Magnolias, tulips, century-old trees and other rare species have glided over the surface of the Black Sea water in recent years on barges pushed by tugboats. As if it were a procession, the inhabitants of Georgia have witnessed such a poetic spectacle. Although the truth is that it is not very artistic. Where was all that natural wealth going? To the garden that an eccentric billionaire from the country was building.
This is Bidzina Ivanishvili and he was a former Prime Minister. He is now so in love with trees that no one can stop his collecting project.
A journey through ancient trees. More than 200 trees have found their way to the park in recent years, excavated from the soil of the impoverished villages and thick forests of Georgia, a small Caucasus nation. Mr. Ivanishvili personally checked most of the copies one by one. The ones he wanted, he got. With a good sum of money, everything seemed possible.
About half were transported to the park by barge and the other half by truck. Moving gigantic trees is not an easy task. The roads are narrow and surrounded by houses and more trees. To move a tree you have to cut down the ones that are in the way. Some fences need to be torn down. Uprooting work requires months.
Where were they going? To the Shekvetili Dendrological Park, on the Black Sea coast of Georgia. A place that reflects the extravagant tastes of Mr. Ivanishvili, with his sinuous design, centered around a pond full of pink flamingos, pelicans and other exotic birds, which was personally designed by and for him.
CCTV cameras are installed everywhere and motion detectors are located in front of every tree. Everyone can look, but no one dares to touch. And that also applies to grass. Guards with loudspeakers are quick to scold those who don’t comply.
Who is Mr. Ivanishvili? He made his fortune in Russia, where he assembled a banking and metals empire during the chaotic post-Soviet transition. His wealth is currently estimated at 6 billion, a sum that exceeds the state budget of Georgia in 2021. If his role now remains murky, Ivanishvili once played a very outspoken and prominent role on the Georgian political scene. As the leader of a coalition of political parties, he won the 2012 parliamentary elections and served as prime minister until November 2013, during which time he pursued Georgia’s NATO and European aspirations but also tried to be pragmatic with Russia. .
His coalition had campaigned in opposition to Saakashvili, then president, whose loss from the party led him to resign and soon leave the country.
Influence. Mr. Ivanishvili’s park is also a clear public manifestation of his opaque but gigantic presence in Georgia. He has no official government role, but political scientists say that at 65, he still has a lot of influence behind the scenes. “Power is concentrated in the hands of one man and of course that is Bidzina,” said a former ally, Giorgi Gakharia, who resigned as prime minister in February and said the billionaire’s control had become too stifling.
Why do you collect trees? Theories of his love for them abound. Some Georgians comment that he is a Druid who worships them. Not many believe that theory. Salomé Jashi, a Georgian film director who has brought the story of these trees into a documentary, sees something beyond a love of nature in Ivanishvili’s obsession. “For me, a floating tree was a symbol of power, of desire, of wanting something at all costs.”
Some admire Ivanishvili for the free access to his park, which has received more than 1.5 million visitors so far, and for his philanthropic work, including paying stipends to Georgian artists and poets.
critics. However, Ivanishvili’s political opponents compare him to a feudal lord, who gives crumbs to the poor to buy goodwill from him. While a passion for trees may seem harmless, that’s not necessarily the case when a powerful billionaire is the one addicted.
Toby Kiers, professor of evolutionary biology at Vrije University in Amsterdam, explained in this New York Times report: “For hundreds of years, these ancient trees have been cultivating their unique subterranean ecosystems, including vast networks of fungi that “They’ve sustained the tree since it was a tiny sapling. When a tree is uprooted, that life support system is ripped out of the ground, leaving behind a barren wasteland,” he explained.
made into a documentary. These dramas enacted in the Georgian countryside over a period of two years have become the subject of Taming the Gardenthe second feature film by journalist-turned-documentary filmmaker Salomé Jashi, who was inspired to make it after seeing news footage of a tree floating peacefully along the Black Sea coast in a boat.
“The feelings that this image triggered in me were something I could never have imagined before,” said Jashi. “My first thought was that this was a totally stunning image, it was real-life poetry. But then it was like I was seeing something that I should never have seen, that should never have happened,” he noted.
Images: Taming the garden