio frequency.

“Under the communist regime, jazz was forbidden because it was believed to be capitalistic music,” said Misha Giorgadze, a music promoter in Tbilisi.

Today it is difficult to walk around Tbilisi without hearing jazz. It is played in bars, cafes and stores - even in Gori, Josef Stalin´s hometown.

Mr. Giorgadze´s company, Eastern Promotions, organizes an annual Tbilisi Jazz Festival, which regularly draws top Western musicians such as Herbie Hancock, Joe Cocker and Maceo Parker.

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