The Russian citizen was arrested in Tbilisi for hooliganism.
The Tbilisi City Court sentenced Russian citizen Alexander Popov to 15 days of administrative arrest for urinating from a balcony onto café visitors while intoxicated. After serving his sentence, he will be deported.
As reported by "Caucasian Knot", at the end of July, a resident of Georgia, Georgy Chigladze, attacked a Russian-speaking tourist, causing a stir on social media. According to one of the incident's participants, the investigation confirmed that the girls did not splash wedding guests with water, did not insult them, and did not damage the equipment. By August 3, the Russian citizen who was hit by Chigladze left Georgia with her friends. On August 4, Georgy Chigladze's lawyer published footage from the hotel cameras in Telavi. The video confirms that water was poured on the wedding participants. Earlier in July, AI-generated images featuring Mikhail Saakashvili and Georgy Chigladze circulated online, as noted by the fact-checking portal "Myth Detector".
The judge of the capital court, Tornike Kapanadze, found Popov guilty of petty hooliganism and actions that insult human dignity and public morality, reported the Pirveli television company today.
At the hearing, Popov fully admitted his guilt. "I regret what I did, and of course, this will never happen again. I was visiting a friend whose wife is pregnant, I was drunk, and I needed to go to the bathroom. However, there was a pregnant woman in the bathroom, and I decided to solve the problem this way. When I saw people below, I went down to apologize," the Russian stated.
At the same time, he mentioned that he owns an apartment in Tbilisi, where he is carrying out renovation work. Popov asked the court to allow him to finish the repairs and stay in Georgia.
The judge, having listened to the excuses, emphasized that this does not justify his actions and that he could have found other ways. According to the decision of the Tbilisi City Court, Popov is sentenced to 15 days of arrest, and immediately after the arrest period, he will be deported from the country and banned from entering Georgia for three years.
The incident occurred on September 29 in the Monolith Green City residential complex in the Ortachala district of Tbilisi. The police were called by eyewitness Theona Gloladze. According to her, after the police arrived, the man called someone and said that he was being taken away for allegedly saying "Glory to Russia", instead of explaining that the reason for the police call was that he urinated from the balcony, reports Interpressnews.
"Caucasian Knot" also reported that the Prime Minister of Georgia, Irakli Kobakhidze, stated that the spread of messages about allegedly hostile attitudes towards Russian tourists is sabotage against the country itself, effectively placing the responsibility for the campaign to discredit the country's tourism sector on internal critics of the government. The opposition considered such rhetoric an attempt to label opponents negatively.