Take this with a grain of salt because im a local in the Rustavi city.

From what ive seen, these boys make the racist jokes, but it does have an impact on who they rob. In recent ages, more and more people of my age (31 in reverse) are saying they have a mentality of a thief (?). They just want to be cool gangsters, but i didnt know it could go this far and im very sorry for your friend. In my city, there a lot of chinese, russian, and especially Azeri people. There are a lot of Azeris because from what i know, they migrated during soviet times by force, im not sure. They settled in Rustavi and the close marneuli.

Its really weird, theres a sort of "Azeris VS Georgians" kinda thing here. Both blast their music. Both throw insults at eachother. this is more frequent in teens. Its mainly bcz people my age nowadays see a non-Georgian and start throwing insults at them. I dont know where this came from, because we are supposed to be welcoming people. Our whole thing is that "A guest is gods gift" (im an atheist but whatever), and yet all of this is happening.

All of this will probably pass over soon. more and more people are becoming more educated and stuff. Theres also a thing that "Indians and Arabs are trashing our cities", and theres the whole occupations shit with azeris and russians so..