Embassy of Georgia held a Commemoration Ceremony to honor the victims of the Soviet Army’s bloody crackdown of a peaceful demonstration in Tbilisi on April 9 of 1989, which triggered the Beginning of the End of the Soviet Union. Ambassador David Bakradze and U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary George Kent recalled their memories from those tragic days.
Ambassador remembered himself as a teenager attending Public School #1 in Tbilisi sitting on the central avenue where on that fateful April day Soviet troops assaulted his countrymen in order to crush Georgians thirst for freedom: “I’m not certain that I entirely understood the gravity of what had happened at that moment, but we did know it was part of what was occurring in countries around Georgia. The unmistakable context was of captive nations rejecting Russia’s disintegrating empire. I now see that the events of that terrible April 9th reflected a chain reaction in the Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union nations.”
Father Pavle held the service in honor of the heroes, who led the way to our freedom some 30 years ago.