Protests in Georgia: who is the State Duma deputy Gavrilov, from whom it all began?

In Georgia, the second day of continuing mass protests that led to the resignation of the Speaker of Parliament. The reason for them was the visit of State Duma Deputy Sergei Gavrilov. BBC Russian Service figured out who he was.

Gavrilov led the Russian delegation at the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of Orthodoxy held in Tbilisi.
The local opposition was outraged that the Communist deputy sat in the chair of the head of parliament and spoke Russian. After that, mass protests began in Tbilisi.

On Friday, June 21, the speaker of the Georgian parliament, Irakli Kobakhidze, resigned, and on the eve of the protestors tried to storm the building of the legislature.

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The Russian Foreign Ministry recommended that citizens of the country “in the interests of their personal safety refrain from traveling to Georgia.”

The political career of the 53-year-old Communist Party member Sergei Gavrilov began in the USSR. In 1990-1993, he was a member of the Tula City Council, and in 2005, he became a member of the Belgorod Regional Duma. In 2007, he was elected to the State Duma.

Now Gavrilov heads the committee for the development of civil society, issues of public and religious associations. The main focus of his work in recent years is religion.

In February 2019, he said in an interview with Novye Izvestia: “The state has become too separated from the church, there is underfunding. Considering the enormous work that the church carries out - issues of social morals, public education and public charity - the state, of course, devotes few opportunities to the church, including material and financial ones.”

Gavrilov is the coordinator of the inter-factional parliamentary group for the protection of Christian values. It was formed in 2017. The first meeting of the group was opened by the monastery choir, and the priests asked the deputies to ban abortion, surrogacy and allow parents to physically punish their children.

BBC talked with MP Gavrilov about how he sees these events.

Please tell us about the incident itself. What did it look like to you?

It looked like this. We were solemnly, at the highest level, received the day before. A reception, a conversation with representatives of the parliament, with leaders of the Georgian church, with deputies took place.

The next day we were invited to the parliament. We were told that we were invited to give greater solemnity to the event in which Georgia is interested as a host country and in order to strengthen its image as a country capable of holding large international forums that are attractive to foreign tourists and investors.
They even invited relatives to see how hospitable and solemn is Tbilisi.

After two hours of work, the secretary of the IAO, the Greek deputy Andrei Mikhailidis, was invited by me as a leader.

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We were asked to sit on the presidium. This is in accordance with our protocol, our charter. We conduct meetings from the presidium - this happens in all countries where we hold assemblies.

During the break, a crowd burst in, seized the presidium, destroyed our documents and began shouting threats: “We killed you and will kill you.”

They attacked an Estonian deputy, believing that he was Russian. Under these conditions, the delegations of the 23 parliaments of the countries decided to leave the parliament due to lack of working conditions and threats.

We moved the meeting to the hotel, but after a while we completed it. We discussed all the issues, the assembly was not interrupted. We completed it in an accelerated mode, because the building was surrounded by inadequate radicals, who threw bottles, eggs and demanded reprisals.

At that moment, when we went to the press, a physical attack was made on the deputies. I tried to protect the Georgian security service, I am grateful to the officers who saved the lives of deputies.

The crowd was clearly inadequate, shouting insulting slogans. It seems to me that such actions of the radicals, who cannot stop the authorities, are a bad sign for Georgia.

Radicals are clearly acting at the request of the former President of Georgia, Mikhail Saakashvili. The list of participants fully corresponds to the anti-ramp rhetoric, which Saakashvili adhered to in his time.

The current opposition of Georgia is focused on the leadership of the US Democratic Party, on Mr. [Senator Joe] Biden.
This is a very dangerous policy, since it can aggravate the situation in the Caucasus, discredit the isolation of Georgia, as a country unable to give guarantees to either tourists or investors.

We remember that the rule of Saakashvili was accompanied by a massive violation of human rights, including prisoners. The government of Georgia should assess the actions of extremists who disrupted the international forum, identify activists who called for reprisals.

Parliament speaker resigned. You, sitting on the presidium, believed what it could lead to?

No. This was on the initiative of the leadership of parliament. The most dangerous and sad thing is that the leaders of Georgia themselves were not ready for this.

They planned to arrange a holiday, a solemn event at the international level.
Nationalists clearly prepared for this explosion in advance. I'm sorry the speaker has resigned. Not because he is an open person, but because the power is under the pressure of radicals.

