As soon as the road ends, turn left. That’s how we were taught the way to the Roma settlement near the village of Aghtaklia in the Gardabani municipality. The place is called Noe’s District, after a man who once lived here, locals say. Though not officially mentioned anywhere, locals apparently like the name enough that they only talk of the settlement in this way.
We are about 40 kilometers south of Tbilisi, the country’s capital.
It rained for two days, leaving the road to Noe’s District covered in mud and puddles. We notice a house on a small hill where smoke can be seen billowing out the flue of a wood-burning stove. We realize that we have arrived in Noe’s District.
Life here, as in other Roma settlements in Georgia, was difficult well before the pandemic erupted and society went into lockdown. The community is small; the 2014 census counted 604 citizens of Roma ethnicity, though the Tbilisi-based Tolerance and Diversity Institute (TDI) estimates the real number might be several thousand. According to TDI, Roma first appeared in Georgia in the 19th century under the Russian Empire with their numbers increasing after World War II.
Link: https://tol.org/client/article/desperate-times-in-a-roma-village.html
