Budget challenges in Nukriani lead to increased migration
By Tatia Megeneishvili
Thursday, May 15
Nukriani is a village five kilometers away from the Sighnaghi municipality in the Kakheti region. According to the last census, there are around 2,800 people in the village.
Among the many problems the residents of the village face, they are most of all worried that the younger generation is leaving.
“No one wants to stay here. We sent them to get an education in different cities, but most of them never return,” one of the residents of Nukriani said, adding that the elderly population does not blame the youth.
“What can they do here? There is no chance to get a job, or to command a high enough salary to feed their families. Moreover, there is no entertainment at all. A long time ago we had our culture house, but it is no longer operating and the village is now too boring for everyone,” a local lady stated.
Every year on October 5, the village hosted a traditional festival called Nukrianoba, but according to the locals, the last two years they could not hold it because of the lack of money.
They said if the government could financially assist them, they could gather some of the money necessary for the festival themselves.
“Tourists were visiting our village during the festival and we were able to sell some stuff,” the lady explained.
The culture house has been closed since the beginning of 1990s. Now the building is completely unusable and needs to be renovated. There is a playground just beside the culture house. The playground has no fences, thus it is open for the cattle and cars for parking.
The head of the rural population and the local community organization Nukriani Maia Bidzinashvili also said that the local people have huge problems with the dump as well.
“There are few places where people throw their refuse, as there are no dust-bins or cleaning vehicles,” Bidzinashvili said, adding that the worst thing is that one of the dumps is located near the water reservoir.
The village of Nukriani’s acting trustee Rezo Kratsashvili, 25, explained that it is impossible to solve all the problems at once due to the severe financial constraints. However, he said the dump-related issue is on the agenda and funds have already been allocated from the budget.
“I cannot say the same about the culture house, because its reconstruction would need around 1,000,000 GEL,” Kratsashvili said, hoping that the government will find the money for it later as well.
The material was prepared within media tour, within the framework of the Regional Civil Society network (R-CSN) and facilitated by the non-governmental organization CIDA.
