By David Mdzinarishvili

One morning last week, as I was looking for general shots of the Azeri oil industry, the oil worker walking with me suddenly stopped, and looked out admiringly at the nodding oil pumps silhouetted by the rising sun over the Caspian. He turned to me and said proudly, “This is Azerbaijan!”

Commercial oil production has a long history in Azerbaijan, a country of 9 million at the crossroads of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. Starting with European prospectors in the 19th century, the industry became a major part of the soviet economic model and a strategic goal to be protected at all costs. With the fall of the Soviet Union production faltered as Azerbaijan struggled with its independence, but soon investment returned, new reserves were tapped and the oil has started to flow again.

Offshore rigs are responsible for 80% of the 43 million tonnes of oil pumped last year from Azerbaijan, and this is the reason I found myself on a helicopter bound for the imaginatively named oil platform number 5, about 100kms (62 miles) from the coast, in the waters of the Caspian.

This is where I met Namik Aliyev, a stocky 32 year-old, who has been in the business for a relatively short period of 12 years, but oil is in his blood. Every day Namik, accompanied by his two assistants, tours the platform checking the equipment and taking oil samples for analysis. He puts his ear to the pipes to check that oil is running smoothly and rubs samples between his fingers to feel the structure.

He gives orders that this valve be shut, and this bolt to be turned, and the group moves on. This session of checks lasts about 30 minutes. After a glass of the local sweet tea, the most popular social lubricant in this region, it’s time to start the procedure again. So the cycle repeats through the working day for the 15 days of each shift on the platform. Evenings are spent over backgammon and dominoes accompanied by the indispensable glasses of tea.

Some 30 residents of the village of Zemo Alvani, 200 kilometers (124 miles) north-east of the capital Tbilisi, gathered to witness the unveiling of the three-meter-high stone statue of Stalin.

The statue was removed a year ago by local authorities after President Mikheil Saakashvili said the late dictator was too closely associated with what he called the “Soviet occupation of Georgia” and called for memorials to Stalin to be dismantled.

“I came here because I love Stalin and I love my people … I remember when I was 12 how my grandmother was weeping when Stalin died,” said Phatima Patishvili, a Zemo Alvani resident.

The monument’s reinstatement is a sign that Stalin’s personality cult is still alive across the former Soviet Union where supporters credit him with the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany during World War Two and with turning the country into a superpower.

However, for many Georgians, including for pro-Western President Saakashvili, the few remaining monuments to Stalin are an unwelcome reminder of Moscow’s lingering influence in Georgia two decades after the small nation gained independence following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

Resentment of Russia flared in Georgia when the two fought a brief war in August 2008.

Saakashvili and others also believe it is wrong to still venerate a man who oversaw the purges, the Gulag prison camp system and man-made famines that killed millions.

Georgia’s former government, then led by Saakashvili allies, removed another Stalin monument in 2010 – a 6-metre-high bronze statue in the dictator’s native town of Gori.

The authorities were planning to replace it with a monument to victims of Stalin’s purges and to those of the 2008 five-day war, but the project was never implemented.

Georgia’s new government of billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili wants to improve ties with Russia. It said it did not oppose the reinstatement of the Stalin monument in Zemo Alvani.

It also said it would finance the restoration of the Stalin monument in Gori, the Georgian city most affected by the 2008 war that saw Moscow recognize the two breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia would not reverse its decision.

A coalition led by Ivanishvili, who made his fortune in Russia, won Georgia’s October 1 parliamentary election ending a long period of political domination by Saakashvili, who first rose to power as leader of the 2003 “rose” revolution.

(Writing by Margarita Antidze; Editing by Gabriela Baczynska and Andrew Osborn)

The arrests appeared to fall under what Georgia’s powerful Interior Ministry says is an effort to root out Russian spy networks since the two countries fought a brief war in August 2008 over the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

Presidential photographer Irakli Gedenidze, his photographer wife Natia, Zurab Kurtsikidze of the Frankfurt-based European Pressphoto Agency and freelancer Giorgi Abdaladze were arrested overnight, the Interior Ministry of the former Soviet republic said in a statement.

