While traveling to Georgia for food and inspiration, novelist Lauren Grodstein found herself in the midst of a democracy in crisis—and went home transformed.
In What I Learned From the Georgia Protests, a blog written for The Atlantic, Grodstein recounts her 2023 visit to Tbilisi, where mass demonstrations erupted against a proposed “foreign agents” law modeled after Russia’s crackdown on civil society. Protesters flooded the capital’s streets, waving EU and Georgian flags, chanting slogans, and even dancing in defiance of riot police. “Liberty is the only wealth,” graffiti proclaimed. Another message on a café door read: “You are more than welcome here if you agree that Putin is a war criminal.”
“I felt awe at the bravery of the Tbilisi protesters,” Grodstein writes, “some of whom actually danced—danced!—in the face of police.”
Returning to the US after a week of protests, food, and conversations with Georgians, Grodstein began writing a novel inspired by her experiences. But by her second visit in late 2024, the situation had worsened: she says the ruling pro-Russia Georgian Dream party had rigged parliamentary elections, derailing the country’s EU aspirations.
At the same time, Grodstein says her own country—facing another Donald Trump presidency—was slipping into authoritarianism. “I am surprised, most of all, at how little I myself have resisted,” she admits.
In Georgia, she witnessed citizens standing up for democracy at personal risk—despite knowing their protests may not lead to change. “You protest to remind yourself who you are,” she writes. “Even something as ephemeral as graffiti takes on the power of a civic declaration.”
Her time in Georgia forced a reckoning with her own political silence. “It’s long past time to become the person who decides, in the face of water cannons, to dance.”
Grodstein’s novel, A Dog in Georgia, inspired by those events, was just released. At a celebration in Philadelphia’s Megobari Cafe, she raised a glass to the brave Georgians who taught her that silence, in the face of injustice, is the most dangerous choice of all.
By Team GT
