Rachvelis, the natives of a beautiful highland region in western Georgia, have a reputation for being slow but thorough in speaking and behavior. Whether slow or not, Rachvelis are certainly not dumb. At least according to their performance in the national General Ability Test (GAT). In 2012, students from Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti (R-L-KS) were 2nd (!) after Tbilisi on the average GAT performance (Chart 1).

Aiming to contextualize the challenges and opportunities faced by Georgian trout farmers, the ISET Policy Institute, in cooperation with CARE international and the Georgian Farmers Association (GFA) organized a trout sector stakeholders’ forum in Kutaisi on December 4th, 2015.

In May 2015, the average cost of cooking one standard portion of Imeretian khachapuri reached 2.88 GEL - a 2.7% decrease month-on-month (compared to April 2015). In annual terms (compared to May 2014), however, the index added 1%.

As often discussed on this page, the seasonal dynamics of the Khachapuri Index are mainly driven by extremely sharp fluctuations in the supply of fresh milk, which directly affects the prices of traditional dairy products such as Imeretian cheese. However, these seasonal fluctuations in the price of cheese are consistently sharper in Kutaisi than anywhere else in Georgia.