It accused them of passing information obtained through their professional activities “to an organization acting under cover of the special service of a foreign country, to the detriment of the interests of Georgia.”

Relatives of those arrested told Reuters they were taken in the middle of the night by police who searched their homes and seized computers, equipment and mobile phones.

Media watchdogs accuse the government under Saakashvili of manipulating the media and squeezing press freedoms since taking power after the 2003 Rose Revolution.

CONCERN OVER MEDIA FREEDOM

Georgia ranks 100th out of 178 countries in the 2010 press freedom index compiled by media watchdog Reporters Without Borders.

Several dozen journalists gathered on Thursday outside the police building where the arrested photojournalists were being held, clutching their pictures.

Some held pictures comparing Saakashvili to Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, who has drawn international condemnation for cracking down on opponents with hundreds of arrests after his disputed re-election last December.

Georgia’s Western allies continue to be uneasy over restrictions on media freedom, the concentration of power in the office of the president and the use of the police to discredit political opponents.

Dozens of Georgian citizens have been arrested in the three years since the war on charges of spying for Russia. Taped confessions and secretly recorded evidence have been broadcast on pro-government television channels well before their cases come to trial.

Late on Wednesday, nine people, including three Russian citizens, were sentenced in the Georgian port town of Batumi to between 11 and 14 years in jail after they were convicted of working for the Russian intelligence services.

Moscow has accused Saakashvili’s government of anti-Russian hysteria.

(Writing by Matt Robinson, editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Every year on Orthodox Easter, traffic is blocked for hours on the main highway in Western Georgia to allow the men of Shukhuti village to battle for a 16-kilogram (35 pounds) leather ball, stuffed tight with sawdust, soil and topped with red wine.

Villagers from upper and lower Shukhuti gather under an old tree in front of the abandoned building, formerly the House of Culture during Soviet times. Divided into two teams, they face each other and trade cries, egging themselves on. Father Saba, the local Orthodox priest, carries the ball surrounded by his helpers like bodyguards to throw the ball into the crowd. Lelo has begun.

The playground stretches between two brooks, about 150 meters apart, marking the goal lines for the two teams. The aim is simple: whichever side is the first to carry the leather ball back to their brook wins the game. The game looks like rugby, but without rules, except one: if someone falls, the match is paused to allow a player to stand up. Nothing else can stop them.

I had photographed Lelo once before and had only a little experience on how to behave.

Whether shooting pictures or just watching, you should be ready to be involved in the whirlwind of Lelo. It may happen suddenly and then you need to collect all your strength to force your way back through the crowd, or just resign yourself to becoming part of the game. Perhaps it’s the only sport where everyone has the opportunity to become a player at least for a few minutes.

I, however, preferred to keep my distance and to stay with the fans – women, children and elders – watching the huge scrum of men, smashing through fences, backyards and gardens.

I remembered the best point for shooting was on the second floor of the abandoned House of Culture. So, when the crowd reached the building, I went inside and carefully groped my way through the dilapidated building. I took up a position at the window on the second floor near a huge hole in the wooden floor. It was the perfect spot. Everything happened in front of my eyes and nobody could block the view. I could enjoy the game for the first time. But life is not always so easy. Soon, the mass of people moved in the direction of the upper brook. I had to leave my favorite place and follow the crowd in their chaotic movement.

The next stop was in the middle of the highway. Players got stuck and fans whirled around them. There was an instant when everything became mixed up, and I couldn’t make out who were the players and who were the spectators, and the ball, which everyone was hunting for, was lying right at my feet. The next moment, I was shoved aside. The match went on.

Nobody knows when and where the first Lelo match was played, but Georgians have been playing it throughout the country since ancient times. It was equally popular both among nobility and commoners. The game was even used to hone martial skills. But now days Lelo is played once a year and only in Shukhuti.

This year the match lasted only two hours. Upper Shukhutians attacked relentlessly, and finally dragged the ball over their brook. They won.

Following Lelo’s main tradition, the winners carried the ball to the cemetery. Even before the game they had decided to whom they would dedicate their victory. They put the ball on the grave of their close friend.