Israeli journalist Daniel Amram reported an attack on tourists from Israel in Georgia. The victims are 17-year-old teenagers.
The teenagers planned to stay in Georgia for eight days as tourists. After the incident on the evening of January 31, they decided to stop the trip. They said they did not feel safe.
According to Amram, unknown people attacked the teenagers in the evening. The attackers shouted insults, including “Free Palestine” and “Heil Hitler.” The teenagers said they traveled to Georgia for an eight-day ski holiday. After the incident on Saturday, January 31, they chose to cancel the rest of the trip because they felt unsafe.
Georgia often hosts foreign tourists, including visitors from Israel. Safety issues and hate speech can affect travel plans and public trust. Such incidents usually draw attention from the media and the public. In similar cases, tourists expect local authorities to review what happened and ensure safety for visitors.
Georgia celebrates Ninooba today, a national holiday honoring Saint Nino, the Christian patroness of the country.
The Church in Kakheti Where the Relics of Saint Nino Rest / Nikolay Lebedev
Orthodox churches across Georgia hold festive services today.
In Tbilisi, at the Sioni Cathedral of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary, worshippers can venerate a sacred relic — the cross of Saint Nino, woven from a grapevine.
According to legend, Saint Nino used this very cross while preaching. She convinced King Mirian III of Iberia and Queen Nana to convert to Christianity.
Georgia commemorates Saint Nino twice a year: on January 27, the day of her death, and on June 1, the day of her arrival in the country.
Today also marks the name day for everyone named Nino, one of the most popular names in Georgia.
The implementation of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway project is entering the final stage, according to reports from Georgia. Work is currently underway to commission the project.
The Baku–Tbilisi–Kars railway project is nearing completion, Georgian media report, citing Lasha Abashidze, CEO of Georgian Railways JSC.
Abashidze said the company is now preparing the documents required to launch operations.
He stressed the importance of the project for Georgia. The railway directly links the country with Turkey and creates new opportunities to attract additional cargo flows.
Abashidze also noted that container traffic from China along this route has already grown by 40–50%. He expects this upward trend to continue in the coming years.
The Georgian authorities view the Baku–Tbilisi–Kars project as a strategic priority. They expect the railway to reach its planned cargo capacity and generate stable transit revenues for the state budget.
Despite the long construction period, Georgia’s position on the project has remained unchanged, said Archil Sikhuralidze, founder of the SIKHA Foundation research institute. According to him, Tbilisi sees the railway as a key tool for integrating the country into regional and interregional transit networks. He added that Georgia continues to play an important transit role in the South Caucasus due to its geography and political position.
Tbilisi International Airport named after Shota Rustaveli has surpassed the milestone of five million passengers since the beginning of the year — a record for both the airport and Georgian civil aviation. The achievement came in an announcement from TAV Georgia, the operator of the international airports in Tbilisi and Batumi.
TAV Georgia identified the five-millionth passenger as Pierre Berre, a French citizen departing on a flight from Tbilisi to Paris. The company also organized a symbolic ceremony at the airport to mark the occasion.
“Today is December 5, and we have served our five millionth passenger of the year. On October 9, Batumi Airport also achieved a historic milestone by reaching one million annual passengers for the first time. These results mark the beginning of an important new stage for our company,”
said Teya Zakaradze, General Manager of TAV Georgia.
She noted that in 2025 the company will celebrate 20 years of operations in Georgia. When TAV Airports entered the market in 2005, Tbilisi International Airport handled just 540,000 passengers per year.
“Over the past two decades, we have served more than 50 million passengers across Tbilisi and Batumi. Today, the country’s main international airport has significantly greater potential, and we continue to see year-on-year passenger growth,”
Zakaradze said. She added that the company is prepared to invest further in the development of both airports.
According to TAV Georgia, Tbilisi and Batumi airports are experiencing record-high passenger traffic in 2025. The company expects to close the year with a combined total of 6.6 million passengers. In the first 11 months of 2025, traffic increased by 13% in Tbilisi and by 30% in Batumi compared to the same period of 2024, with more than 6.1 million passengers served.
This year has also seen record daily figures: on August 12, Tbilisi International Airport handled 97 flights and 21,959 passengers, while Batumi Airport reached its peak on August 24, serving 35 flights and 8,446 passengers.
TAV Georgia began operating in the country in 2005 and has since built and expanded Georgia’s two major international airports. Today, the company employs over 1,900 people, and its investments in the aviation sector exceed $230 million.
A Turkish Air Force C-130 Hercules transport aircraft, which took off from Azerbaijan with Turkish military personnel after a parade in Baku, crashed in Georgia.
aviationphotos.net
The plane took off from Ganja at 14:19 local time and remained in the air for 40 minutes. It disappeared from radar without sending a distress signal. According to social media posts, several other planes were in the sky at the same time.
Preliminary reports indicate that everyone on board was killed. There were 20 military personnel on board, according to the Turkish Ministry of Defense.
Search and rescue operations have begun in coordination with the Georgian authorities, and Ankara is coordinating the search and rescue operation with Tbilisi, according to the press service of the Turkish Ministry of Defense.
The family of a British woman detained at Tbilisi airport with a large quantity of drugs has paid the Georgian state £137,000 to reduce her sentence to two years as part of a plea bargain, the BBC reports.
