Family History Blog Post

The Dark Days of My Childhood. Tbilisi, Georgia, 1989–1992

I was born in Tbilisi, in Georgia.

My childhood began happily — a warm city, family, a peaceful life.

It remained so until the late 1980s, when tragic events began in Georgia that forever changed the fate of the country — and my own memories of childhood.

In 1988–1989 the national liberation movement in Georgia grew stronger.

People came out to demonstrations, demanding independence from the Soviet Union, the restoration of their own statehood, and the protection of their language and culture.

Among the leaders of the movement was Zviad Gamsakhurdia — the future first president of independent Georgia.

I remember those demonstrations well.

I remember how people gathered by the thousands and chanted one single word:

“Sakartvelo!”

Georgia.

But the Soviet authorities decided to suppress this movement by force.

April 9, 1989

This date has forever become a day of mourning in Georgian history.

Early in the morning of April 9, 1989, Soviet troops entered Rustaveli Avenue in Tbilisi, where a peaceful demonstration was taking place.

They used entrenching shovels, tear gas, and armored vehicles against unarmed people.

Twenty-one people were killed.

Most of them were young women.

Hundreds were poisoned by gas.

I remember that morning.

Neighbors ran into our house shouting:

“They brought tanks onto Rustaveli. They killed people.”

I was a child and could not understand the most terrible thing:

why Soviet soldiers had come to kill us — Georgians — on our own land.

From that day on, the country was never the same again.

The War Caught Us on the Road

My mother is from Odesa, Ukraine, and we often traveled to Odesa to visit relatives.

Once, while returning to Tbilisi with transfers, the war quite literally caught us on the road.

It was already the time when armed conflicts had begun, roads were destroyed and railway lines cut.

Our train stopped at the station in Sukhumi, in Abkhazia, on the territory of Georgia.

At that very moment an armed conflict was beginning there — and this land later came under occupation, which continues to this day.

And suddenly shooting began.

The tracks toward Tbilisi were destroyed.

The train could not continue.

At the station there was terrible chaos:

shouting, crying, people not understanding what was happening or where to run.

By then my mother was already working for the Transcaucasian Railway. She was the secretary to the head of the railway and knew all the routes perfectly.

And that knowledge saved us.

I remember how my mother grabbed the conductor:

“Quickly, take me to the head of the train.”

We ran through the entire train.

When we entered the office, my mother almost shouted:

“Immediately connect me with the depot. The train can be sent via Baku.”

So our train turned toward Azerbaijan.

We ended up in Baku.

And only from there were we able to return to Tbilisi.

At that moment I understood for the first time that life can depend on a single decision and a few minutes.

Years of Blockade, Cold, and Survival

After the tragedy of April 9 and Georgia’s open course toward independence, the Soviet authorities began to exert direct pressure on the country.

In 1989–1991 an energy and economic blockade was effectively imposed on Georgia.

Fuel and electricity supplies were deliberately reduced.

Gas, electricity, and water were cut not because of technical problems —

it was a way to punish the country for its desire for freedom.

This was how the Soviet Union tried to break Georgia.

And in the early 1990s Georgia was drawn into a new circle of tragedies —

a civil war, conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia,

fueled by external interference and a fierce struggle for power.

Another war began — a war for survival.

The electricity was cut.

The water was cut.

The gas was cut.

The metro stopped — the main pulse of the city.

Fuel disappeared.

In winter, we literally froze.

We slept in jackets, fully dressed, under several blankets.

It was so cold in our apartment that our breath turned into steam.

On balconies people lit real fires

just to heat water and cook the simplest food.

Smoke rose along the facades of buildings.

The whole city lived like a besieged fortress.

We lived like that for several years — in the early 1990s.

At that time it seemed to me it would never end.

My mother lost her job.

There was almost no food.

In the city center, where my grandmother lived, electricity was supplied only two hours a day.

My mother went there and sewed whatever she could to earn at least some money and feed us.

Bread was distributed with ration cards —

200 grams per person per day.

It was not just a crisis.

It was a blockade.

It was a punishment for the desire to be free.

It was a quiet, endless horror.

And it was then, in childhood, that I understood for the first time:

War is not only gunshots and tanks.

It is cold in the apartment.

Fire on the balcony.

Hunger.

Fear.

And the feeling that ordinary life can disappear at any moment.

Note:

Abkhazia is part of the territory of Georgia and remains under occupation to this day. This status is recognized by the United Nations, the European Union, the United States of America, Ukraine, and the vast majority of countries worldwide.