🇬🇪 Georgia

Archaeological sites in present-day Georgia contain the oldest known traces of deliberate wine production, dating to around 6000 BC. This gave the country a foundational claim as the cradle of viticulture, a cultural and economic asset still central to its national identity and exports.

Archaeological evidence points to a prosperous kingdom in western Georgia by the 14th century BC, linked into an extensive trade network with Greek colonies such as Dioscurias and Phasis. Colchis anchored the region in Mediterranean commerce before being absorbed by Pontus and then Rome.

Eastern Georgia had been a decentralised mosaic of clans ruled by individual mamasakhlisi until its conquest in the 4th century BC. This produced the Kingdom of Iberia under Seleucid protectorate, an early instance of advanced state organisation under a single king and an aristocratic hierarchy.

Traditional accounts attribute the creation of Georgia's three unique writing systems to King Pharnavaz I. The scripts underpinned a distinct literary culture and remain a marker of national identity.

The region of present-day Georgia contained the ancient kingdoms of Colchis and Kartli-Iberia and came under Roman influence in the first centuries AD. Christianity became the state religion in the 330s.

Following the missionary work of Saint Nino of Cappadocia, Mirian III made Christianity the state faith, abandoning a polytheistic religion heavily influenced by Zoroastrianism. The conversion began the Christianisation of the western Caucasus and anchored Iberia firmly in Rome's sphere of influence.

The 384 settlement placed the entire Caucasus under Sasanian control, despite Iberia's recent Christianisation. Christian rulers rebelled periodically, producing devastating wars through the following two centuries.

Vakhtang I captured all of western Georgia during the wars against Sasanian domination, taking Iberia to its largest historical extent. He established Tbilisi as his capital, founding what became the enduring centre of Georgian statehood.

The abolition of the monarchy in 580 fragmented Iberia's territories into feudal regions during the early Middle Ages. Roman–Persian warfare then plunged the Caucasus into chaos, with the Byzantines eventually ruling Iberia indirectly through a local Kouropalates.

The Arab invasion of 645 opened an extended period of Muslim rule and encouraged the formation of competing feudal states such as the Emirate of Tbilisi and the Principality of Kakheti. Western Georgia largely remained a Byzantine protectorate.

Benefiting from Byzantine weakness, Abkhazia unified western tribes and became one of the Caucasus's most powerful states, contesting supremacy with the Bagrationi through military campaigns. Dynastic conflict weakened it in the later 10th century, clearing the path for Bagrationi unification.

Consolidating lands in Tao-Klarjeti, Ashot I exploited infighting among Arab governors to extend his influence over Iberia. Recognition by both the Abbasid Caliphate and Byzantium established the Bagrationi dynasty that would rule Georgia for a millennium.

Adarnase IV unified most Georgian lands except Kakheti and Abkhazia and took the royal title in 888. This restored the kingship abolished three centuries earlier and re-established a dynastic centre for Georgian unification.

Having successively become King of Abkhazia in 978, Prince of Tao-Klarjeti in 1000 and King of the Iberians in 1008, Bagrat III took the unified crown in 1010. This created the Kingdom of Georgia, the single most important institutional foundation of Georgian nationhood.

The decisive Byzantine defeat in 1071 forced Constantinople to retreat from eastern Anatolia and hand its administration to Georgia. This placed the young kingdom at the forefront of war with the Seljuk Turks through the 1080s, ending earlier Byzantine efforts to check Bagrationi power.

David IV suppressed feudal dissent and centralised power before routing much larger Seljuk forces at Didgori in 1121, then abolishing the Emirate of Tbilisi. The victory secured Georgian control of its capital and opened the kingdom's period of expansion.

Tamar, titled "king of kings", neutralised aristocratic opposition and pursued an energetic foreign policy amid the decline of the Seljuks and Byzantium. Her 29-year reign consolidated an empire dominating the Caucasus and reaching into present-day Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey and Iran, and produced a cultural renaissance including the national epic The Knight in the Panther's Skin.

Exploiting the power vacuum left by the Fourth Crusade, Tamar's Georgia installed a client empire at Trebizond. It extended Georgian influence along the Black Sea at the height of the kingdom's power.

The Khwarezmian sack of Tbilisi in 1226 was followed by devastating Mongol invasions under Genghis Khan. Together these blows ended the Golden Age and reduced the kingdom to subjection.

