Georgia/ 8.2 Cultural consumption and participation  

8.2.2 Policies and programmes

There is no coordinated or strategically developed governmental programme for the promotion of participation in cultural life, no state policy for extended civil participation, civic belonging, or development / solidarity in the civic community.

However, there are some projects financed from the Presidential Fund and arranged by the Youth Department of the Ministry of Culture, Monument Protection and Sport of Georgia. These projects are partially aimed at developing solidarity in the civic community, e.g. the annual project PATRIOT (which was introduced for the first time in 2005) involves the integration of youth from various regions in summer camps; it also facilitates intercultural dialogue between representatives of different nationalities residing in Georgia and with foreign student groups, namely from the Ukraine.

There are also some initiatives to promote the sale and distribution of season tickets by Zachariah Paliashvili State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet and project "Dmanisi" of the National Museum – which is a summer camp for children on archeology.

Some activities organised by the state could be considered as promoting participation in cultural life e.g.:

• the systematic organisation of public holidays and concerts tied to political events such as the visits by the President of the USA, President of Ukraine, President of Latvia etc;
• national holidays such as the Day of Independence on 26 May, Rose Revolution Anniversary, New Year etc.;
• municipal and local holidays established during the socialist period ("Tbilisoba"), and new ones organised on the Rustaveli Avenue initiated by the Service for Education and Culture of Tbilisi Municipality in 2005.

These events form part of the regular cultural policy framework as they are financed from the reserve funds of the President and the government.

For the purposes of facilitation of active involvement in society, particularly youth in the field of protection of national heritage, the National Agency of Cultural Heritage Preservation of Georgia carries out the following programmes:  

• Archeology – The journey from finding artifacts to their restoration;
• Methods of one of the first branches of craftsmanship;
• How our ancestors lived – history of their garments, jewelry, things used in daily life and weaponry;
• From the Pagan Times to Christianity - touring through the ancient capital of Georgia-Mtskheta; and
• History of Art- general introductory course about worldwide recognised archaeological, ceramic and photographic masterpieces.

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