TBILISI — Arriving in this city and driving down George W. Bush Street, you’d be hard pushed to identify Georgia as a country that recently underwent a short but brutal war. Of course the war never reached Tbilisi, but ordinary Georgians are seemingly untouched by Russia’s illegal and immoral invasion on August 7.
As the global conservative movement congregates in Tbilisi for the fifth annual European Resource Bank, including former Estonian Prime Minister Mart Laar and State Chancelor of Georgia, Kahka Bendukidze, the Georgian think tank New Economic School has put together an impressive agenda concentrating on economic reform and how to grow the free market movement in young democracies.
Against a stunning backdrop of lush green mountains, NES have invited the world to come and see Georgia for itself, and appreciate the feelings among Georgians that they want to throw off the shackles of former Soviet occupation once and for all and pursue the strong economic and social development that has been the hallmark of Western-backed democratizations in their near neighborhood.