Following domination by Persians, Arabs and Turks, a Georgian golden age of the 11th to 13th centuries - the kingdom having been unified under King Bagrat III around 1008 - was cut short by the Mongol invasion of 1236.

George V drove out Mongol overlordship and restored the country's strength and Christian culture. After his death local rulers again fought for independence from central authority, and Timur's invasions compounded the decline.

The Italian cartographer's world map of 1320 carries the earliest known use of the name Georgia. The native self-designation Sakartvelo is recorded from the 9th century and Kartvelebi from the 5th or 6th century Umm Leisun inscription in Jerusalem.

By 1466 the unified kingdom had disintegrated into three independent kingdoms and five semi-independent principalities. This division invited Ottoman and Iranian subjugation of western and eastern Georgia respectively from the 16th century onwards.

The Ottoman campaign of 1578 brought Georgian territory under Turkish control. It left lasting demographic traces, including communities of Greek and Armenian Muslims descended from Ottoman-era converts who settled in Georgia.

Imereti dispatched envoys to the Russian court in 1649 and Russia reciprocated in 1651, when Alexander III of Imereti swore an oath of allegiance to Tsar Alexis. This began the Georgian rulers' long search for Russian protection against Ottoman and Iranian pressure.

The death of Nader Shah in 1747 allowed both eastern Georgian kingdoms to escape Iranian suzerainty and unite in personal union. Heraclius II used the opening to stabilise eastern Georgia to a degree after generations of Ottoman–Persian warfare had reduced the population to some 784,700.

The treaty made eastern Georgia a Russian protectorate, guaranteeing its territorial integrity and the Bagrationi dynasty in exchange for Russian prerogatives over Georgian foreign affairs. It set the legal frame that Russia would later violate to annex the country.

Iranian forces captured Tbilisi in 1795, massacring its inhabitants, despite Russia's treaty commitment to defend Georgia. Russia mounted a punitive campaign against Persia in 1796 but the episode exposed the worthlessness of the Georgievsk guarantees.

Discontent with heavy-handed Russian administration grew into a cultural and political national revival by the late 19th century. It coincided with serf emancipation, the growth of capitalism and the emergence of an urban working class, giving nationalism a social base.

Violating the Treaty of Georgievsk, Russia annexed eastern Georgia outright in 1801: Tsar Paul I abolished the Bagrationi royal house of Kartli-Kakheti and the autocephaly of the Georgian Orthodox Church and absorbed the kingdom's territory into the Russian Empire. Power was transferred in May 1801 to a Russian administration under General Lazarev, ending Georgian statehood for over a century, and other Georgian kingdoms and principalities were annexed over the following decades.

On 12 April 1802 the nobility was assembled at Sioni Cathedral and compelled to take the oath of loyalty to Russia, with dissenters temporarily arrested. Only then was the annexation decree accepted by Georgia's elite.

Through successive Russo-Turkish wars, in which Georgian generals such as Ivane Andronikashvili commanded Russian armies, historic Georgian lands including Adjara were retaken and incorporated into the empire. This restored much of Georgia's later territorial shape under imperial rule.

In the summer of 1805 Russian forces on the Askerani River beat back an Iranian advance during the 1804–13 Russo-Persian War. The victory secured newly annexed Tbilisi as imperial territory.

The 1813 treaty ended the Russo-Persian War and gave international recognition to Russia's possession of eastern Georgia. Iranian claims to the region were formally surrendered.

Western Georgia's kingdom of Imereti was absorbed after the eastern annexation, and its last king Solomon II died in exile in 1815 after failing to rally domestic or foreign support. The remaining principalities followed: Guria in 1829, Svaneti in 1858 and Mingrelia in 1867.

Revolts and strikes across Georgia culminated in the revolutionary upheaval of 1905. Instability continued with the 1906 Dusheti treasury heist by nationalists and the 1907 Tiflis bank robbery organised by the Bolsheviks.

After the Russian Revolution of 1917 the three Caucasian nations created a federation with Nikolay Chkheidze as president. Irreconcilable foreign policy differences quickly destroyed the weak union.

The Menshevik Social Democrats won power as most Georgians rejected the Bolsheviks' violence, with Zhordania as premier and Chkheidze as parliamentary president. Zhordania was still recognised as legitimate head of government by France, the UK, Belgium and Poland into the 1930s.

