The post-communist world lost one of its greatest sons last week – a freedom fighter who devoted his life to the daunting task of cleansing Eastern Europe and Eurasia from the shackles of Soviet thinking and bureaucracy. Like Che Guevara before him, Big Kakha’s legacy transcends national borders. His crusade for liberty and human dignity took him in 2004 from Russia to Georgia, and – in the last year of his life – from Georgia to Ukraine.

Every cloud has its silver lining and, like many observers, we find some comfort in the fact that the new Minister of Foreign Affairs, Tamar Beruchashvili, is no newcomer to policymaking and politics. The appointment of this seasoned career diplomat, who has for years handled Georgia’s relations with Europe, suggests that Georgia’s political system is slowly but surely gaining in strength and maturity.

When Armenia entered the Russia-dominated customs union in 2013, fear spread among the Georgian public and policymakers. It looked as if Georgia would be economically squeezed in between Russia and Armenia, the latter being one of Russia’s staunchest allies in the region and, given its geopolitical dependency on Russia, sometimes seen as a little more than a Russian agent.

In a sense, life was relatively simple back in the Soviet Union days. Consumers had few choices, and material aspirations were limited to the unholy trinity of “apartment, car, and dacha”. That said, homo Sovieticus spent enormous amounts of time and energy chasing material goods ranging from potatoes to nylon stockings and cars.

A few days ago, I was walking in Kostava Street towards the Philharmony when I passed a construction site that was separated from the sidewalk by a wooden fence. Suddenly, I heard the ugly sound of fabric torn apart. Yes, it had happened! My nice winter coat was ripped up by a rusty nail that stuck out of the fence, causing a huge hole in the coat that went down to the lining.