Former Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia, and now Senator, Grigory Karasin claims that the protest against the arrival of the cruise ship in Batumi was organized by activists of Mikhail Saakashvili’s party. According to him, the “bacillus of hatred” brought by Saakashvili to Georgia is still alive. Karasin is also perplexed about what the “Saakashvilites” were trying to achieve.
On the morning of July 31, Batumi residents met with a protest action the liner ASTORIA GRANDE, which arrived from Russia. A few hours before her, the Ministry of Internal Affairs blocked the streets near the port, and the area where the liner was supposed to enter was fenced off with iron dams. Cruise liner ASTORIA GRANDE has already stopped in Batumi on July 27.
The liner started its journey from the port of Sochi and carried Russian tourists who made anti-Georgian statements in the media, as well as artists who supported the war and Vladimir Putin. This time the tourists were offered a trip with the stars of the RU.TV channel.
“What, one wonders, did the Saakashvilites achieve with their demonstration in Batumi against our tourists who arrived there on our own liner? Who gets in the way of calm relations with Russia? The answer is clear,” Karasin wrote on Telegram.
Later, Karasin was contacted by the Georgian TV company Formula, which he told that they should be guided by common sense, and not by the statements of individuals:
“We value calm and predictable relations with Georgia, and we want to develop them. Tbilisi has a very sound position in this direction. As for the statements of individual tourists and incomprehensible people, we cannot build a political line on this.”