Georgia was among the first countries in Europe to enshrine female suffrage, unusual for European constitutions of the period. Several women of varying backgrounds were elected to the Georgian parliament.

War broke out over provinces claimed by both states and populated mostly by Armenians. It was ended by British intervention, leaving the border contested.

Georgian forces attacked White Army units under Moiseev and Denikin to claim the coastline including Sochi and Adler for the independent republic. The campaign marked the young state's attempt to fix favourable northern borders.

Independence permitted the establishment of Georgian-language higher education, with Tbilisi State University and the Tbilisi Medical Institute both founded in 1918. TSU remains the oldest university in the Caucasus, today with some 35,000 students.

On 26 May 1918 the National Council of Georgia left the Transcaucasian federation and declared independence as the Democratic Republic of Georgia, aligning with the German Empire after the collapse of the Russian Empire. Georgia became one of the first states to grant women the vote, and its constitutional order was praised internationally for its democracy and pluralism; the republic won international recognition before the Red Army's 1921 invasion ended it, and it remains an inspiration for the modern state.

The 1920 treaty acknowledged Georgia as an independent state. Russia effectively discarded it a year later by invading.

Soviet Russian forces advanced in February 1921, defeated the Georgian army and entered Tbilisi on 25 February, where a government of workers' and peasants' soviets was established under Filipp Makharadze, ending the three-year-old Democratic Republic of Georgia. The Social Democratic government fled abroad and Soviet rule was consolidated only after local insurrections were crushed; Georgia was then incorporated into the Soviet Union within a Transcaucasian federation.

Georgia's incorporation was formalised in 1922, ending the independent republic. The country would remain a Soviet republic for nearly seventy years.

The ethnic Georgian Stalin ruled the USSR from 1924 until his death on 5 March 1953, with fellow Georgians such as Lavrentiy Beria and Vsevolod Merkulov in powerful positions. Georgian prominence at the Soviet summit shaped the republic's standing and later memory politics.

Georgia had been an unindustrialised periphery of the USSR until the first five-year plan turned it into a major centre for textile goods. This began the republic's integration into the Soviet command economy.

The terror of 1936–38 killed or sent to Gulag camps thousands of Georgian dissidents, intellectuals and presumed threats to Soviet authority. It severely truncated the nation's cultural and intellectual life.

About 20 per cent of Georgia's population fought against the Axis invasion launched in June 1941, and an estimated 350,000 were killed. The Axis Fall Blau offensive of 1942 aimed at Caucasian oil but was halted before reaching Georgian territory.

The Meskhetian Turkish population was relocated en masse in 1944. Only a tiny fraction had returned to Georgia as of 2008, leaving a lasting minority-rights question.

Khrushchev's purges of Stalin's legacy provoked riots in Tbilisi that had to be dispersed by military force. The episode compromised Georgian loyalty to the Soviet Union and contributed to national consolidation.

"Chakrulo" was among 27 musical compositions on the Voyager Golden Records launched on 20 August 1977. Its inclusion gave Georgian polyphonic song global cultural recognition.

Mass anti-Soviet protests returned in 1978, and unusually the authorities conceded. The successful defence of Georgian language status showed the limits of Soviet control.

From 1988 demonstrations led by figures such as Merab Kostava and Zviad Gamsakhurdia demanded independence, as perestroika from 1986 had exposed the Soviet leadership's incapacity. Most Georgians, including rank-and-file communists, concluded that a break with the Soviet system was the only way forward.

Soldiers dispersed a pro-independence demonstration outside government buildings on 9 April 1989, killing at least 20 people, most of them women. The event galvanised Georgia's independence movement.

Abolished under Russian rule and restored in 1917, Georgian church autocephaly received full canonical recognition in 1989. The Church's special status was later written into the 1995 constitution and the Concordat of 2002.

Including the breakaway regions, the population fell by more than a million through emigration between 1990 and 2010, compounded by birth-death deficits from 1995 and the exclusion of Abkhazia and South Ossetia from statistics. Out-migration began among non-Georgian ethnicities but spread to Georgians because of war and poor economic prospects.

Georgia's state electricity operator and Romania's Transelectrica signed a memorandum on the planned 1,155-kilometre high-voltage cable under the Black Sea. The link, granted EU strategic-project status, is designed to connect Georgia's power grid to the European market.

