An elderly woman rummages through a trash container. What is she looking for there? Gold? Diamonds? No. She’s searching for a piece of bread – something to keep her from fainting from hunger. Today a stray dog reached the container before she did, so Grandma Gulnara will go to bed hungry.
But there is still one option – to sit with an outstretched hand in front of the Church of the Holy Mother, hoping for alms. For many years, rain or snow, in unbearable heat or biting cold, Grandma Gulnara has sat in front of that church, asking for help from those who walk through its doors. At the end of the day, she counts her coins, enough to buy bread and a little cheap sausage. But what I’m about to tell you next will make your blood run cold: Georgia is perhaps the only country where social workers count those few coins from alms as “income.” With tears in her eyes, the poor old woman told a reporter from the Chernovetskyi Fund that because she begs for alms, she is denied social allowance…