SHEKVETILI, Georgia — Over the past five years, Georgians have witnessed a surreal sight: gigantic trees, even centuries old, floating upright in the Black Sea.
Imposing magnolias, tulip trees and other majestic species glided across the surface of the water, their mighty branches outstretched in a procession that looked as poetic as it was delirious.
The trees, loaded onto barges pulled by tugboats, were on their way to be replanted in a park being built by eccentric billionaire former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, a man many Georgians believe still wields considerable political power despite declaring he is He retired to pursue philanthropy.
In total, more than 200 trees arrived at the park, extracted from the land of impoverished villages and the lush forests of Georgia, a small country in the Caucasus. Ivanishvili personally approved most of the chosen trees.
They transported regarding half of the trees by barge and the other half by truck. River beds were widened and trains had to stop to give way, which Georgians saw as evidence of Ivanishvili’s continued ability to mobilize officials with the same impunity with which he transports trees. At least five trees died in the process, according to local reports.
Ivanishvili Park opened its gates to the public in the summer of 2020 and is a rare public manifestation of its shadowy yet overwhelming presence in Georgia.
He holds no official government position, but critics say the 65-year-old Ivanishvili still wields enormous influence behind the scenes.
“Power is concentrated in the hands of one man and of course that is Bidzina,” said a former ally, Giorgi Gakharia, who resigned as prime minister in February, saying the billionaire’s control had become stifling.
Shekvetili Dendrological Park on Georgia’s Black Sea coast reflects Ivanishvili’s extravagant tastes, as its sinuous design—with a central pond teeming with pink flamingos, pelicans, and other exotic birds—has been personally crafted by him , according to Paata Sulaberidze, who managed the project.
A chain-link fence separates the public park from the Ivanishvili estate.
Admission is free to the park, which cost tens of millions of dollars to create, according to Ivanishvili commented in one of the few interviews you’ve given to a Georgia business magazine.
However, everywhere there are signs informing that it is a private property. There are closed circuit television cameras installed all over the place and motion detectors in front of each of the trees. Look, but don’t you dare touch; and that message is also true for grass. Guards with loudspeakers are quick to admonish those who break the rules.
Still, many visitors say they really enjoy the park.
“It may not be right, but if these trees like the place, why not?” said Nyusya Goman, a 19-year-old manicurist. “Of course he did it to indulge himself in the first place,” he said, referring to Ivanishvili. “People say that he comes in the mornings to fill himself with the energy that emanates from the trees.”
There are numerous theories as to why Ivanishvili is so infatuated with trees. Some Georgians rumor that he is a Druid and that he worships them.
Salomé Jashi, a Georgian film director, sees in Ivanishvili’s obsession more than just a love of nature.
“In my opinion, a floating tree was a symbol of power, of desire, of wanting something at any price,” said Jashi, who filmed a documentary regarding the park project.
Sulaberidze, the project’s director, dismisses those guesses. He claimed his boss “just loves trees.”
Many Georgians say they admire Ivanishvili for the free access to his park, which has so far received more than 1.5 million visitors, and for his philanthropic work, which includes paying scholarships to Georgian artists and poets.
“People don’t realize that it has helped so many in Georgia,” said Rostom Bolkvadze, a businessman from Batumi, the nearby tourist city, who has visited the park.
However, Ivanishvili’s political opponents compare him to a feudal lord who showers trickles of wealth on people to buy their goodwill.
These people claim that their retirement is a fiction. “You can’t see him anywhere, but the truth is that he is present everywhere,” said Armaz Akhvlediani, a member of the Georgian Parliament.
Ivanishvili made his fortune in Russia, where he built a metal and banking empire during the chaotic post-Soviet transition. Currently, his wealth is calculated by $6 billion, a figure that exceeds Georgia’s budget for 2021.
Many Georgians speculate that the Kremlin would never have allowed such wealth to leave the country unless it trusted that the money would be used to buy influence in Georgia, a strategically important country struggling to retain its independence in the face of power ambitions. from neighboring nations, Turkey and Russia.
One of Ivanishvili’s staunch critics is former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. After spending years abroad, Saakashvili made a dramatic and surprise return to the country in September and is currently in custody on abuse of power charges and other charges he denies.
Saakashvili, who during his presidency tried to distance Georgia from its Soviet past, calls himself a “Putin prisoner” and claims that Ivanishvili is a Kremlin lackey.
Giorgi Khelashvili, a deputy from the Georgian Dream party, founded by Ivanishvili, maintains that his retirement was sincere.
“His idea was to leave the system and he wanted to leave the government with a system that would take care of directing, and he would just step aside,” Khelashvili said.
Ivanishvili’s representatives declined repeated interview requests for this article.
While his role is now murky, Ivanishvili once played a very outspoken and prominent role in Georgia’s tense political environment, where a candidate’s attitude toward Russia is subject to scrutiny by voters.
As the leader of a coalition of political parties, he won the 2012 parliamentary elections and served as prime minister from October 2012 to November 2013, during which he pursued Georgia’s NATO and European aspirations but also tried to be pragmatic. with Moscow.
His coalition had campaigned in opposition to then-President Saakashvili, who resigned and quickly left the country following his party’s defeat.
For now, Ivanishvili seems to be more interested in his eccentric hobbies, which sometimes manifested themselves during his time as prime minister.
Akhvlediani, the MP, worked closely with Ivanishvili in 2013 as chairman of his political party, but they have since fallen out. He recalled how on an official foreign visit to Strasbourg, Ivanishvili took particular interest in the city’s zoo, where he bought stork eggs to take home.
Although the passion for trees may seem harmless, that is not necessarily the case when the passionate is a powerful billionaire.
Toby Kiers, a professor of evolutionary biology at the Free University of Amsterdam, said that when she heard regarding Ivanishvili’s project to uproot ancient trees, she felt physical pain.
“For hundreds of years, these ancient trees have nurtured their unique subterranean ecosystems, which include vast networks of fungi that have sustained the tree since it was a tiny sapling,” explained Kiers, who has researched how trees are connected. “When a tree is uprooted, that life support system is also uprooted from the ground, leaving behind a barren wasteland.”
For Valentina Slobodenyuk, what was left was an ocean view that was previously blocked by the giant sequoia and ginkgo biloba that Ivanishvili took to his park.
Trees had played an important role in his life, he said, as the redwood provided good shelter during storms. Now Slobodenyuk visits the trees in his new home.
“I miss them so much,” he said.
Ivan Nechepurenko has been a reporter for the Moscow bureau since 2015, covering politics, economics, sports and culture in Russia and the former Soviet republics. He was born and raised in Saint Petersburg, Russia. @INechepurenko • Facebook