The new unit, active from 1 June 2026, tracks social media posts and public statements for material deemed to insult officials or contain hate speech, and refers violations for legal action. The Council of Europe's journalist safety platform warned the move threatened press freedom.

Dredging began on the planned Black Sea port after Georgia dropped a Chinese-led consortium in favour of a state-owned landlord model. The 2026 budget cut Anaklia funding to 50 million lari, and officials target completion of the first phase by 2029.

IMF staff reported Georgia's economy grew 8.4 per cent in January and February 2026, up from 7.5 per cent in 2025, citing sound macroeconomic management. The mission also flagged risks arising from strained relations with Western partners.

Kobakhidze spoke at the Budapest conservative gathering as Hungary's prime minister described Georgia as the bravest nation in Europe. The appearance underlined the ruling party's alignment with European right-wing governments rather than Brussels.

Georgia's relations with the United States remained strained into 2026, with sanctions on ruling party founder Bidzina Ivanishvili still in place despite sporadic contact with US officials. Analysts described the country's declining standing in Washington as part of a wider South Caucasus realignment.

MPs passed the 2026 state budget by 80 votes to nine, projecting five per cent economic growth and a fiscal deficit of 2.5 per cent of GDP. The chamber has sat without most opposition parties, which have boycotted it since the disputed 2024 election.

Saakashvili was transferred back to jail after more than three years in a Tbilisi hospital, where he had been treated during repeated hunger strikes. His combined sentences on charges including embezzlement and illegal border crossing now exceed 12 years.

Georgian Dream won all five self-governing cities, including a third term for Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze with over 71 per cent of the vote, while the largest opposition parties boycotted the poll. Protesters who tried to breach the presidential palace were met with tear gas and water cannon.

The ruling Georgian Dream party passed legislation allowing the Constitutional Court to dissolve parties it deems a threat to constitutional order, then petitioned to ban three of the largest opposition parties. Rights groups called the move incompatible with democratic standards.

V-Dem's 2025 Democracy Index recorded one of the world's largest one-year declines for Georgia, ending its status as a democracy. The reversal is dated from 2018, with gradual deterioration to 2023 and rapid erosion thereafter.

The ruling party's candidate was chosen by a parliamentary electoral college rather than popular vote, and outgoing president Salome Zourabichvili declared the process illegitimate and refused to recognise the handover. As of 2025 the presidency remains contested between the two, alongside disputes over the legitimacy of the prime minister appointed in February 2024.

Preliminary 2024 census results put the population near 3,914,000, up from 3,713,804 in October 2014. This reversed a decline that had taken the recorded population below 3.7 million after a fall of 40,000 in 2021.

Citing blackmail by Western partners, Kobakhidze announced in November 2024 that the accession process would be paused. The declaration triggered sustained protests and reversed two decades of declared Euro-Atlantic orientation.

Alleged irregularities and fraud in the vote of 26 October 2024 provoked mass protests and a deep political crisis. The crisis deepened when the government suspended EU accession efforts and installed a new president over the outgoing incumbent's objections.

Candidate status was awarded in December 2023 despite most conditions being unfulfilled. Those criteria, plus free and fair 2024 parliamentary elections, were made prerequisites for opening actual accession talks.

The bill required NGOs receiving over 20 per cent of funding from abroad to register as agents of foreign influence, and was dropped amid mass protests and pressure from the US State Department, UN and EU. A similar bill was reintroduced in April 2024 and adopted the following month, marking the party's turn towards Euroscepticism.

Georgia applied on 3 March 2022, alongside Ukraine and Moldova, shortly after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. While the other two soon received candidate status, Georgia was set conditions on judicial reform, rule of law, de-oligarchisation and political polarisation.

After the invasion of Ukraine, Georgia topped the list of countries receiving Russians leaving their homeland, aided by a one-year visa-free stay. Many Georgians came to regard the growing Russian presence as a security risk.

After international mediation, a reformed system with a lowered threshold and fewer majoritarian districts was adopted for the 2020 elections, allowing nine parties into parliament; Georgian Dream's 48 per cent translated into 90 of 150 seats. Opposition fraud allegations triggered a months-long crisis, temporarily resolved by an EU-brokered agreement in April 2021 from which both main parties later withdrew.

Tourism reached a record high in 2019, with over US$3 billion in foreign exchange income in the first three quarters alone, up from 2.7 million tourists and US$2.16 billion in 2016. The government targeted 11 million visitors and US$6.6 billion in revenue by 2025.

