They have fled their homes in Russia, sometimes accompanied by wives or girlfriends, to avoid the partial mobilisation ordered by President Vladimir Putin for more manpower on Ukraine’s battlefields.
Those who have previously served in the military, even as conscripts, and are now registered in the reserves are the most likely to be called up, but older men with no experience have also been called up.
“We didn’t think either of us would be here four days ago,” said Alexey, a 24-year-old draftee, in a restaurant on the cobblestone streets of Tbilisi’s Old Town.
According to Georgian officials, more than 10,000 Russians cross the border each day, and images widely shared on social media show long lines of cars snaking towards Georgia and Mongolia.
The cost of direct flights from Moscow has risen dramatically.
The line at the Upper Lars Russia-Georgia border crossing was 2,000 cars long on September 24, so he hired a scooter to get around.
Georgia, a mountainous country on the Black Sea between Russia and Turkey, has long been a popular tourist destination for Russians, known for its food, wine, and scenic Caucasus mountains.
It has remained open to Russian citizens, unlike several states in Eastern and Northern Europe, and the relaxed visa system and locals’ familiarity with Russian have made it easy to settle in.
However, because of their turbulent past, the two neighbours have an uneasy relationship.
Georgia was conquered from the Ottoman and Persian empires in the nineteenth century and absorbed by tsarist Russia, before briefly gaining independence during the 1917-1923 Russian Civil War and being occupied by the Bolsheviks.
During this time, Georgian revolutionary Iosif Jughashvili, better known as Joseph Stalin, rose to the top of the Soviet leadership with ruthlessness.
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, a civil war erupted in Georgia, with two separatist regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, breaking away with Moscow’s assistance.
Russia fought a brief war on the separatists’ behalf in 2008, and Russian forces are still stationed on what is internationally recognised as Georgian territory.
“We have a lot of tragic history, and this is not only going back to 2008,” said Georgian journalist, Lasha Babukhadia. “We had a war with Russia in 1991, when Abkhazia and South Ossetia were [originally] occupied by Russia, so we’ve had a war with Russia every decade.” We have always tried to be independent, and we have supported Ukraine in its efforts to be independent of Russia.”
