Epress.am News from Armenia
Since long names cannot be accommodated in biometric passports for Georgia citizens, according to a decision by the country’s justice minister, names will be shortened by several letters. Consequently, a period would be placed at the end of the first or last name that was shortened which would indicate the change.
The decision also notes that during this process, within reasonable limits, the wish of the person as to where or how to her name will be shortened will be taken into account.
The website saqinform.ge tried to understand how the names of Georgia’s president and his administration would appear in the new passports: Mikheil Saakashvili would be “Mikheil Saak,” Mikheil Machavariani would be “Mikheil Macha,” Akaki Minashvili would be “Akaki Mina,” Givi Targamadze would be “Givi Targ,” Gigi Tsereteli would be “Gigi Tsere” and Khatuna Kalmakhelidze would be “Khatuna Kalmak.”
As reported by Regnum news agency, the Labour Party of Georgia, in particular, has come out against the government’s new initiative.
“Georgian-hater, tyrant Saakashvili continues the tireless struggle against national values, historical roots and traditions. After ‘ethnicity’ and ‘nationality’ disappeared from [official] documents, now he has decided to distort our historical names,” said Labour Party MP Kakhaber Dzagania at a special briefing on Rustaveli Ave.
According to Dzagania, if we follow this principle, then Saakashvili would go down in history as Georgia’s “Kirakos the First.” “We, the compatriots of Elijah and Akaki, will not allow the degradation of our national dignity,” he said, without explaining what the president’s name has to do with the Armenian name Kirakos.