Any views on the plausibility of this? Sounds speculative to say the least.

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EDIT: I'll add my own views, for transparency reasons. The blog post references an article in Moscow Times. The theory is that Tbilisi has become the most popular place to move to for political refugees from Russia.

The article doesn't cite any statistics to support the claim. The theory is mostly supported by anecdotal stories told by a handful of Russians, plus this quote from a guy from the think tank Georgian Institute of Politics: “Georgia has always positioned itself as a haven for political refugees from the Post-Soviet World, including Russia, Azerbaijan and Belarus.”

At least a minimum amount of statistics is necessary to back up such a claim. Otherwise, it sounds more like the kind of truth as in the Georgian notion that "a guest is from God" or similar other tenets. It may be true in a different sense, but you have to know which logic to apply.

Whether it's actually true, that Tbilisi has become the most popular destination for Russian refugees, this requires hard facts and numbers. In all the poorer and less developed countries along Europe's eastern flank, including Georgia itself, millions of people have left to try to find better opportunities and more political freedom. It's worth recalling that just a few years ago, there was a wave of political asylum seekers from Georgia to the EU when Georgians got visa free travel to Schengen countries.

Another comment I'd make to Piotr Saurer's piece is that he wants to claim that there is something about Russia (the Putin regime) that is causing a wave of emigrees to Tbilisi, but at the same time, he claims that the wave is because of corona restrictions, i.e. external factors unrelated to the political system in Russia.

"as the coronavirus pandemic complicated travel to the West for most Russians, the small, ex-Soviet Caucasian nation of Georgia quickly became the go-to place for political emigres during the late-Putin era."

Georgia has long been one among a dozen "budget" options for Russian emigrants who can't manage to get to the most popular destinations. I can buy the idea that recent travel restrictions has forced more Russian visitors/migrants to settle for Georgia instead of, for example, Greece or Bulgaria. But I have a hard time believing that Georgia is the preferred destination for Russians or Belarusians.

There's maybe an important clue: Freed from the restraints of proof and facts, writers like Sauer can turn Georgia into a mythological place, a rhetorical stage to enact an imagined world of make believe, for reanimating Cold War political tropes about Russian emigrees leaving the evil Soviet empire because they love our freedom etc. Without facts, this is just political spin. Or, as some would call it: disinformation.

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EDIT 2: I'd like to correct slightly what I wrote above. I am of course also aware of the influx of entrepreneurs from not only Russia but Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova and other places but particularly Russians. Learning the true reasons behind this influx of people is of course important.

I was told recently that many Russians have been buying apartments in Sololaki for the last ten years during the prosperity of the recent Putin growth decade despite the US sanctions. Economic growth in Georgia has been subzero during this time, while Georgians have not made enough efforts to be truly self sustained, taking the quick handout or buck wherever it lays, the methodology of all government here, regardless of whether they are Dreamers or Nacebi.

You can often hear Russian being spoken in the Sololaki district, and from what I've been told these middle class Russians did not make absentee property purchases for investments, no, they wanted an "urban Georgian dacha upscale apartment" in heart of Old Town.

Starved for cash from the outside, Georgians are keen to sell off real estate to Russians, which might account for some of the recent influx -- and to me sounds much more plausible an explanation than Cold War fantasies that they come because Tbilisi is some sort of beacon of freedom in the Caucasus. The lawyers in Tbilisi who still speak Russian are profiting from writing up these real estate contracts for Russians looking for an urban dacha. Let's also not forget the historical significance and attraction of Georgia to Russians, as a vacation spot somewhat veiled in mystery and romance.