The President of Georgia visits Svaneti

The President of Georgia visited Svaneti and personally inspected the ongoing rehabilitation work. Mikheil Saakashvili met with the residents of the village of Mulakhi and spoke to them about the ongoing and planned projects in the region. Saakashvili noted that the roads will be paved from Mestia in the direction of Ushguli and Mulakhi and upper and lower Svaneti will be connected to each other by a tunnel.

The Head of State also spoke about the regional problems and the ways of solving them. According to him, Svaneti has huge potential to develop and become one of the best resorts of Europe.

“I have big plans regarding Svaneti. Unlike other politicians, I did not recall this place today. I am not coming here 3 weeks before the elections in order to tell you how much I love you and forget about you after the elections. The amount that the state is investing in Svaneti is more per capita than it spends in any other region of Georgia. Svaneti is the crown of Georgia; an expression of the spiritual power of the country. We restored order here, but most importantly, we must all defeat poverty, leave the problems behind and develop this region together. I understand how much poverty is characteristic to this place and this should no longer be the case. This is why we started rehabilitating Mestia. Mestia hasn’t had this much construction since the 10th-11th century. Mestia is not only a town; it’s is a regional center and every village around it is special. We continue to pave the road towards Ushguli and Mulakhi. Some say that Svaneti does not need roads and people come here to enjoy the exotic nature of this place… there are political forces in today’s Georgia, which have a lot of money, a list of things to demolish, and a long list of things that they don’t want built. The first object of laughter is the tunnel that we are planning to build from Kutaisi; the one which will connect upper and lower Svaneti. They won’t be able to demolish anything or interfere with the construction of anything including this tunnel. We will definitely build a tunnel in Svaneti, definitely connect Svaneti to the rest of Georgia through an effective road, and this will bring a huge income. I call on everyone to let us rehabilitate this region,” Saakashvili stated.