GEORGIAN PRESIDENT VISITS ETHNIC MINORITY SCHOOLS
Rustavi-2 TV, Tbilisi, in Georgian
26 Sep 05
[Presenter] A new school year has begun in Georgia and new school
buildings have been built in the city. President [Mikheil] Saakashvili
this morning attended the opening of a new building for the Armenian
School No 98.
The construction of a European-standard building for the Armenian
school began in March 2004. Three hundred and fifty children will
study there. Education Minister Kakha Lomaia and mayor Gigi Ugulava
accompanied Saakashvili at the opening of the new building for School
No 98.
[Saakashvili, addressing school-goers] It is a great honour to open
this building. We have resumed the construction of school buildings
that stopped in Georgia many years ago. For us this school is a symbol
of the changes that have occurred in Georgia.
The previous government released funds for the construction of
a building for this school several times. All of that money was
misappropriated. We began the construction of this building in March
[2004], together with the then head of the city government, Bidzina
Bregadze, and we finished it, as promised, by 1 September.
I would like this school, with its most beautiful building and
ultra-modern classrooms worthy of any European capital, to raise
generations of children who will love their culture, their roots and
their country, our homeland Georgia.
[Correspondent] From there the president went to the Azerbaijani
School No 73 in Grishashvili Street. [Passage omitted]
[Ramiz Hasanov, Azerbaijan’s ambassador to Georgia, in Russian]
We took a decision to refurbish this building a little bit. It was
a minor refurbishment project. We didn’t have time to do everything.