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And concessions to extremists can lead to dangerous consequences for the democracy of Georgia, for the observance of international standards in the field of human rights protection.

Have you ever visited Georgia?

Of course. I have a grandfather buried there. After the assembly, I wanted to visit the cemetery and lay flowers, but unfortunately I did not succeed. Moreover, in the near future I wanted to make a pilgrimage to many shrines of Georgia with my family and children. Unfortunately, this trip is also now in question.

Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili said that Russia is interested in the opposition in Georgia.

This is an absurd, anomalous statement. Apparently, the president is in a panic, can not give an adequate assessment of what is happening, stop the coup. She is looking for the usual anti-Russian motives.

The demonstrators and extremists were openly anti-Russian, were engaged in insulting the leadership of Russia, trying to incite Russophobia. Russia and we as deputies never interfere in the internal affairs of countries.

We hope that the Georgian authorities themselves will understand, restore stability and order. I regret that the President of Georgia admits such absurd and hostile statements. I hope that she will have the strength to reconsider her position and apologize to Russia.

Do you have a feeling that now the prospect of normalization of relations between Russia and Georgia has moved further?

Of course. The people of Georgia themselves are interested in developing relations, many business circles and politicians are interested. Our turnover for the year increased by one third.

Two thirds of Georgian wine is bought by Russia, 1,8 million million tourists from Russia rest in Georgia. Extremists, of course, would like to break off these relations, based on the historical spiritual and religious closeness of our peoples.

You noted that more than a million Russians go to Georgia a year. Probably some of them these days will have to adjust plans.

I think that extremists were aware of Russia's plans to soften the visa regime for Georgians who come to Russia, and subsequently abolish visas. Now these plans are a big question.

There is a rumor in Georgia that you participated in hostilities in Abkhazia.

Sadly, the leaders of the parliamentary opposition came up with such false information, thereby triggering a rise in extremism. On the day of arrival, I addressed the media with a statement that I had never participated in any hostilities, never took arms in my hands, but only participated in humanitarian operations.

My position has not been spread. Sadly, the media affiliated with the opposition only set fire to extremism and radicals who took to the streets. This means that there is no developed civil society and independent media in the country.

Georgian politicians are dissatisfied with the fact that a deputy from, as they believe, the occupying country made a speech in the country's parliament. Can you clarify your position regarding the status of Abkhazia and South Ossetia?

We have decided that we are putting this kind of discussion out of the equation. The authors of this drama are located outside of Georgia, in particular in Ukraine.

Our task was not to understand the past, but to look for bridges, a dialogue between European countries, Russia, IAP member countries. We considered it very important that an inter-parliamentary dialogue be established, which is practically non-existent now. Apparently, the radicals thwarted these plans completely.

What does a person feel at all, who probably unwittingly, but provoked a crisis in a foreign state?

I believe that our actions were absolutely correct. We came to a country that guaranteed our safety, with good open intentions - to strengthen our closeness, spiritual unity based on Orthodox values.

We were able, despite pressure and threats, to complete our work. Now Georgia needs to work on the mistakes, punish the guilty and apologize to Russia and the IAO.

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As BBC journalists note, another focus of Gavrilov’s attention is Ukrainians who are oppressed in their homeland or who have fled to Russia. According to the deputy’s plan, his amendments to the law “On Citizenship” will help Ukrainians who moved to Russia and received citizenship to get a job in the civil service.

In addition to Ukraine, the deputy is engaged in Syria. In 2014, he was an observer at the elections of the head of Syria from the Russian parliament. In 2015, in the delegation he met with Bashar Assad. In 2016, he served as an altar boy at the first service in a long time in an Orthodox church in Damascus.

In the role of the head of the civil society development committee, Sergey Gavrilov fights with foreign funding of Russian NGOs.

When in April the Ministry of Economic Development proposed to clarify in the law what activities should be considered political (so that NGOs that are not engaged in politics can still use foreign money), Gavrilov spoke against this idea:

“[I]t would be in no hurry to soften the issues of foreign funding, because we have elections soon and there is a risk of non-governmental organizations interfering in them.”

Read also on ForumDaily:

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10 years ago, Russia invaded Georgia: a retrospective

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