Bella Culley in Georgia / Rustavi2 TV-channel
Bella May Culley, 19, from Billingham, is 35 weeks pregnant and faced up to 20 years in prison or life imprisonment in Georgia on charges of drug smuggling.
“More than 90% of drug-related crimes in Georgia are resolved through plea bargains,” the BBC writes.
The girl’s mother, Leanne Kennedy, is in Tbilisi. In an interview with journalists, she confirmed that the money for the plea bargain had already been transferred.
However, the girl’s family was unable to raise enough money for her full release, and Bella Culley will likely give birth in prison.
Culley was studying to be a nurse in college. In the spring of this year, she went on a trip with friends to the Philippines and then to Thailand, where she lost contact with her family. She flew to Tbilisi on a flight from Sharjah (UAE) in May this year. During a search of her luggage, 12 kg of marijuana and 2 kg of hashish were found. Culley claims that before that, she was tortured in Thailand to force her to transport the drugs. Culley was 18 years old at the time of her arrest in Tbilisi and turned 19 in the Rustavi women’s prison.
According to her lawyer, the girl sought help from local law enforcement agencies in Thailand, but to no avail — she was returned to the group that forced her to transport drugs. The lawyer claims that his client was intimidated and tortured with a hot iron, and that there were traces of torture on her hands at the time of her arrest in Tbilisi.
Lawyer Malkhaz Salakaya also said he plans to appeal to the Georgian president for a pardon.
The new case was recorded in the Tsalka municipality, in the village of Darakoi. Rabies was confirmed in a dog that died.
Quarantine has been imposed in the area: disinfection, mandatory vaccination of animals, and monitoring of animals that may be carriers of rabies.
The authorities are once again urging the population to vaccinate their pets in a timely manner.
Prior to the Tsalka municipality, a case of rabies was recorded in September in the Martvili district, where a small puppy was found to be infected. In May, there was a case on a pasture in Dedoplistskaro, where a sheepdog was infected after being bitten by a wolf.
The cause of unprecedented sea pollution in Batumi was the predatory extraction of sand and gravel from the rivers that feed it. This opinion was expressed by Archil Guchmanidze, Doctor of Biological Sciences and ichthyologist.
Archil Guchmanidze/Facebook
After heavy rains on September 19-20 in Adjara, mountain rivers overflowed their banks, landslides intensified, roads and bridges were damaged, and residential buildings were flooded. When the storm subsided, the stormy sea off the coast of Batumi resembled a boiling mudflow.
“I don’t remember the sea ever being like this. I’ve seen much stronger storms and much more debris on the shore, but the sea has never been this murky,” Guchmanidze wrote on his Facebook page.
According to him, in areas where rivers do not flow into the sea, the water turbidity level reached 2560 NTU, which is comparable to lethal levels for most coastal ecosystems. He said that such levels had not been recorded “anywhere in the Black Sea” even after the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam was blown up in June 2023.
“The damage to the biodiversity of the coast is catastrophic. This is not only the result of rains and storms — rains and storms, much stronger ones, have always been and will always be — this is the result of predatory and reckless extraction of sand and gravel from virtually all rivers feeding the sea. This must be stopped before it is too late!” Guchmanidze noted.
Seasonal trains between Yerevan (Armenia) and Batumi (Georgia) will resume service on June 14, according to the South Caucasus Railway.
The train will run until October 2, departing every other day: from Yerevan on even-numbered days and from Batumi on odd-numbered days. The journey will take about 16 hours.
The train will consist of three classes of carriages: open, compartment, and sleeping. Tickets can be purchased both at station ticket offices and online.
It is also reported that the Yerevan-Tbilisi train will be suspended for the duration of this route.
In addition, South Caucasus Railway and Georgian Railway are discussing the launch of a tourist train that will run for three days in Armenia and six days in Georgia. It will be aimed at European tourists, and the Czech company Gepard Express plans to attract them.
Certification of bus stations is made within the framework of intercity transportation reforms.
Sputnik / Stringer
From June 1, Georgian bus stations are obliged to receive certificates for continuing their work, according to which electronic boards and special platforms for boarding will be installed at the bus stations, as well as a system for purchasing electronic tickets will be introduced.
Certification of bus stations is done within the framework of intercity transportation reform, which is in an active phase in the country.
“The Georgian reality was alien to the electronic ticket purchase system, only individual carriers have it. According to our information, the Land Transportation Agency is creating a unified platform for electronic ticketing, with which we are fully cooperating. There will also be electronic boards, like in airports, which will show the arrival, departure and delay of transportation. All innovations will be adapted to the safety and comfort of passengers,” said Paata Kvavadze, representative of the largest bus station network Okriba.
On March 1, 2025, the regulation came into force, according to which drivers must obtain a permit for road passenger transportation.
During the same period, the regulation according to which drivers engaged in passenger transportation are obliged to undergo periodic medical examination and drug testing came into force.
Once the certificates come into effect, bus stations will be divided into three classes:
First class bus stations will carry international and/or intercity and district passenger transportation;
Second class bus stations carry domestic transportation, while international transportation is possible only if there is no first class station;
The third class of station allows intra-district transportation, while intercity and international transportation is possible only if there are no first and second class stations; and The third class of station allows intra-district transportation, while intercity and international transportation is possible only if there are no first and second class stations.
All intercity transportation in the country will run only from bus station to bus station, and regular passenger transportation within the boundaries of municipalities will follow strictly defined routes.
