“We had one computer and we would get in line for it. By the way, we didn’t know how to use the keyboard very well either, and we had someone who would then type our handwritten texts on the computer,” — this is how Eter Turadze recalls the beginning of the newspaper Batumelebi.
They chose the name for pragmatic reasons — they knew that there was a high level of sensitivity regarding Batumi and that people would want to buy a newspaper published about their city. They also wanted the name to be easy to remember. At the time, they didn’t even think that their publication could be distributed throughout the country.
“There was no free publication in Adjara at the time, so we decided we had to do something different.”
The first issue was published on May 26, 2001, on Georgia’s Independence Day. It was an 8-page newspaper and, as Eter says, they couldn’t publish it with a specific frequency back then — “we used to say, ‘It comes out when it comes out.'”
“We adjusted everything, according to our calculations, to Batumi and Georgia’s Independence Day. We worked very hard, it was very difficult for us to put together the first issue, but we still managed to make it come out on May 26. We put a lot of effort into this, we even adjusted the text on the front page to that.”
She says she remembers working on the first issue well, the nights she spent working on it, and being at the printing house until the morning of May 26. 100 copies were printed and now they have one copy left. She says with a laugh, “I have that one.”
“We weren’t professionals either, let’s put it that way. Now when I look back at the first issues, I laugh a lot. We were doing things like that, but we were studying at the same time. We were so immersed in journalism that we didn’t even realize it,” says Eter, adding that they often attended training courses and looked for new opportunities to improve their qualifications.
She recalls that for a very long time they worked on that one computer, a Pentium III, even when Batumelebi became a weekly publication. Then Internews gave them a Pentium I. First they would type the text, then they would do the binding, but they didn’t have a printer, so they would remove the processor from the computer and take the work with the processor to the printing house, where they would copy it onto parchment and begin the printing process.
“It was all done in a very handcrafted way — both the printing and our work. We didn’t have any of the tools that a journalist needs, we just had a pen and paper. That’s how we worked.”
Finances were a problem from the beginning. So they worked, but they didn’t get paid. The income from newspaper sales couldn’t even cover office rent, printing, and other expenses. Eter recalls that at that time, the Eastern Europe director of the Open Society Foundations came to Georgia and went to the Batumelebi office. When the visitor saw the conditions they were working in — with one computer, no desks, no chairs, he called from the office, and the next day, Batumelebi received its first financial support. With this money, they bought a large, color printer. There was also other types of financial support within the same grant, and then they started paying salaries and paying off debts.
რით, არც მაგიდა ჰქონდათ და არც სკამები, ოფისიდანვე დარეკა და მეორე დღეს “ბათუმელებმა” პირველი ფინანსური მხარდაჭერა მიიღო. ამ ფულით დიდი, ფერადი პრინტერი იყიდეს. ამავე გრანტის ფარგლებში იყო სხვა ტიპის ფინანსური მხარდაჭერაც და მაშინ დაიწყეს ხელფასების გაცემა, ასევე, დავალიანებების გასტუმრება.
“The newspaper would probably have shut down if it weren’t for this support, because we were in a very big crisis. Even though we were working so hard, we weren’t getting paid and we didn’t have equipment, we were paying the office rent and the printing house fee, which allowed us to pay when we had the money. Without this support, we would not have been able to continue operating in any case.”
After 15 years of founding the newspaper, they made a painful decision to stop printing and switch to an online version. Eter says it was a pragmatic move, as the costs were high and sales were not keeping up. They also published a magazine for a few months, and then finally established themselves as an online publication.
“Printed publishing is clearly a luxury, all of this is very expensive, but the second issue is that the audience’s behavior has also changed. The younger generation is a gadget generation after all, our audience is also a gadget generation and would not hold a newspaper in their hands, as it turned out. We saw this and that’s why we stopped it. Of course, it was painful. Personally, I didn’t recognize online for a very long time, I was a text journalist, I loved writing, articles, holding a newspaper in my hands, a natural product. But it was right, we should have stopped it a little earlier, from the current perspective.”
Pressure Under Different Governments and the Struggle for Freedom
Eter recalls that there were problems in the newspaper’s third issue — an interview with the director of the Finger Puppet Theater, who spoke about an uncomfortable working environment, resulted in strong reactions.
By 2003, Batumelebi was a very popular publication and actively criticized Aslan Abashidze’s rule.
“Not because we had some interests. It’s just that the environment we were in was incredible. I don’t know what type of government it was, it wasn’t even autocracy, I can’t find the name. It had signs of feudalism, but it was local. This style of government somehow covered the region.”