Protests over the visit of Russian MP Sergei Gavrilov and his role in the Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy escalated into demands for reform of the mixed voting system. The ruling party condemned the visit and conceded on some demands.

Backed by Georgian Dream as an independent, Zurabishvili won the second round to become the first woman to hold the office in full capacity. Subsequent constitutional reforms abolished the popular vote for president.

Responding to civil society lawsuits, the court held that consumption of marijuana is protected by the right to free personality. Georgia thereby became the second country in the world, and the first former socialist state, to legalise cannabis.

The line opened on 30 October 2017, connecting much of the Caucasus to Turkey by standard gauge rail. It strengthened Georgia's role as a transit corridor between the Caspian and Europe.

The party took 115 of 150 seats in the 2016 parliamentary elections. The result, produced by a mixed proportional-majoritarian system, later became a central grievance of the opposition.

The agreement was signed in June 2014 and entered into force on 1 July 2016, creating a deep free trade and political association with the EU. It was followed by a visa liberalisation deal on 13 December 2016 and an EU regulation of 27 February 2017 granting Georgians 90-day visa-free travel.

The 2014 census, conducted with the UN Population Fund, recorded 3,713,804 people, some 700,000 fewer than official estimates built on the 2002 count, which was found to be inflated by 8 to 9 per cent. Demographic data for 1994–2014 had to be retro-projected, correcting the state's understanding of its own population.

Giorgi Margvelashvili, nominated by Georgian Dream, won the October 2013 presidential election and was inaugurated on 17 November 2013, ending a tense year of power-sharing between Saakashvili and Ivanishvili. Ivanishvili voluntarily resigned as prime minister and on 20 November 2013 the legislature confirmed Irakli Garibashvili, yet Ivanishvili remained the party's most influential figure while holding no office until 2018; Saakashvili left the country and was convicted in absentia in 2018.

The ancient clay-jar method was recognised in 2013, adding to Georgia's four UNESCO World Heritage sites. The listing reinforced wine's role in national branding and tourism.

With 1,560 troops in 2013 Georgia was the biggest non-NATO contingent in ISAF, and in per capita terms the largest of all. Over 11,000 Georgian soldiers rotated through the war, of whom 32 were killed and 435 wounded.

The billionaire philanthropist's unexpected entry into politics in October 2011 united the divided opposition under his Georgian Dream coalition, which won a majority in the October 2012 parliamentary election and removed the UNM from power. Conceding defeat, Saakashvili named Ivanishvili prime minister and allowed Georgian Dream to form a new government.

Executive powers were shifted from the president to the prime minister, with the transition beginning at the 2012 parliamentary elections and completed at the 2013 presidential election. The change reshaped the constitutional balance under which Georgian Dream has governed since.

NATO formally recognised Georgia's candidacy ambitions in 2011. Relations were further structured from 2014 by the Substantial NATO–Georgia Package, including a Joint Training and Evaluation Centre and multinational exercises.

The French president brokered a ceasefire on 12 August 2008; Russia then recognised Abkhazia and South Ossetia as separate republics on 26 August and Georgia severed diplomatic relations. Russian forces left the buffer zones on 8 October, replaced by the EU Monitoring Mission, and Georgia has since treated both regions as occupied territory.

After escalating South Ossetian shelling and a Georgian advance on Tskhinvali on the night of 8 August, Russia launched a large land, air and sea invasion under the pretext of peace enforcement, with Abkhaz forces opening a second front in the Kodori Gorge on 9 August. Russian troops took Tskhinvali by 10 August and occupied Georgian cities beyond the disputed territories, displacing 192,000 people amid ethnic cleansing of Georgians in South Ossetia.

Post-revolution liberalisation produced 12 per cent growth in 2007, among the fastest in Eastern Europe. Georgia went on to rank sixth in the world for ease of doing business by 2020 and twelfth for economic freedom in 2021.

From 2006 these states replaced Russian-derived appellations with variants of the English "Georgia", at Tbilisi's request. Lithuania went further in 2020, becoming the first country to use the native-derived "Sakartvelas" in all official communications.

Amid political tensions Russia banned Georgian wine in 2006, claiming counterfeit production. The loss of the traditional market forced Georgian producers to diversify westwards.

