"Tying Georgia entirely to Russian tourists is an act of sabotage by the ‘Georgian Dream,’ and the fact that they blame me for this is the result of deliberate harmful actions - it is complete nonsense! My policy after 2008 was based on bringing Russian tourists into Georgia in limited numbers and under strict control,” jailed former President Mikheil Saakashvili said in a statement published on social media.

As Saakashvili explains, he assigned a political function to bringing Russian tourists into the country. According to Saakashvili, in 2012, Russian tourists accounted for less than 20% of the total number of tourists.

“I primarily assigned this a political function: Russians entering Georgia amid unrestrained anti-Georgian propaganda would take back with them the story of the success of Georgia’s reforms.

Our Russian-language ‘First Caucasian’ (PIK) television channel served the same purpose, and I want to say that we achieved significant success in this direction. Russian propagandists and officials, including [then-Russian President] Medvedev, were forced to justify why Russia did not have a police force as free from corruption as Georgia’s or development as rapid as Georgia’s.

At the same time, we were developing tourism very rapidly from the rest of the world, primarily from Europe and the United States. The figures demonstrate this. In 2012, Russian tourists accounted for less than 20% of the total number of tourists.

How did we achieve such a ratio at the time? First and foremost, through the very positive image of our country and, I will not be overly modest here, my own very positive image. The name of our reforms was promoted around the world by the President of the United States, various secretaries of state, European leaders, various businesspeople, including Donald Trump, as well as the international press itself.

We promoted our country on various television channels, including CNN, BBC and others. We signed an agreement with Royal Caribbean, a cruise company, to bring 1 million American tourists to Batumi over the course of a year, using cruise ships on the Istanbul-Batumi-Odesa route.

We were creating a special tourism product aimed primarily at Western consumers. A crucial part of our exclusive niche was supposed to be Tetnuldi, one of Europe’s largest ski resorts, which was to be connected to Kutaisi Airport via a tunnel through Lechkhumi. We built Kutaisi Airport specifically for European routes. Our modernist architectural structures were also designed with Western tourists in mind.

What did the ‘Georgian Dream’ do from the very beginning?

They disrupted the Royal Caribbean contract.

They halted construction of the Tetnuldi resort.

They stopped advertising on Western television channels.

They ruined the reforms and destroyed the country’s positive image.

Now they have turned their attention to architecture that has already become famous around the world and are destroying it like the Taliban.

They reoriented Kutaisi Airport primarily toward Russia.

They tied us to Russia not only in terms of tourism, but through the entire economy as well. This is what the so-called dictator’s Prime Minister is talking about when he says that tourism will collapse if Russians do not come. We should add that logistics, trade and energy will also collapse if, one day, Russia decides to stop supplying us with what is already expensive electricity, or stops importing cars using Georgia as a transit route. This would have been completely impossible under my economic policy.

And there is one more thing I cannot refrain from saying: why can’t other ‘experts’ and politicians respond specifically to these catastrophic statements by the dictatorship in the way I have just done? So, those who accuse me of wanting to be ‘the only one’ - perhaps they should become stronger, equip themselves with knowledge and be able to conduct these debates without me, right? You cannot imagine how happy that would make me.

So now, at least, let those who once called me crazy when I talked about increasing the number of tourists from 50,000 to 10 million become active,” Mikheil Saakashvili wrote on social media.