Then there was the Rose Revolution, which was followed by the escape of Aslan Abashidze within a few months, on May 6, 2024. Violations of human rights, corruption, and the concentration of power in the hands of Abashidze’s family members — these are the results of Abashidze’s 13-year rule in Adjara.
Aslan Abashidze had been the Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara since 1991. After two terms, in 2001 he became the Head of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara and held this position until May 6, 2004.
On the day of the Rose Revolution, November 23, 2003, according to amendments to the Adjara constitution, Abashidze was granted the position of a top politician and military figure, with the right to have military formations. On November 24, he declared a state of emergency in the territory of Adjara and condemned the Rose Revolution.
From November 2003 to May 2004, there was Abashidze's boycott of the elections announced by the central government, meetings, negotiations, demands, rallies, raids, beatings of Abashidze's opponents, arrests, the second declaration of a state of emergency in Adjara, the introduction of a simplified visa regime by Russia with Adjara, Aslan Abashidze's calls to the population to avoid a new conflict in Adjara, "as happened in Abkhazia and South Ossetia at one time", the refusal of President Saakashvili to enter Adjara and the blowing up of the Choloki and Kakuti bridges on the administrative border. Also, calls from the central government to disarm the illegal armed groups operating in the region and Abashidze's refusal to mobilize reservists.
Ultimately, Abashidze was forced to yield to the demands of the central government and the protesters who had taken to the streets of Batumi. After a meeting with the Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Igor Ivanov, in Batumi, Abashidze traveled with him to Moscow.
Source: Civil.ge
It was during this period, since 2001, that the newspaper Batumelebi has been covering lawlessness, corruption, and human rights violations in Adjara. However, the publication has not lost its critical nature either after May 6, 2004, when the country was ruled by the National Movement, or after October 1, 2012, when the Georgian Dream came to power. During this period, the newspaper Batumelebi has repeatedly become the target of attacks, and its employees have been physically assaulted, although the team has continued to work.
Eter also recalls specific examples:
“One day, an employee was attacked on the boulevard and severely beaten, so much so that he couldn’t stand up for a long time. In another case, I left the employee at the entrance myself and he called me at four in the morning, saying he was somewhere, I don’t know who kidnapped him, we took him to the hospital and he barely survived.”
She notes that she has endured many types of pressure over the years. She says that it seems that when you are in this process, you don’t realize how dangerous it is for a person’s health, life, and mental stability.
“Looking back now, I can say that we didn’t realize how dangerous the environment was. We just loved our profession. There were so many cruel things happening, but we didn’t care. We didn’t even realize that it was dangerous. Maybe it was because of our age or because of the excitement — when you’re 25, you live a little differently, it seems. That’s how it happened that we didn’t get involved,” says Eter.
Despite this and numerous threats, she had never before felt that someone might be killed on the street.
“A man with a gun came to the office and shot in the air; someone told me they would drag me into the woods and see what they could do to me, but I’ve never had the feeling that someone could attack me from behind on the street. Now I do.”
“This is the most brutal regime I have ever worked under, for sure. […] Neither Aslan Abashidze nor Mikheil Saakashvili really liked journalists and always liked orators, and we were never their orators, but the idea that journalism should not exist did not even cross Abashidze’s mind. Georgian Dream is not only doing everything to make the media disappear, but they have done everything to discredit this profession. This is a campaign-like, organized fight against speech and expression. No one did this.”
Eter says that there is now an environment where a journalist often has to remain unnoticed while working in the field, because you don’t know what type of people will be mobilized. She cites as an example the protests of recent years, when they refused to wear clothing with press inscriptions, because it did not protect them, but made them targets.
“We are trying not to get physically injured, otherwise, of course, we will stay in the profession, especially since I don’t know where else to go now, what to do. I don’t want to do anything else, I like the work I do. It is very tiring, difficult, it is already an inhumane environment, it is already a very dangerous environment, but I like this profession. For now, I intend to be in this profession, at least until our country is firmly established as a country that protects freedom of speech and expression. I don’t think I should run away and hide. I neither can nor want to, especially now, where should we go, Mzia is in prison and it is out of the question. If everything stops, we won’t be able to stop, we have no right to do that.”
“Mzia Made a Great Sacrifice, There Is a Life Beyond That”
Mzia Amaghlobeli is a co-founder of the newspaper Batumelebi. She was arrested on January 11, 2025, for slapping police officer Dgebuadze. On August 6, she was sentenced to 2 years in prison.