A joint statement on the Georgia–EU Action Plan was signed on 2 October 2006 and formally approved at the EU–Georgia Cooperation Council in Brussels on 14 November. It set the framework for a decade of deepening integration under the European Neighbourhood Policy.

A bilateral agreement in May 2005 provided for the removal of Soviet-era Russian bases at Batumi and Akhalkalaki, completed by December 2007. Russia nonetheless failed to vacate the Gudauta base in Abkhazia as required under the Adapted CFE Treaty agreed at the 1999 Istanbul summit.

Around 30,000 traffic police officers were fired in 2005 and replaced by the new Patruli force, following the 2004 introduction of a unified emergency dispatch service. The reform became the emblem of Georgia's success in eradicating low-level corruption.

Submitted in August 2004 and approved by the North Atlantic Council on 29 October, the IPAP moved Georgia to the second stage of Euro-Atlantic integration. Follow-on steps included a Partnership for Peace liaison officer in 2005, a host nation support agreement in March 2005 and an implementation assessment in 2006.

New elections in early 2004 swept Mikheil Saakashvili and his United National Movement into power, consolidating the Rose Revolution and beginning reforms of the military, economy and state institutions. Progress on market reforms and democratisation followed, though complicated by Russian assistance and support to the separatist regions; the US State Department later judged that Georgia had moved from a near-failed state in 2003 to a relatively well-functioning market economy by 2014.

Post-revolution reforms overhauled schooling and higher education, though not without controversy, and by 2016 seventy-five institutions were accredited by the Ministry of Education and Science. Gross primary enrolment reached 117 per cent in 2012–2014, the second highest in Europe.

A flat rate income tax was adopted in 2004 as part of the post-revolution liberalisation. The reforms helped the World Bank later name Georgia the world's number one economic reformer, its ease-of-doing-business rank rising from 112th to 18th in a single year.

Efforts to restore Georgian authority over the south-western autonomous republic produced a major confrontation in 2004. Its resolution demonstrated the new government's capacity to recover control of territory peacefully.

Weeks of demonstrations over the fraudulent parliamentary election of 2 November 2003, led by Mikheil Saakashvili, Zurab Zhvania and Nino Burjanadze, culminated in the bloodless Rose Revolution and forced President Eduard Shevardnadze from office. Saakashvili won the presidency in elections held the following January, and the revolution launched a decisive westward reorientation and a sweeping reform programme.

The de facto separate region proclaimed independence in 1999, nine years after its autonomous status within Georgia was revoked. The declaration hardened one of the country's two frozen conflicts.

Membership committed Georgia to the European Convention on Human Rights and subjected it to the European Court of Human Rights. It marked an early step in the country's post-Soviet integration with European institutions.

The 1995 constitution replaced the interim post-Soviet order under which the state had been called the Republic of Georgia. Its English text established "Georgia" as the official name and it recognised the special status of the Georgian Orthodox Church.

By 1994 GDP had shrunk to a quarter of the 1989 level amid war and the transition from the Soviet command economy, with severe shortages of bread, water, electricity and heat. The crisis defined the country's lost decade and drove mass emigration.

The former Soviet foreign minister was named head of the new government in March 1992, elected head of state that year and president in 1995. His rule stabilised the state after civil war but became synonymous with corruption and stagnation.

Fighting between Georgian forces and Abkhaz separatists, backed by North Caucasian and Russian fighters, killed thousands and expelled roughly 230,000 to 250,000 ethnic Georgians, with some 23,000 more fleeing South Ossetia. Backed by Russia, both breakaway regions achieved de facto independence and have functioned outside Tbilisi's control ever since, leaving Georgia in charge of only small parts of the disputed territories.

The coup ran from 22 December 1991 to 6 January 1992 and was instigated by part of the National Guard and the Mkhedrioni paramilitary. It plunged the country into a civil war lasting until December 1993.

More than 90 per cent of voters backed independence in the referendum of 31 March 1991, and the Supreme Council declared the restoration of Georgian statehood on 9 April, making Georgia the first non-Baltic Soviet republic to do so. Romania became the first country to recognise it in August 1991, and Zviad Gamsakhurdia was elected the country's first post-Soviet president on 26 May with 86.5 per cent of the vote.

In October 1990 opposition groups were registered as formal parties and contested elections, the first such vote anywhere in the Soviet Union. Zviad Gamsakhurdia's Round Table—Free Georgia coalition won and formed a government; Abkhazia's autonomous status was revoked the same year.