Tuesday, November 23, in Tbilisi, a rally was held to commemorate the 18th anniversary of the "Rose Revolution.After 5 p.m. on both sides of Rustaveli Avenue, chains of people took to the roadway and moved towards each other in separate lanes. Police were forced to temporarily block traffic in the city center and traffic jams formed, reports "Georgia Online" and DW.
The columns of activists with lighted flares met half an hour later near the parliament building to the sound of signal cars. About three thousand activists from various political forces simply stood in the middle of the road, forming a one and a half kilometer-long human chain. In addition to placards and flags, some held roses as a symbol of the events of eighteen years ago.
On November 23, 2003, three weeks after the parliamentary elections, during which the Georgian opposition protested against the results, Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze stepped down. The resignation was preceded by four days of unprecedented street protests organized by Mikheil Saakashvili. The confrontation went bloodless, so those events became known as the "Rose Revolution" - demonstrators carried flowers with them.
The place of the action on the anniversary of those events, announced by the Georgian journalist Nanuka Jorzholiani, was not chosen by chance. From 2005 to 2018, the square of the First Republic in Tbilisi was called "Rose Revolution", until the city council (sakrebulo) at an extraordinary meeting decided to rename it. Only deputies of the ruling party Georgian Dream voted for the decision, while opposition deputies boycotted the session.
The current date was ignored by the Georgian authorities. Mikheil Saakashvili, who is being rehabilitated after a 50-day hunger strike in a military hospital in Gori, has published a letter on the occasion of the 18th anniversary of the Rose Revolution. In the letter he wrote that Georgia "used to be a territory, but became a country and turned into a regional superstar". According to the ex-president, the country became an example for the organizers of revolutions in Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon and the Arab world. Saakashvili vowed to return Georgia to its "former greatness".
