A small, non-Slavic nation located far from the Soviet capital, Georgia was more closely linked with the Ottoman and Persian empires than with Russia for most of its history. One of over one hundred o
Familiar Strangers tells the story of a remarkably successful group of ethnic outsiders at the heart of Soviet empire and, in so doing, reinterprets the course of modern Russian and Soviet history. Wh
Georgia is one of the most corrupt and crime-ridden nations of the former Soviet Union. In the Soviet period, Georgians played a major role in organized crime groups and the shadow economy operating t