Eter says that locking Mzia in a cell clearly shows the nature of this regime. Especially considering that her health condition was well known, and yet this decision was made. I was very afraid of the outcome that has already happened, Eter notes. In her opinion, this is a demonstration on the part of the Georgian Dream, “to show us that they can punish us, they can destroy us, and they can take away our health condition, our freedom. Mzia’s imprisonment takes this into account, nothing else. It has no other purpose.”
She emphasizes the prosecutor’s attitude and calls the statements as if there was a risk of repeated crime and therefore the preventive measure should not have been changed – ” when the person is, in fact, blind” – cynical.
“Mzia lost, sacrificed something that could never be regained, for nothing. She was made a victim for nothing, because she met a rude and arrogant policeman on the way,” says Eter.
They rarely send each other letters. Usually, Mzia calls from prison every Saturday and they talk for about 5-7 minutes — she makes time to talk to her family as well. She never says she needs anything, says Eter.
“I think one of the MP’s said there’s no torture in their prisons. What is what Mzia went through, then? What is it?!”
She says almost nothing about the situation in prison or her own health. Information about this is mainly provided by lawyers. While the trials were ongoing, Mzia was seen at the hearing and, given her weight loss, they assumed that her health had worsened. They are especially worried about her eyesight. As Eter says, Mzia underwent tests before the last trial and her condition is very serious — she needs surgery, but it is unknown how safe and effective it will be in prison conditions.
“Conversations with her are about public needs, laws, discussions; in principle, she does not provide us with information related to her personal life.”
Eter Turadze says that after Mzia’s arrest, everything in the editorial office of Batumelebi has fully changed. But Mzia’s example has changed a lot in Georgian journalism as well – in addition to the solidarity shown by her colleagues, Mzia has been nominated for awards that usually only go to journalists from the least democratic countries.
“Imagine what happened when a person was nominated for the Havel Prize and was shortlisted. What does this mean? Where are we? We all ended up in hell together, and it’s a hellish environment for journalism. It doesn’t mean anything more than being on the shortlist for the Havel Prize. When the Clooney Foundation is working on the Mzia Amaghlobeli case, what does this mean? There has never been such a precedent in Georgia. It means that we have a legal hell in the country and there is no law.”
“Everything has turned upside down, distorted, and the system that should be aimed at human well-being, the law that should protect you and tell you that a journalist’s work is inviolable and that obstruction is punishable, now tells you the opposite – that they will kill you, capture you, destroy you.”
Eter also says that they lost a lot of people in the process, but they also made a lot of good friends.
“When you’re well, it’s probably easy to be friends, and when you befriend someone in such distress, it seems like true friendship,” says Eter, adding that they saw extraordinary solidarity and unity from the journalists, which was very important.
“Journalism Cannot Be Killed in this Country”
“If we hadn’t had such high trust and such great support from the public, we would have developed much more, they would have trampled us. They didn’t hold back, but we might not have been able to get up,” Eter notes, speaking about the audience’s trust, adding that this capital was accumulated over many years. According to her, trust is a very valuable asset for everyone, and especially for the media.
“The trust and support of the audience, these are not, these are really not cliché words, they allowed us to gather our strength and continue our professional activities. I think that Mzia, who physically survived in prison, is also a credit to this trust and support.”
According to Eter, we are now in an environment where saving free media has become equivalent to saving the country — if Georgian journalism survives, this country will have a chance to become part of the civilized world.
“Here, such an equation has been established. Isn’t it strange? But it is true that if free journalism survives in this country, the country itself will survive and we, the people, will survive. That’s right.”
“We were simply oppressed, oppressed by this system, and it was very difficult to get back on our feet, to get back to this work, but there was no other way and we simply had no other way. We have no other way now either. Even if everything stops, we won’t be able to stop unless they forcefully tie us up, or because it’s very dark in the corner of the library and someone might wait for us there… Then we’ll probably stop, but not otherwise.”
“My brain doesn’t allow me to believe that the media in Georgia could be wiped out, silenced, or killed,” says Eter. Then she adds that she is neither naive nor overly optimistic — she knows full well that no one is going to trust her and that there is a difficult road ahead, that there is a very big machine working against independent media, and that there are many challenges that journalists are working very hard to overcome.
“No one is planning show mercy, but we are not planning to stop either, and I think they will not kill journalism in this country. I am sure, I believe so.”
In response to the current challenges, a unified platform was created to support independent media: sinatle.media. Today, independent online media in Georgia is fighting for survival. The repressive regime is trying to suppress voices that tell the truth.
22 online media outlets from all over Georgia have come together to defend what belongs to us all: free speech and democracy. Batumelebi is among the online media outlets participating in the campaign.
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