Nino Katamadze has been given many titles, from “jazz-diva” to “the Georgian Janis Joplin.” Her experimental, genre-defying work makes it not only possible but sensible to compare her to jazz artists and rock stars alike. Katamadze and her band Insight (together known as Nino Katamadze & Insight) are renowned across the globe, performing almost non-stop […]

Georgian polyphonic singing, added to the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, is a musical technique in which a single song has several melodies, each sung concurrently, with no one tune dominating the others. In Georgia, the style varies by region, but the practice reflects both military, folk, and religious culture. […]

An Armenian singer, actor, and keyboardist, Essaï Altounian (Եսայի Ալթունյան) is most famous artist as a French popstar. He sings mostly in French, but also has released hits in English and, of course, Armenian. Altounian was born 1980 in Paris, France. The son of Armenian parents, Altounian was greatly influenced by the stories of his […]

While in various parts of North America and the Middle East, lemonade refers to a non-carbonated, sweetened lemon beverage, in most of Eurasia, lemonade is a sweet, fizzy drink resembling what most of us call “soda.” Generally regarded as a Western invention, lemonade reached Georgia by 1833 and, soon after, the Georgians were pairing fizzy […]

Tangerines (Mandariinid) is a 2013 Estonian–Georgian drama film. It’s in Russian and Estonian, despite the fact that it takes place in and was filmed in Georgia. The film is about a village in Abkhazia (considered a part of Georgia or an independent republic, depending on who you ask), whose residents are mostly ethnic Estonians. The year […]

Earthquake (Землетрясение) is a 2016 historical drama by Russian–Armenian director Sarik Andreasyan (Сарик Андреасян). The film depicts the massive earthquake, and its aftermath, that shook Armenia on December 7, 1988. Starring Konstantin Lavronenko (Константин Лавроненко), Mariya Mironova (Мария Миронова), Viktor Stepanyan (Виктор Степанян), and Tatev Ovakimyan (Татев Овакимян), the film has seen a lot of […]

33ა (33a) is a Georgian folk-rock band based out of Tbilisi. It was founded in 1994, during the troubled “dark 90s” of post-Soviet Georgia, led by Niaz Diasamidze. The name of the band, in fact, comes from the address of Diasamidze’s Tbilisi Apartment – 33a Paliashvili Street. All of the band members are Georgian. Diasamidze […]

12 is a 2007 Russian crime film directed by and starring Nikita Mikhailkov (Никита Михайлков). The film is an adaptation of Reginald Rose’s famous play Twelve Angry Men. Mikhailkov received the Special Lion award at the 64th annual Venice International Film Festival for his work on this film. The film features both Russian and Chechen […]