On May 31, speaking in the program “Sum-up of the Day with Nikoloz Mzhavanadze” on the Sezoni TV, the political secretary of the Solidarity for Peace party, Temur Pipia, said that Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili encouraged young people to commit an offence, “actually called for a forceful coup,” and, therefore, the relevant agencies must interrogate her. According to him, Salome Zurabishvili is a descendant of Noe Zhordania’s government, “who at one time fled Georgia, took out 250 boxes of treasure, of which around 50 boxes were returned, and that only thanks to Stalin.”
Temur Pipia: “I do not know whether she [Salome Zurabishvili] has a certain immunity or not, as MPs have, she must be interrogated; she must be summoned to the relevant agencies and interrogated in connection with this statement. In fact, the President calls on young people for a forced coup. She is not the president of Georgia; she is the president of those people who are planning to destabilize Georgia, and she is a descendant of her political predecessors – that Menshevik government, the government of Zhordania, who at one time fled Georgia, took out 250 boxes of treasure, of which around 50 boxes were returned, and that only thanks to Stalin.”
Temur Pipia is spreading disinformation. In her speeches, Salome Zurabishvili did not call on the youth for a coup. In addition, the claim that the government of the First Republic sold the treasure taken out of Georgia is also false; there was not a single item missing in the treasure that was returned to Georgia with the assistance of Ekvtime Takaishvili.
What did Zurabishvili say in her speeches?
President of Georgia Salome Zurabishvili addressed the political opposition and demonstrators on May 26 during an event on the occasion of Georgia’s Independence Day and presented the idea of the “Georgian charter” to them. However, contrary to Temur Pipia’s claim, in her address, Zurabishvili did not speak about a coup and did not call on the youth to commit offences. In her address. she stated that peace and stability were important in the process, adding that the people would decide in a democratic election, “which will protect us from any destabilization and dangerous confrontation.”
“We must come to the October 26 election with calm, peaceful, and stable. We must come to it as mobilized and determined as we have been so far, and, at the same time, we must take care and maintain this peace and this stability.”
“The Georgian people will decide in a democratic election that will protect us from any destabilization and dangerous confrontation. A different opinion must be expressed at polling stations, elsewhere, or in any other form. This plan is our peaceful way out, and I take the responsibility to defend this path of survival and return to Europe.”
It must be noted that the plan of the Georgian Charter does not aim to stage a coup d’etat. The proposal made by the President to the political opposition contains topics that, in the opinion of signatories, are important for the Western course and European integration of Georgia, including reforms in the judiciary, abolition of the so-called law on agents and the offshore law, etc. According to the President, the reforms will be implemented after the election, until the end of the spring session, and then early elections will be scheduled, where the people will once again express their will.
On May 28, after the adoption of the so-called law on agents, the President again addressed the citizens gathered on Rustaveli Avenue. There was no call for a coup in this speech either. Zurabishvili urged people to collect signatures and bring them to her in order to call a referendum on “whether we want a European future or we want a Russian future.” The President also addressed the youth, urging them to defend the election on October 26.
“Eighty-four people are nothing compared to those who are here today – the new Georgia, the Georgia of the future. The second thing that is important is that you, young people, after you collect signatures and bring them to me, your main duty will be to defend the election wherever it is necessary. Your mobilization, your half a million votes, and the half a million votes of our diaspora are the minimum that will decide the fate of the election on October 26.”
What do we know about the return of the treasure?
The assertion that part of the national treasure was sold by the Menshevik government in France and that Georgia managed to recover, with the help of Stalin, only part of it, is repeated disinformation. In recent times, in response to criticism from the President, Salome Zurabishvili has been linked to Noe Zhordania’s government, and, accordingly, accusations of selling the treasure have been heard with increasing frequency. For example, in order to criticize the speech of the President on the Independence Day, political analyst Irakli Gogava again disseminated disinformation about the sale of national treasure.
In reality, out of 248 boxes taken from Georgia to France in 1921, treasure was only in 39 boxes, and they were returned safe and sound and handed over to the National Museum. The commission examined each item, compared them with the lists in the various catalogs at its disposal, and found that not a single item had been lost. In France, the sale was not of national treasure, but of treasury assets and household goods, and the proceeds of this sale were entirely spent on the cost of storing the treasure in French banks and the purchase of the estate in Leuville.
The treasure was returned to Georgia on the initiative of Ekvtime Takaisvhili. Ekvtime Takaishvili wanted the Soviet Union to mediate the return of the treasure. However, the process dragged on. The Embassy of the USSR in France was involved in the issue of the return of the treasure, although, according to the USSR Ambassador, Bogomolov, he himself was not well aware of this issue, so it was led by Ekvtime Takaishvili.
Read more about the national treasure and its return to the country in the Myth Detector’s article:
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